Beautiful World

God created a beautiful world in a wonderful universe. Evil came (we do not know how) and messed it up. The following took hold on the earth.

• barren ground

• animal corruption

• distorted universe

• earthly disasters

• political power

• evil spirits

• sickness and disease

Jesus died and was raised to life. He paid penalty for sin and destroyed evil. He then sent the Holy Spirit to clean up the mess. This leads to an important Question. Why did God take so long to send Jesus to earth? Why did he not send Jesus straight after the fall? Why did he muck round with Israel, if he knew it could not do the job?

He placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life (Gen 3:24).

We assume that God put a guard round the tree of life, but the translation of this verse is not certain. The word translated flashing back and forth is “haphak”. The primary meaning of this word is overturn or pervert. The message of this verse may be that “perverted” cherubim had seized control of the tree of life, because God no longer had authority on earth.

The common view is that when Adam and Eve were sent out into the world, he expected them to do what they had failed to do in the Garden of Eden. That was not possible. They were still on the path leading away from God. Adam lived for nearly a thousand years, but there is no indication in the scriptures that he ever did anything to help God get a foothold back on earth. God continued to be shut out of the earth. He needed a strategy that would restore his influence on earth, but that would take time to achieve.

God could not act on earth, unless a human person called out and asked for help. Eve had called on God when her Cain was born.

She said, “With the help of the LORD I have brought forth a man (Gen 4:1).

We do not know how long she lived after Seth was born, but this was the last record of her praying to God. It seems that prayer stopped once Cain was born.

Genealogies

When we look at Genesis 5 and see the genealogies and the ages of the people, we try to work out the age of the earth. This misses the point. The chapter is explaining what life was like on earth in the centuries after the fall. For nearly a thousand years, nothing of spiritual importance happened on earth. God was shut out of his creation, so he could not hold back the forces of evil. He had no choice but to leave the people of the earth to their own devices.

During this period, thousands of people died without any opportunity to hear the gospel or receive salvation. This was not God’s fault, although he is often blamed for it. Humans created the situation where these people were shut out from salvation.

This barren period of history begins with the final verse of the previous chapter.

At that time people began to call on the name of the LORD (Gen 4:26).

The English translations put a positive spin on these words, but that is a bit misleading. The word translated “began” is “chalal”. Begin is a secondary meaning. The primary meaning is “pierce” or “profane”. A more realistic translation of the verse follows:

Men called out the name of the Lord as a profanity.

The barren period gets underway when men begin to curse God.

For the first few thousand years, earth was controlled by evil. Evil spirits had a free hand. Everyone ignored or hated God, so he received no invitations to act on earth. With no one praying, the Holy Spirit was entirely shut out of the earth. Under these conditions, evil advanced in a terrible way. All human developments were twisted for evil purposes.

The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time (Gen 6:5).

Many Christians are expecting a time of great evil on earth in the future. They do not realise that this has already occurred, and that God is not going to let things go back to that again. He has a strategy that is moving towards a goal: the restoration of all things.

Enoch

The first sign of life on earth was Enoch. Towards the end of his life, he began to walk with God, but it seems that the situation of earth was so terrible, that a man walking with God was not safe. God had to take him out, because he was not safe on earth.

Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him (Gen 5:24).

Before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God (Heb 11:5).

Enoch did something pivotal before he left the earth.

Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about them: “See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones (Jude 1:14).

Enoch was the first person in the scriptures to be called a prophet. He was speaking about the people living on earth during his time and warning that God would send thousands and thousands of angels to bring judgment against them. This prophecy was a pivotal, because it gave God authority to intervene on earth for the first time in a very long time. Nearly a thousand years had gone by since Adam and Eve rebelled, shutting him out of the world.

This spiritual powers of evil did not want God getting involved on earth, so they would have been really annoyed by this prophecy. They would have attacked Enoch with a vengeance, because he was the first person in a thousand years who had betrayed their cause and turned to God. This is why God had to take him out for his own protection.

Noah

Noah was born just a few years after Enoch had prophesied. He was the first step in the fulfilment of Enoch’s prophecy. Enoch’s grandson Lamech was Noah’s father. He carried on the influence of Enoch and prophesied at Noah’s birth.

He named him Noah and said, “He will comfort us in the labor and painful toil of our hands caused by the ground the LORD has cursed” (Gen 5:29).

This prophecy seems trivial, but it released Noah into a prophetic ministry. It set Noah on track to fulfil the role that God had for him.

By the time of Noah was an adult, the situation on earth was abysmal.

Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways (Gen 6:11-12).

The Hebrew word translated “corrupt” is “shachath”. This word is used through the record of Noah’s covenant. It means “destroy” or “ruin”. God looked upon the earth and saw that it was being ruined by the evil in human hearts.

Noah was also a prophet. Peter called him a preacher of righteousness, which is the same thing (2 Pet 2:5). His actions to build a boat were a prophecy of the flood, even when he did not speak. Noah had a family to protect him. Because he was building a crazy boat miles from the water, people did not harm him.

The Flood was the first judgement that God was able to send against the evil that had become rampant on earth. God was able to send this judgment because Enoch and Noah had prophesied to release his power.

The Flood was a huge victory over evil. Evil spirits do not seem to be very mobile, and when their hosts were drowned, millions seemed to get trapped in one place. They were probably hiding together in a dark place. God sent his hosts of angels and they were able to lock them up and take them out of action on earth. We do not know how he achieved this, but the results are confirmed in the New Testament. God shut them away where they could do no harm on earth (1 Peter 3:19; 2 Pet 2:4-5). This was a significant change, as it dramatically reduced the number of evil spirits working on earth. The capture of evil spirits and the rainbow covenant were a huge advance for God strategic plan.

Rainbow Covenant

God used Noah to make put in place this important tool for dealing with evil. The covenant that God made with Noah allows him to bring protective judgments on earth, during times of serious evil, without getting permission from a prophet. This allows God to act against evil in a season when there are no prophets.

This rainbow covenant is different from other covenants, because it was not exclusive, but applies to all people and animals on the earth.

Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth (Gen 9:16).

The rainbow reminds us of covenant with all people forever. The rainbow covenant is unconditional. No conditions are specified for fulfilling the covenant. No consequences were specified for failure to keep the covenant. The covenant with Noah is and unconditional promise to all the people of the earth through all time.

The common understanding is that God was promising not to destroy the earth by another flood. This does not seem very likely anyway, so this view makes the covenant seem irrelevant. We do not see a rainbow and think, “Wow, I am glad that God is keeping his covenant”. Christians assume we have a better covenant and do not need this old one, but we have missed the significance of God’s promise. God was not promising there would never be another flood. He was actually promising that he would not need to send another flood, because he would never let conditions get so bad on earth that it needed to be destroyed. God promised to prevent evil from getting so strong that it has potential to destroy the entire earth.

God was able to make this promise, because the covenant with Noah increased God’s authority on earth. God had given authority over the earth to man, so he could not intervene on earth without getting permission. The Rainbow Covenant God gave him permission to intervene on earth when evil was getting out of hand. This covenant was a serious crack in the wall of the defence that the powers of evil had placed round the world. They had shut God out of his creation, and stuffed it up. Noah opened the door a chink, and let God back in.

Noah was the father of all who would live on earth after him, so his covenant binds everyone on earth. Speaking on behalf of his descendants, Noah gave God permission to intervene when evil is rampant. The Covenant of the Rainbow gave God long-term permission to act on earth, if things got really bad. This was not much of a constraint on human authority on earth, because it does not apply most of the time, but it give a God authority to act on earth, if becomes strong and destructive. This permission still applies several thousand years later.

The rainbow covenant was a huge step in the battle against evil. Until the time of Noah, God was shut out of the world and could do nothing to prevent evil from destroying the world. The rainbow covenant did not give God a free hand on earth. Most of the time, it does not apply, because the situation is not bad enough. However, it does give God permission to intervene on earth when evil gets really bad. This is a great improvement over the situation that existed before the Flood.

The Old Testament records a number of situations where God sent a protective judgment to prevent the advance of evil in fulfilment of the rainbow covenant. In each of these situations, a powerful forceful for evil was emerging in the world. If these had been left to grow, they could have produced tremendous evil. God cut them down before they got big enough to ruin the earth. God has been faithful to the promise of the rainbow. Evil has never been able to take control of earth as it did before the flood, because God’s judgements have kept evil in check.

Babel

The Tower of Babel was a terrible threat to the purposes of God. We read about some crazy people building a huge tower and think they were stupid, but something more serious was going on (Gen 11:4). Some people on earth had got together with the spiritual forces of evil in an attempt to wrest control of the heavenly realms from God. A gang of evil spirits that had been thrown down on earth, planned to use evil people on earth to regain their position in heaven. This was serious stuff. God sent a Protective Judgment to put the forces of evil back in their place. The evil was constrained by sending confusion of language that made combining for a common purpose more difficult. No prophet existed to give God permission, but conditions had got so bad, that the permission of the Rainbow covenant applied.

Abraham

Abraham was the first person to live by faith. He believed the promise and obeyed God’s call to move to Palestine, which would become the playground of empires (Gen 12:1). This was an important step in God's strategy, because it gave him a place from which to challenge empires.

Abraham was the first military commander. The resources of his family were sufficient that he could defend his family from attack (Gen 14:15-16). Abraham and his family could serve God without being overcome by the evil forces around them. God now had a group of people on earth that he could work through. This was a major step in his strategy.

Abraham was a prophet (Deut 34:10). The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was a protective judgment. Abraham was the prophet who released God to achieve this result. It prevented a malicious evil from emerging in this important region.

Exodus

The Exodus was the first big rescue executed by God. The Israelite slaves were all descendants of Abraham, so they knew about God, even if they did not always obey him. They cried out to him for deliverance, which gave him authority to act on their behalf. I presume God let Joseph and Jacob go to Egypt, so this would happen. The people of Canaan had filled up their sins, so God had authority under the rainbow covenant to remove them from the land. Establishing the children of Israel in the land of Canaan was a really important step forward in God‘s plan. For the first time in history, God had authority over a piece of the earth on which he was free to operate. Humans could not take it off him. He also had a people he could sometimes count on to release his power on earth. With some land and a people, he could now start some serious work on earth. His goal was to expand from Canaan into the rest of the earth.

The covenant God made with Moses on Mt Sinai marked a big change in authority on earth. God had rescued the children of Israel from slavery in Egypt and brought them into a new land. He promised to protect them and bless them in the future. In return for these blessings, they agreed to submit to God’s authority. This was a big change. Under the covenant with Adam and Eve, humans had absolute authority on earth. They could boot God out of the world if they chose. The covenant with Moses offered similar blessings, but human authority was significantly constrained. The terms of the covenant with Moses meant that he Israelites could no longer reject God’s authority and push him out of the world. The covenant provided that if they rebelled against God, they would be ejected from the land, not God.

God had worked away for more than 2000 years to get a foothold of authority on earth. He now had a piece of land where he was free to operate and a people to work through. This was not perfect. God could not be certain that his people would obey him. He knew they would eventually rebel. He also knew that if he exiled the chosen people from the land, he could lose control of it. Other people would move in who did not have a covenant with him. They could exclude him again, if he were not careful. God had to be sure that he had a way to bring his people back from exile at the right time. Cyrus was critical for that reason. Daniel was important too, because he had sufficient authority in Babylon to pray the return to the land into being. Nehemiah had a key role too. God had to raise the right people up and make sure that they are there at the right time.

Moses was a prophet. God gave the law through Moses to restrain personal and social evil. God intended that other nations would copy Israel and get a similar reduction in personal and social evil by applying God’s law. The law should have constrained personal evil in Israel and throughout the world. Unfortunately, Israel chose to copy the nations and have a king, so they never demonstrated the benefits of God’s law to the nations.

Moses also released the ministry of the judge. These judges recognised for wisdom by their families and tribes applied God’s law to social and community disputes. They functioned within their local communities. This was an important step in God’s strategy, because it provided a way for larger communities to live in peace with each other. The law could not eliminate sins, but it provided a way for removing the worst effects of sin.

The Jubilee laws proved a tool for ensuring that the income distribution was fair. Concentration of wealth was prevented.

Aaron was the first priest. He dealt with sin by offering sacrifices. This was not a permanent solution to sin, as only Jesus could do that, but it did free the people from the burden of sin, which protected them from demonic attack. The tabernacle sacrifices were the first form of spiritual protection, because it reduced their vulnerability to evil spirit. A person had made a sacrifice for their sins, reduced their vulnerability to demonic attacks.

The tabernacle was God’s first dwelling place on earth. This gave him a place that belonged to him alone. Moses and Aaron had given him permission to be there. Nothing evil was allowed in. This gave God his first small zone of control on earth. He hoped the people would see his glory and allow him to expand this zone of control out into all the land of Canaan.

The Levites were given responsibility for teaching the people about God and how to live under the law. This was God’s first mass education program on earth.

Promised Land

God commanded Israel to drive the people of Canaan out of the land and destroy their idols and temples (Deut 7:1). If Israel had obeyed God, the Canaanites would have carried all their evil spirits out of the land with them. If they had destroyed the shrines and idols, the evil spirits working in them would have fled to the people who had created them. God’s plan was to bring an evil-spirit-free people into an evil-spirit-free land. Unfortunately, Joshua disobeyed God and killed many of the Canaanites instead of driving them out. When the Israelites killed the Canaanites, the evil spirits moved to the people doing the slaying, as their fear and anger made them vulnerable. Contrary to God’s plan, the Israelites allowed a host of evil spirits to remain in the land. This was an immediate setback to God's plan to re-gain more authority on earth.

During the period of the Judges the people frequently did evil in the sight of the Lord. This shows that the laws and judges cannot bring peace, if the people continue to ignore God. God lost ground on earth during this time.

Prophets

Hannah had a really important role in bringing God’s authority back to earth. At first she cried out for a son, but without success. Eventually, she switched to praying for a son who would be under the authority of God. Hannah took her commitment seriously, and when her son Samuel was weaned, she took him to live at the temple, so he could learn to serve under the authority of God. Her prayer was a prophetic declaration of God’s victory on earth (1 Sam 2).

When God spoke to Samuel, he said, “Speak, for your servant is listening” (1 Sam 3:10). This set him on the path to a ministry as a prophet.

The LORD was with Samuel as he grew up, and he let none of Samuel’s words fall to the ground (1 Sam 3:19).

Samuel was the first big-time prophet since the time of Moses. He was followed by a succession of powerful prophets. I presume that each prophet prayed for the raising up of his successor. Hannah’s dedications and prayer opened the way for this long sequence of powerful prophets, who would release God to work on earth.

God planted Israel in the middle of the playground of empires of the world to provide himself with a prophetic voice to announce protective judgments against emerging evil in the surrounding empires and nations. The strategic position of Israel in the Middle East meant that any emerging empire would eventually pass through it on the way to do battle with its enemies. The rampaging of the empires gave the prophets of Israel authority to speak God’s protective judgments against them. God was able to use this authority to work out his purposes in many nations.

Kings

Samuel knew that God wanted to be King of Israel, so he was reluctant to give Israel a king when the people demanded it (1 Sam 8). They wanted to be like the surrounding the nations with a human king. God opposed this move, because a human king would most likely reject his authority. Temporary military commanders were a much safer option. The kingship did not advance God’s strategy on earth.

The kingship was a failure right from the start. David was the best person to be king. He had a man with a good heart and he had a great relationship with God, yet he fell into adultery and then committed murder to cover it up. Worse still, he failed totally in providing justice. His own son was able to generate a revolt by providing justice for people who had been disappointed by the King (1 Sam 15:1-8).

David did finish the job that Joshua had begun. He drove out the last of the Canaanites. This was far too late, because they had already corrupted the Israelites. Unfortunately, David allowed many of the Canaanites to remain as forced labour, so the evil spirits stayed too, and quickly jumped over to the people in control.

Solomon made the same mistake when he chose several foreign wives. They brought hundreds of evil spirits back into Israel. Once this happened, the kingship was doomed. The kings led their people on various militaristic adventures that ended with them being dominated by their powerful neighbours.

Exile

When the empires took people from Israel into captivity, they bought prophets into their midst and gave them authority, which strengthened the power of the prophetic voice. Daniel was a prophet who ended up with immense authority within the empires that God planned to destroy. Protective judgments and the prophets continued to constrain political evil on earth.

The exile into Babylon was another attempt to cleanse the land. The evil spirits moved to the Babylon with the important and influential people. Once there, they looked for people with greater influence. The people allowed to stay in Israel were the poor and helpless. The forces of evil were not interested in them. The exile cleansed the land for the second time.

Prophetic Scriptures

While the kings and priests of Israel were failing, the prophets were getting on with God’s work. They were laying out all that God would do through Jesus and in the seasons after. Isaiah prophesied the suffering servant in exact detail. Jeremiah promises the coming of the Kingdom of God. Ezekiel prophesied the times when Israel would come to faith in Jesus. Daniel described the emergence of the Beast and the collapse of the kingdom of man. This prophetic ministry reached a climax with John the Baptist.

Getting the prophets to understand all this stuff in detail and put it down in writing was a huge task for the Holy Spirit. He had to use many prophets over hundreds of years to complete the task. A prophet like Isaiah does not emerge very often. Once all the prophetic work was in place, God just needed to raise up intercessors to pray it into being, so God was building a strategy to execute his plans.

Jesus

God sent Jesus to earth when everything on earth was ready.

• People like Anna and Simeon were praying for Messiah. This gave God authority to send his son.

• Mary and Joseph were ready to be his parents.

• The Roman Empire was ruling most of the earth. The ultimate empire was in place ready to be destroyed by the advance of the Kingdom of God.

• Roman law had produced a relative peace in Israel. This allowed Jesus to move around freely.

• Israel was divided into three provinces with the Romans ruling Judea directly through a procurator. The sons of Herod ruled the other two provinces. This allowed Jesus to operate below the Roman radar, by undertaking most of his ministry in the region of Galilee. He could move across the Jordan, whenever he needs a place of safety.

• Messianic expectation was at a high level. People were longing for the peace and justice of God.

• The Jewish establishment controlled the temple in Jerusalem. They were ready for confrontation with Jesus.

• John the Baptist was getting ready to announce the messiah.

• Peter was being toughened up, ready for when he would get the church going in Jerusalem.

• Paul was being trained up ready for when he would take the gospel to the gentiles and write his letters.

• John was ready to begin a journey that would end with him writing the book of Revelation when he had completed his ministry. This prophetic work would give God authority to act long into the future.

God took a huge risk in sending Jesus into the world as a baby, at a time when his authority on earth was still precarious. He was counting on various people being willing to listen to the Holy Spirit and do God’s will.

• Mary had to be willing to care for a baby. This was a huge burden for a young woman.

• Joseph had to listen to his dreams and be willing to obey them. He had to be willing to flee to Egypt for safety, which was scary for a Jewish family.

• Anna and Simeon had to be ready to pray and prophesy as required.

• The wise men had to come and provide the Mary and Joseph with economic security. They did not give Jesus toys for his play. They provided his parents with commodities that could be sold in any economy at any time. They understood that precious metals or commodities are essential for survival in troubled times.

If any of these people had failed to fulfil their calling, God’s plan would have turned to custard. The devil could have come in and killed Jesus, and removed the son of God from the earth. The wise men nearly set the cat among the pigeons when they went to Herod to find the king, instead of following the star to Bethlehem.

Conclusion

Most Christians assume that God is all-powerful and can do whatever he chooses. In one sense, this is true. He created all things, so he is sovereign over all his creation. However, another important fact must be taken into account. God freely gave dominion over the earth to humans.

So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth (Gen 1:27-28).

That gift was unconditional. God is faithful and true, so he does not go back on his word. When humans sinned, he did not take back the dominion that he had given.

God’s glory was not reduced by handing over this authority. His wisdom and power is so great, he knew he could eventually achieve his purposes on earth, even if humans misused their authority and invited evil into the world. God had a plan to establish his authority on earth, by allowing his son to die, and then sending his Spirit to build his Kingdom. Giving dominion over the earth to humans would not prevent him from fulfilling his plans, even if they turned against him.

Many Christians assume that God can intervene on earth whenever he chooses. If that were true, God could have gone to work and put things right as soon as sin came into the world. Things were not that simple. Even though humans had sinned, God still recognised them as the legitimate authority on earth. Therefore, he could not intervene whenever he chose. He had to wait until he was invited by a person with authority on earth. This is why prayer is so important. It gives God the authority that he needs to accomplish his purposes on earth.

God was not slow to send Jesus. He sent him as soon as he was able. During the thousand years that had gone by since humans sinned, he was not just sitting around twiddling his thumbs. He was waiting for people with authority on earth to give him permission to act. Because most humans had given their authority over the devil, this permission was quite difficult to get. When God did get permission to act, it was usually limited in scope and time, and was often taken back soon after it was given.

When everything was in place, God sent Jesus to defeat evil and free humans from sin. He achieved an amazing victory, but the change on the ground was much slower coming. Humans still have domino on the earth. That means that the Holy Spirit can only act to build the Kingdom when humans give him permission. Unfortunately, most humans are still handing their authority over to the forces of evil, even though they could be free. Worse still, many of those who have been set free by believing in Jesus continue to believe the lie that the world belongs to the devil, so instead of releasing the Holy Spirit, they continue to rejoice in the works of the devil, because they believe that it brings Jesus return closer.

The Kingdom of God will come, when Christians understand the significance of what God did when he gave dominion over the earth to humans and release the Holy Spirit to do his work on earth.