P.O. Box 640109

El Paso, TX 79904

6 August, 2000

Dear Children,

Well Glory To God! I can hardly wait to finish up this week’s message so we can move on into the next. Because you see I know where we’re headed with this sermonet series, and without a doubt it’s gonna make a whole bunch of folk think real hard about their everlasting life in the soon to be great hereafter. I mean please believe me when I say that "check-out time" is not the appropriate time to be debating the issues of "Heaven or Hell". Now is the appointed time to make sure that what we believe in will take us where we want to go. And of course that’s the reason why Father God has been so gracious to give us this message in the first place. But that’s enough already with the introductions. Let’s thank the Lord for His Wondrous Word and put this thing into extra high gear.

Because today we’re going to pick-it-back-up where we left off last with the question of "how can the act of picking and eating some forbidden fruit just all of the sudden make perfect humans imperfect?" And seeing how today’s message Two Kidneys, A Nose, And Sin! is going to be part III of this ongoing series, it probably wouldn’t hurt to refresh everyone’s mind on where we’ve already been. Because it was in part I of How Do You Want Your Fire... Now Or Later? that we sorta like took-on-off into Matthew chapter 3 with John the Baptist’s water baptism. And what we found went something like this: "In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea, And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand... Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make his paths straight... he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire: Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire."

That was how it all started. And then we made the very bold statement that, according to that Scripture, "water baptism" without the "Holy Ghost and fire baptism" would not save anyone from sin. And after having said all that, we discussed a few of the differences between the Old Testament and New Testament Salvation Plan, which proceeded right on into the biblical definition of God’s patented "fire and water" cleaning process. And keeping the "fire and water" in mind, we immediately tore into a full-blown discussion on the Old Testament animal sacrifices, complete with all the gory details of the blood, the innerd fat, the kidneys, and all the rest.

And that was the way we both ended-up part I and started-off part II. Because seeing how the animal sacrifices with all their "blood and guts" was only "made possible" through sin, it kinda like behooved us to try and understand how sin’s undeniably evil stuff really works. And of course that’s exactly what Once Upon A Time, God’s People Were Perfect! was all about. We saw how in the beginning, in His awesome Power and Love, Almighty God created man (and woman) in the image of God. And even though they were designed by God (with a sinlessly perfect body, soul, and spirit), to be perfect for God (by worshipping and obeying Him only), they were also very capable of doing exactly the opposite. They were designed and built without sin, but yet fully equipped to sin.

So as the story goes, it wasn’t too awful long thereafter that along came Satan in the body of a serpent tempting God’s perfect people to sin. And of course it was only in the final moments of part II that we read the horrifying words that would likewise change God’s perfect people forever: "And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat."

And that my friends was all that it took for the very first sin to begin it’s never ending deadly work on the world. It was really down and dirty, quick and simple! In fact this disaster of all disasters happened so fast that it only took fifty-one (51) very simple little words to record it in the Holy Bible. But even though it was all over and done with in a flash, it was really only just getting started. Because by continuing on into Genesis chapter 3, verse 7, we find the following: "And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons."

Now if you dig down deep in your memory, you should be able to recall how this thing about being naked has come up once before. Because it was somewhere back in part II, right about the time God finished making the woman from man, that the Word of God said, "And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed." They were both naked before the sin and not ashamed, but yet after the sin that nakedness seemed to change. So just how do you figure that one act of disobeying God made such a radical difference in Adam and Eve’s fashion statement?

Well as we’ve stated before, this is one more good clue to help us figure out the deep dark mystery of sin. And I guess this is as good a place as any to start off our investigative journey by figuring out what the words "naked" actually mean in the first place. Because you see the Hebrew word for "naked" before the sin is different than the one after the sin. And I guess the best way to describe that difference is by going back to the fact that Adam and Eve were created in the image of God. They were like God in the sense that they had a body, a soul, and a spirit, but yet they were unlike God in the sense that they could sin. And it was this designed-in ability to sin that made God’s perfectly sinless couple "naked" to the seducing spirit of Satan (witchcraft). It was possible for Satan to entice them through their "naked flesh" to disobey God and sin.

Now even though the word naked does mean "without any clothes", you have to keep it in mind what clothes are all about in the first place. Because forgetting about all the latest and greatest fashion trends, what we’ll see very shortly is that the first clothes were designed by God to protect Adam and Eve’s naked bodies from the harsh environmental conditions they were about to encounter after being kicked out of the Garden of Eden for sinning. You see inside the Garden was a little bit of Heaven, while outside the Garden was a whole lot of Hell! I mean what we’re talking about is physical protection of the flesh from the heat, the cold, the briars, and the mosquitoes. So the clothes are not only to keep the body from looking naked, but they’re also to protect the body from being naked. In fact getting it on down to the bottom line basics, when it comes to protecting the naked flesh of the human body, there’s actually three types of protection needed. The first is protection from what others may see (visual), the second is protection from all those nasty environmental conditions (physical), and the third is protection from Satan and his seducing spirits (spiritual).

But getting back to the real meaning of Adam and Eve’s naked condition before their sin; they were naked, but it wasn’t because of their environment, and it certainly wasn’t because of the fact that somebody else might have been looking. They were naked (unprotected) in their flesh to the seducing spirit of Satan. In fact if you’ll think back to our discussion on the creation in part II, you should remember how God created man (and woman) with a body, a soul, and spirit: the body was the main structure of God’s creation with it’s 75,000,000,000 itty bitty little cells, the invisible soul was what made the decisions and told the fleshly body what to do, and the invisible spirit was what allowed the soul to be plugged into the spirit world for advice. So the only part of this "three-part-person" that Satan was allowed "free access to" was their body (flesh).

Are you still with me? I mean this is some pretty heavy duty stuff, but we’ve got to understand it before we can grab hold of the rest. And by going back once again to the naked Scripture before Adam and Eve’s sin ("And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed."), we see that even though God allowed them to be naked in the flesh to Satan’s temptations, their flesh was not the least bit shameful because it was completely innocent of sin. In other words, even though their flesh had the ability to commit sin it hadn’t. And the reason why the flesh hadn’t sinned was because their soul understood the fact that sin was not what God wanted (thou shat not eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil), and their spirit received the Power of God to enable their soul to command the flesh not to do it.

So that in a nutshell was what the word "naked" meant before Adam and Eve committed "the sin". And now that we’ve finally made it through Adam and Eve’s first experience of nakedness, the second one should be a push-over. Because once again, the account of Adam and Eve’s nakedness after the sin, we find: "And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons."

Now it should be pretty easy to pick up on the fact that after Adam and Eve did what they shouldn’t have done their nakedness somehow became extremely shameful. You see after their souls finally gave into their flesh, and disobeyed the Spirit by doing what the serpent had enticed them to do, a few more wild and crazy things just all of the sudden started happening in their flesh. I mean would you have ever believed that sin could have started a "fig leaf fad" in the clothing industry? Well the Word of God doesn’t lie, so what we have just read has got to be The Truth. But what do you figure it all means? There’s just got to be more to this "fig leaf apron" than what’s seen with the naked eye!

Because you see in the minds of most folks, when their thought processes start flashing through scenes of public nakedness, the first part of the body they want to cover is just below the waist, both front and back. But regardless of what most people tend to think, the question still remains as to what Adam and Eve might have been thinking when they hand stitched their very first fig leaf apron. I mean why in the round world would anyone in their right mind pick itchy old fig leaves to wrap around their naked body? Not a smart thing to do!

But smart or not, that’s exactly what they did, and it’s up to us to figure out exactly why they did it! In fact in order to understand this deep dark mystery, the first thing we must do is come to grips with the fact that Adam had the mind of God. I mean there ain’t no doubt in my little old mind that this fellow had it all together when it came to the knowledge of God. He was one more smart cookie! He knew anything there was to know about everything in the Garden of Eden, and he understood it all from the inside looking out. It’s what you call "from a designers perspective". And just one good example of this was his God-given understanding of each and every animal. Because you see Adam was the one who gave the animals their names: "And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof." (Genesis 2:19)

Now iffin you really think that’s an easy enough chore to take on, then I challenge you to just go ahead and do it. But the one thing you need to keep in mind, as perhaps thousands of creatures stand before you waiting for their name, is that the old saying of "what’s in a name" holds true for the animal kingdom too. Because you see in order for Adam to give each animal an appropriate name that would accurately describe their character, and likewise give them the authority and honor due their unique creation, he had to personally know them from a designer perspective; from the inside looking out.

So having said all that, I feel pretty certain, that when it came to the plant kingdom, Adam must have had the inside skinny on their God designed purpose too. And iffin you can grab hold of that one little assumption, then the following information should explain why Adam chose the fig leaf for his and her "designer threads". Because you see by taking a close look at the fig tree we find that it was (is) a plant heavily depended on by the Eastern people for food. In fact during times when the fig fruit production fails, the nations have been very quick to declare it a national calamity. I mean when it comes down to foods necessary for survival in the Eastern world, the fruit of the fig is at the top of the list.

In fact just to underscore my point on this matter, let’s turn to Mark 11:12-14 and see how Jesus felt about figs when it came time to eat: "And on the morrow, when they were come from Bethany, he [Jesus] was hungry: And seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find any thing thereon: and when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves; for the time of the figs was not yet. And Jesus answered and said unto it, No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever. And his disciples heard it."

Now wasn’t that awful what Jesus did? I mean He actually put "the curse of death" on that poor old fig tree for not having any figs. Well as harsh as it might have seemed, Jesus had every right to do what He did. Because way back in the days of creation, when Jesus was "The Word" Who spoke it all into existence, He created the fig tree as a symbol of God’s peace and divine favor for mankind. You see just as God made the fig tree to produce bunches of good figs for the people, He also made man and woman to produce bunches of good people for God. And it was likewise according to God’s very own perfect design, that whenever the fig tree sprouted it’s leaves it also sprouted it’s fruit. So... when Jesus saw the leaves on the fig tree He had every right to expect some fruit. Got it?

Whew! This investigative reporting is a lot like work, and we’ve still got to talk about the apron. I mean the fig leaves we understand, but the apron is another matter all together. Because you see in the true sense of the Hebrew word for apron, it was also commonly known to be a girdle or wide belt that wrapped tightly around the loins. So the apron was really a belt. And seeing how most folks understand what belts are all about, would you even want to venture a guess on the part about the loins?

Well in the Holy Bible, the word "loins" is used to specifically describe the back and side areas of the human body that extend down from the bottom of the rib cage to the top of the hips. In fact a real good way to visualize what we’re talking about is to pretend like you’re disgusted and show it by putting your hands on your hips. So that’s where the loins are located, but why do you figure Adam and Eve needed a fig leaf belt to wrap around them?

Isn’t this exciting? We’ve got another question that needs another answer! This investigative reporting is becoming a full time job. But anyway, back in the good old days, the loins were considered to be a very special part of the body that either delivered great strength and power or much terror and pain. In fact when it comes to dealing with the problem of sin, I believe David did a pretty fair job of describing exactly how the loins react to it: "O LORD, rebuke me not in thy wrath: neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure. For thine arrows stick fast in me, and thy hand presseth me sore. There is no soundness in my flesh because of thine anger; neither is there any rest in my bones because of my sin. For mine iniquities are gone over mine head: as an heavy burden they are too heavy for me. My wounds stink and are corrupt because of my foolishness. I am troubled; I am bowed down greatly; I go mourning all the day long. For my loins are filled with a loathsome disease: and there is no soundness in my flesh." (Psalm 38:1-7)

In fact throwing in just a few more short ones for the sake of clarity, we have: "Let their eyes be darkened, that they see not; and make their loins continually to shake." (Psalm 69:23); "Then the king’s countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another." (Daniel 5:6); and "She is empty, and void, and waste: and the heart melteth, and the knees smite together, and much pain is in all loins, and the faces of them all gather blackness." (Nahum 2:10).

So now do you understand what I meant when I said "after their souls finally gave into their flesh and disobeyed the Spirit by doing what the serpent had enticed them to do, a few more wild and crazy things just all of the sudden started happening in their flesh"? Well you see the minute those two did what they shouldn’t have done, the sin that resulted from their disobedience kinda like made itself known inside their loins. But how do you figure it all worked? I mean how could just one little act of disobedience cause Adam and Eve’s loins to physically "quake and shake in pain"?

Well even though we’re not going to answer that one until later on in the series, we’ll be glad to at least give you a hint or two for today. Because iffin you could go back in time, back to the Garden of Eden, and actually be able to physically look inside the body of Adam and Eve, what you would see in the area described as "the loins" would be a quaking shaking pair of kidneys surrounded by a whole bunch of fat (innerd fat)!

Now how’s that for a news flash? Well it might be news to us, but it certainly wasn’t news to the Hebrew people. Because back in the old days, God’s chosen people understood the kidneys to be the very sensitive "body parts" that they were. You see they believed the human kidneys were the "seat of desire" for the human body. So just what do you suppose all that means?

Well in the plain and simple of it, the "desire" of a person is whatever it is that turns that person on! You know, whatever it is that the person really wants to do. And going back to the case study on our famous sinful predecessors, what Adam and Eve desired just before their kidneys went into overdrive was a bite of the forbidden fruit. So if the desire is what we want, then the "seat of desire" must be where the desire is carried out. In other words the "seat of the desire" is where the "whatever it is" all happens. And of course with Adam and Eve their desire was sin and the seat was their kidneys!

So where in the world were we going before we took that right turn? Oh yea, I remember now! We were headed off to figure out why Adam and Eve were wearing that stupid looking belt made of itchy old fig leaves. Well based on that lengthy discussion we’ve just had, it is our opinion that when the lovely couple recognized something had gone wrong in their once perfect sinless body, the rest of the story all fell into place. They finally realized that God had been right all along! The fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was really and truly bad stuff that really and truly messed up their bodies real bad. Their perfectly sinless bodies, designed to produce perfectly sinless little babies, was perfectly sinless no more. And it’s right about here that the greatest cover-up of all times was invented.

It’s called the very first lie in "fig leaf form". I mean Adam and Eve weren’t no dummies. They knew perfectly well that God was going to catch on to their sin problem real quick. So in order to "hide" the "quaking shaking sin" that had become a part of their "seat of desire", they came up with a very unique "camouflage plan". You see the way it all works is that you make something appear to be something that it ain’t. And seeing how Adam and Eve’s loins (kidneys and fat) were designed by God to do His will by producing a whole lot of fruit for the kingdom of God (bunches of sinless little babies), the only other thing in the Garden of Eden that even came close to this God-designed purpose was the fig tree.

So in hopes of fooling God into thinking they were still very capable of producing lots of good fruit for the kingdom of God, they wrapped their very unfruitful loins with the leaves from a very fruitful fig tree. And even though they probably figured this to be a pretty ingenious plan, the truth of the matter is that it really never got off the ground. Because you see before God even had the chance to inspect their productive looking clothing their shaking sinful fear sent them right on into hiding: "And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden. And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself. And he said, Who told the that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The Serpent Beguiled me, and I did eat." (Genesis 3:8-13)

Now ain’t sin a mess? I mean even after their sinful nakedness had finally been uncovered, there was not a single one of those sinners willing (or able) to admit the truth about how and why they had sinned. What started out as a sin of "disobedience to God" turned into the sin of "lying to God". Satan had successfully accomplished his plan. God’s once perfectly sinless people had now become the sinful servants of Satan. It wasn’t a pretty picture! In fact it was such an ugly picture that the God of blessings had to become the God of curses: "And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." (Genesis 3:14-16)

See what I’m talking about? That’s what you call a whole lotta cursing! I mean looking at it from the animal kingdom’s viewpoint, the serpent took a direct hit by being reduced to a belly-crawling dirt-eating low-life traitor to the woman. For the female gender, his name would be "mud" forevermore. And then came God’s curse for Satan. Because you see even though he might have gained control of the human race it certainly wasn’t gonna stay that way forever. There was a seed of woman (Jesus), coming in the future, Who would overcome his evil satanic powers through His own Precious Blood.

And next on the list was the woman. She was designed by God to be her husband’s equal (in the female form) and thereby give birth to his perfectly sinless seed. That was God’s original intended plan. However, due to her sinful submission to the seducing serpent of Satan, she was now to be in total and complete submission to her husband. And if that wasn’t enough already, because of this same sin, each and every child born through the woman would be born under the control of Satan. It’s called starting out in life on the wrong foot! And in order to remind the woman of this very unfair situation, each time a child would be born into sin the mother’s pain would confirm it.

So that takes care of the serpent, Satan, and the woman (Eve), but what about the man (Adam)? Well are you ready for this one? "And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." (Genesis 3:17-19)

Now what do you make of those curses? Well starting it off with the last curse first ("for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return"), I dare say that just the thought of becoming "a home for earth worms" must have been extremely electrifying for Adam’s flesh. In fact I’m quite sure that the shocking reality of it all must have started in Adam’s toes, moved to his gut, and then very quickly proceeded on up to the top of his head. Because you see when God created Adam, He made his perfectly sinless flesh to live forever. However it wasn’t too very long thereafter that the Lord also made Adam a very serious promise concerning his everlasting life: "But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." So even though Adam was created to live forever, it was because of that one little old sin that his physical body would die.

And seeing how that was only a look at Adam’s distant future, what do you think was in store for him right then and there? Well starting immediately, without further notice, Adam was going to experience a whole new world of excitement. There was going to be no more of that everlasting heavenly lifestyle in the Garden of sinless perfection, but instead a new and exciting minute by minute existence in the tormenting wilderness of sin. Because seeing how God rewarded Adam’s sinless living with a blessing, it only made sense that his sinful living be rewarded with a curse: "cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground."

But just what exactly do you figure all that meant? Well as you should remember, it was back in the Garden of Eden that "man and woman" ran around "naked and barefoot" without any concern of getting their flesh punctured. I mean sand spurs and stickers just didn’t exist in the Garden of Eden. And just in case that "thorns and thistles" curse wasn’t enough, how do you think he felt about the curse of the bread?

Well nowhere in those first few chapters of Genesis was there ever anything mentioned about bread. I mean during the time that Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden, they could have very easily been considered health food freaks. Everything they ate was guaranteed to be "100% all natural". You know, the figs, the nuts, and a few dates too. So just why do you figure bread was a part of the curse, and just where do think Adam was going to buy it?

Now as far as the place of purchase, would you even believe the corner store? Well I didn’t think you would! In fact what actually made the bread "cursed" can be found in the fact that it had to be both made and eaten. And just what do you figure is so terribly bad about that? Well have you ever tried making bread in the wilderness with only the grain that’s still on the stalk? I mean the way it all works is that you start off with two rocks (a big flat one and smaller round one), then you put a handful of grain in-between them and grind like crazy for at least an hour or two. And after having finally suffered complete grinding exhausting, you take the mixture of rock grit, twigs, and flour, add a little water, place it on a rock heated by a fire, and then completely cover it with a few hot ashes. The bread is then cooked until burnt and finally served. And of course as you should be able to imagine, the cooking part is much more enjoyable than the eating.

Oh what a joyful life sin brings! But speaking about joy, that ain’t even all of the sinful joy yet! I mean what about that part of the curse that says "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground"? Did you think the sweat came about because of all that bread making?

Not on your life! You see due to the fact that the Lord’s given me a little inside skinny on "the human anatomy and sin", this part of the Scripture has just all of the sudden taken on a whole new meaning. And even though we won’t get into the nitty gritty details just yet, what we will cover for today should kinda like wet you appetite for the rest. Because when you take it on back to it’s Hebrew origin, the word for "face" is the same word that "nostrils" was translated from in Genesis 2:7 ("And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living soul."). And seeing how Adam was eating bread without the jalapenos, why do you figure his nose would kind like break-out into a sweat?

Well the truth of the matter is that the word "sweat" has a much deeper meaning than most could even imagine And not wanting to discredit the King James translators for their job well done, what made this word so unusually hard to deal with was the fact that it’s a one-of-a-kind word. In other words this was the one and only place in the entire Old Testament that it was ever actually used. So you see because of the circumstances, this was really and truly a tough word to figure out. But just what do you suppose it really means?

Would you believe angry sweat? It’s the sweat in the nose that makes the person who’s doing the sweating feel the anger of God! Understand? And just why do you figure God would be angry with the sweaty nose person in the first place? Well it all goes back to God’s curse and the reason why it had to happen. Because you see Adam and Eve did what they shouldn’t have done by making Satan their new god. They were created by God, through His tender love and compassion, but yet they allowed themselves (their flesh) to be taken over and controlled by Satan. In other words God’s very worse enemy became the proud new owner of His once perfect creations. God created them in love, Satan won them in sin, and God got angry.

So don’t you think God had a right to be angry? Well when you take it on down to the real meaning of anger, God’s anger is what’s considered to be "righteous anger". In other words it’s only because of God’s Goodness and Love that He gets angry with the sinner in the first place. You see God has a very special place for sinners (Hell), but yet He really doesn’t want anybody going there. And of course the only way not to get tossed into the burning pit of Hell is for the sinner to get rid of the sin before they die. But, seeing how Satan’s sin has such an amazing control over the sinner’s life, it takes a whole lot of effort on God’s part to get them to change. And therefore, because of God’s love for His once perfectly sinless Adam and Eve, He gave them this angry sweat in their nose as a constant reminder to the fact that they were now sinners in need of a change (salvation).

Whew! I never even imagined that a nose could get quite this complicated. And just to think that this is only the beginning. I mean when it comes to the human body, you ain’t even seen nothing yet! But anyway, after God handed out all the curses, Adam gave his lovely not-so sinless wife a new name... and just in time for their "new designer threads by God": "And Adam called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living. Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them. (Genesis 3:20-21)

Now why do you figure the fig leaf fashion got tossed? I mean after all, a few leaves from the fig tree would have been a whole lot cheaper than the skins of those innocent little animals. In fact the cold hard truth of the matter is that in order for the animals to shed their skins, they had to first give up their blood. And even though the fig leaves would have been a whole lot less bloody, the blood was what God required: "For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul." (Leviticus 17:11)

Because you see the way this sin thing works is that God demands whatever does the sinning to be put to death as payment for the sin. It’s kinda like one of those real-life death-row executions. It was the flesh of Adam and Eve’s three-in-one bodies that had committed the sin, so it was likewise their flesh that God had sentenced to die. But seeing how the flesh is controlled by the blood (the life of the flesh is in the blood), then the only way their flesh was going to died was through the loss of it’s very own blood. However by taking everything into consideration, it became painfully obvious that if this was to be then God’s plan for a world full of little Adam and Eves would never be.

So it looked as though Satan’s sin had made a pretty good mess of God’s Perfect Plan. But even though things did look really really bad, God in His Ultimate Love and Mercy had an alternate plan of His own. Because you see somewhere in the distant future, God the Father was going to allow His Son, Jesus the Christ, to give His Perfectly Sinless Life’s Blood for all the sins of the world. But seeing how that was God’s plan for the future, something else had to be done for the "right then and there"... which just so happened to be the animals. You see they would kinda like "temporarily" satisfy God’s demands for the sin of the flesh until Jesus came. So the way it worked was the animals actually gave their sinless blood to only cover-up Adam and Eve’s sin. And it was because of this very same fact, that God the Father used the animal’s perfect sinless skins to cover-up Adam and Eve’s very imperfect sinful naked flesh. Got it?

Well even though you might think you have it, you still ain’t got it all yet. Because you see back in the beginning of time, when God created the man, the woman, and the animals, the main difference between the humans and the animals was "the spirit". God designed the man and woman to have a spirit, but the animals He didn’t. And of course, as we’ve already discussed, it was this same spirit option that allowed the man and woman to not only hear from God but also do what God commanded. So it was the man and woman’s soul that would hear from God through their spirit and thereby make their flesh do what God had commanded.

But due to the sin in their flesh, their spirit option would no longer perform the way it was originally designed. In fact from that point forward, the way their three-part-body was going to work was much like the two-part-body of their animal substitute; whatever their flesh wanted was what their flesh was going to get. Because in the true sense of the word, a beast is a dumb animal that has no say-so in the decision making process of what it does. There’s no spirit involvement in the soul of an animal, it’s life is totally controlled by the senses of it’s flesh.

So going back to the fashion scene, and the reason why the animal skins had won-out over the fig leaves, I guess you could say that Adam and Eve’s beastly nature was just one more good reason why. Because seeing how they had become "beast-like" in their lifestyle, why in the world shouldn’t they look like one too?

But anyway, since God’s once perfect sinless creation had now become sinful, the Garden of Eden was no longer their home. It was time to pack-it-on-up and move-it-on-out into the tormenting wilderness of sin: "And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life." (Genesis 3:22-24)

So there you have it! From sinless perfection to sinful imperfection, that was the way it all came into existence. And even though today’s story did explain how it all happened, it’s really only the tip of the iceberg when you take it on down to the nitty gritty details. Therefore, if the Lord’s willing and the creek don’t rise, what we’re going to "uncover" next time is a little bit more of the "naked truth" about our "God-designed human bodies and sin".

And until then... be thinking about your kidneys, be thinking about your nose, but most of all keep thinking about your poor old eternal soul.

Keep on Keeping The Faith In Jesus!!!

Love,

Dad (Bruce Hallman)