GENESIS

Today is Saturday, and I begin reading the Bible, all over again.  I got a call from my dear mother who told me her home is being flooded out by a stream that is rising.  She has flood insurance, but it will be a challenge to see what will happen, and how quickly.  What a dear mother I have!  She is at my sister's home and safe for now.  Thank you Jesus, do take care of her! !) Genesis is a book of beginnings.  The first ten chapters will cover 1/3 of human history!  It starts with Adam and goes through Noah, and ten more chapters it begins the nation of Israel through which God will send His Son to redeem mankind 2/3 through man's history on earth.  It starts with God creating in the beginning out of nothing.  God spoke and all come into being.  Now that makes more sense than everything springing forth from nothing adding billions and billions of years to make it happen.  It did just happen....when God spoke!! We see the perfect creation and then the fall and it's results, all in Genesis. 2) RAINBOW.  The other day, my wife and I saw a double rainbow that was so bright and the end of it came within 30 feet of us!  I never knew you could get that close.  It was amazing!  We get the word "rainbow" because in Genesis 9:13, God said: "I do set my bow in the cloud".  It was God's token of a covenant that He made with the earth never to destroy it by a flood again.  So... every once in a while, after a rain, God puts His bow (rainbow) in the clouds to remind us that He will keep His promise.  It's amazing isn't it? 3) EARTH DIVIDED.  God's Word has all of the answers!  In Gen. 10:25, it states of one man named Peleg, "for in his days was the earth divided".  One little phrase, but it explains the continents and islands of the earth.  God divided things.  In 10:32 it says: "by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood".  Again, we see that the people mentioned in chapter ten made up the different peoples of the earth in all nations.  Now, chapter ten tells us how God divided the land and the peoples of the earth, but in chapter 11:9 it says: "and from thence (Babel) did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth."  This means that not only did God confound (make different) their languages, but GOD scattered them upon the face of the whole earth.  This explains how people got on all of the continents and islands of the earth.  Wow!  God has answers!!  It sure beats stories like men travel in canoes or small ships to get to those islands.... without their wives!!  Still looks like they would have all died off doesn't it? 4) WALK THROUGH TO OWN.  In Gen. 13:17 "Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give it unto thee."  Abram had to walk the length and breath of the land to own it.  Are we walking through the Christian Life as we should, or are we only walking on familiar territory?  We need to grow and expand as a believer and go places we have never been spiritually and perhaps even physically for God.  I think of my good friend Charlie Vest.  After the tragic loss of his wife, he went to the mission field of Philippines.  As a successful business man, God led him to leave it all and go and build a work reaching souls for Christ.  In the process, God gave him a dear woman to be his wife and together they invested Charlies resources in a work in the Philippines.  He sold all and used it for Christ.  Had he never "walked through" the land, God would not had led him to the Philippines.  Where does God want us to walk today???  Let us put on our spiritual walking shoes!  May God bless, and see you tomorrow!  Love you Mom!  Pastor Mike Mutchler