How would you tell the story of God’s plan for mankind should you have an audience of unsaved people before you, and they really wanted to know the truth? How would you explain the why and how of God’s intention and purpose for mankind?

Perhaps it could be this way:

Start with the biblical facts that are evident in visible form, and… well, let’s try it.

Suppose you, one who does not know God, and another person who knows God, both run a red traffic light. What happens? Both of you will quickly look around to see where the traffic cop might be parked. Why?

Both have a conscience that has embedded in it the knowledge of right and wrong. This knowledge became man’s when Adam, the first man God created, disobeyed, along with his wife Eve and ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God had told them not to do that. Satan tempted Eve, and she ate, then gave to Adam, and he ate of the fruit. Now, every person is born with the latent knowledge of good and evil that develops as a child begins to learn and grow. Genesis 2 and 3 relate these things.

The Scripture, at Romans 2:14-15, tells of that:

“For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves, their thoughts accusing or else excusing them.”

To further tie this to mankind today, Romans 3:20 says, “Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.” And man’s choice to sin rejects him from God’s favor and of His eternal life unless he repents of his sinfulness. Paul wrote in Galatians 2:21, “I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.”

In another place, 2 Peter 3:9, the Scripture says, “God is not willing that any should perish, but all should come to repentance.” That means to turn from sin and the desire to do wrong or evil and accept His offer of forgiveness and salvation. Then, Romans 3:23 states the condition of every person since Adam and Eve, and including them: “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” That is, simply, all are lost and must have His salvation for eternal life as opposed to eternal damnation.

The first thing that happened when they ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil was that they realized they were naked. The animal creation had no clothes on, and neither did they. They were innocent, and God had a higher purpose in their creation. They were created in the image of the invisible triune God but without the knowledge of good and evil. And they hid themselves from God, or tried to do so. God knew this and provided coverings of the skins of animals, thus showing that a blood sacrifice was His way of covering their sins.

This is so stated in the details of the law of God that was given to Moses, later, in Leviticus 17:11:

“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 soul, for it is the blood that makes the atonement.” By this declaration from God, and His shedding of blood for skins of animals, we see that the foundation is laid for the future coming of Jesus Christ to die on the cross and shed His blood for all of mankind.

The first offspring of Adam and Eve were named Cain and Abel. Cain was the first born, and he killed Abel because his sacrificial offering before God was not acceptable. He brought the fruits of his labor, fruit and vegetables, not that of a blood sacrifice. Abel was a shepherd and brought a lamb of his herd as his sacrificial offering; thus, it was acceptable before God. They were mature men, no longer under the parental care of their parents. We can know this because they were bringing their own personal offerings, not being under the offerings of their parents. And Cain chose to disobey, for he surely knew how their family offerings had been for all of their youth under their parents’ responsible care.

However, Hebrews 10:1 and other places as well tell us that the sacrificial blood from animals is a shadow of that which was to come, the sacrificial blood of the Son of God. This is told clearly in 2 Corinthians 5:21: “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

But let’s go back and consider another foundational truth that ties these things to the very beginning of man, even today, to the eternal knowledge God has, as He has said, that He knows the end from the beginning.

The psalmist, in Psalm 139, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit’s inspiration, writes of God’s major attributes, that of His all-knowing ability, that He is ever-present in all places, and His awesome power of creation that incorporates these truths.

In that latter one, we see His presence at the very point of conception of a human being when the male and the female come together and fertilization is accomplished. Here is the Psalm 139:13-17 account:

“For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb.

I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.

“Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them. How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand; when I awake, I am still with you.”

In this, we can see the foreknowledge of God, which reveals what is ahead in our lives, even to His writing it in His book. We see also, very clearly, that the Bible teaches that the very beginning of the life of a person is at the moment of conception, not days or weeks later. Abortionists do not like this to be known.

How truthful the Scripture is that says, in Romans 1:22, “Professing to be wise, they became fools,” a description that proves to be far-reaching, even into their total lack of moral integrity.

There’s more on man’s redemption. (Continued in Part 2)

Contact email: andwegetmercy@gmail.com

That fourth feast of the Lord, called Pentecost and the Feast of Weeks, was fifty days after the Feast of First Fruits and included that Sunday of the Resurrection of Christ. There were 49 sabbaths plus one day to start a totally new era of God’s plan for the ages.

There were four major beginnings, or launchings, of events at that feast time. The first was the power from on high the disciples were promised in Acts 1:8a: “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you….” It was the fulfillment of Joel’s promise that God would give them a new heart like never before, in Joel 2. That promise is echoed by Paul in 1 Corinthians 6:17, saying, “He who belongs to the Lord has become one spirit with Him.” And, in verses 19-20, “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.”

A second event within this one is the beginning of the church age, when Peter identified Christ as “the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16), and Jesus said, “Flesh and blood have not revealed this to you but My Father who is in heaven, …and on this rock I will build My church.” (On Peter’s confession, not on Peter, the man, as the Roman Catholics have claimed.)

Also in Acts 1:8b is the launching of the Great Commission, to take the gospel of Christ, the good news of His salvation, to the ends of the earth: “…and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

The Old Testament accounts of the Jewish people did not have such a direct command to take the knowledge of God to all people, but the psalmist wrote, in Psalm 107:2, “Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom He has redeemed from the hand of the enemy.” From Abraham to Christ was a time of revealing the likeness of God to all people of the world, by the moral dictates of the law, yet the Jewish people constantly rebelled, refusing to obey the Lord and profaning His name. Yet God did not fail in His commitment and promises to them, for His own name’s sake. The Spirit-filled body of Christ, His church, was the ultimate promise fulfilled.

That gospel message was identified by Paul, specifically in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4: “For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures….” (Those Scriptures would have been Old Testament Scriptures, of which Isaiah 53 would have been prominent in his thinking.)

Paul wraps this up in Romans 3:23-24: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”

Matthew’s account of the Great Commission in Matthew 28:18-20 emphasizes His authority over all things:

“And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, ‘All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.’ Amen.”

What about that final promise—”And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age”? What happens after that? And when does the age end?

Knowing the end from the beginning, even in this situation, we can be assured that now, He is with us, and at the end of the age, we will be with Him. Hidden, then, in this Great Commission command is the truth that there will be a “taking out” of believers from this world. The Rapture, then, is again identified in the plan of God.

Another event initiated at that first Pentecost was the setting aside of Israel in favor of taking the gospel to the Gentiles, as declared in Romans 11:25:

“For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.”

At the Jerusalem Conference recorded in Acts 15 by Luke, we learn from James’ summation thus: “And after they had become silent, James answered, saying, ‘Men and brethren, listen to me: Simon has declared how God at the first visited the Gentiles to take out of them a people for His name.'”

The end of the age of the church and the Great Commission to the church happens when Jesus returns for His body of believers. John 14:1-3 tells what will happen then: “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.”

Then God’s attention is turned back to the Jews again for that final 70th year of Daniel’s prophecy, which was stopped at the end of the 69th year (Daniel 9:1-2 and 24-26). It turns out to be weeks of years. That is, instead of seven days in the week, it is one year as a day and seven years for a week. Thus, a week of seven years. The only time another “week” of seven years is mentioned is in Daniel 9:27 when the coming “prince,” the Antichrist, “confirms a covenant with many for seven years.”

Those seven years of tribulation foretold in Revelation 6 to 19 are a time when the Jews are brought to realize that Jesus Christ is their true Messiah and they accept Him, yet through hard suffering.

The church is not mentioned in those chapters of Revelation 5-18 until the marriage supper of the Lamb in chapter 19. The Great Commission to the church is no longer in effect then, for God anoints 144,000 young Jewish men to take the gospel of the kingdom to all tongues, tribes and nations. Their results are reported in Revelation 7 as multitudes.

Where are we now in God’s timetable? The worldwide embracing of sexual immorality as an acceptable equal to morality compares to the time of Lot and his departure from Sodom. Luke 17:28-30 tells the story: “Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed.”

The “falling away” from the faith and lawfulness is rampant, but the Scripture says the One who restrains that evil will be taken out of the way for the Antichrist to have his time for judgment. The coming together of these things will come “as a thief in the night,” and those signs are looming on the horizon.

Contact email: andwegetmercy@gnail.com