Week 1

Sorry I'm a little late with this, but here it is finally.

Week 1 topics of interest:

* Creation week
* The rebellion, fall, and curse of man
* The lineage from Adam to Noah (as touched on already by Steve)
* Although blameless and upright, Job still suffered subtantially, emotionally, and physically. God brought him through it and blessed him.


Point to consider:

The first prophecy of redemption is given by God on the day of the fall of man.

Gen 3:15 "I will put emnity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers. He will crush your head and you will strike his heel."

In this verse, take note that the emnity is between the serpent and the woman, and between the serpent's offspring and her offspring which is specifically singular and male.

If you care to, take a few moments to read the short chapter of Revelation 12. It details part of a vision given to the apostle John. In it, a woman ripe with pregnancy is persecuted by a dragon (identified as the serpent, Satan). The persecution preceeds the birth (attempting to prevent it), takes place at the birth (attempting to kill the child), and succeeds it (enraged with the woman, Satan wars against all of her other offspring).

As the serpent represents Satan, the woman represents the Jewish people - the nation of Israel. Consider the worldwide hatred and anti-Semitism aimed at the Jewish people from the very beginning. That hatred led to enslavement, dispersement, and many attempts of complete genocide over thousands of years. Egyptians, Canaanites, Moabites, Babylonians, Assyrians, Medes, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Nazi's, "Six Day War", "Yom Kippur War", and even in modern days....and into future events.

Now consider the decidedly, singular, male child of the woman. Understanding that the woman represents the Jewish people, it is easy to see that He is none other than our Lord Jesus. Satan's pre-Christ attempts to kill the Jewish nation was to prevent His birth. At Jesus' birth, Satan attempted to kill Him through the hatred, greed, and paranoia of king Herod. Although Jesus was killed 30 years later, Satan didn't expect our Lord to rise from the dead and be caught up to God and His throne (Mat 26:64, Acts 1:9, Acts 5:31, Acts 7:55-56, and many more). Enraged at this, Satan wages war on the rest of her offspring that keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. (We'll look at Gentile adoption/grafting into the family of Abraham later in the year)

Jesus will indeed rule all the nations with a rod of iron (Rev 19:15), but that will be at His second appearing (Rev 20) for His 1,000 year reign over His earthly kingdom.