I've had a flu of some sort.  Thank you for staying with me.

When I started this blog, I had three things that I wanted others to know for sure.

1.  The Bible is true, and we Christians don't have to apologize because we believe the Genesis story.  It is factual, and in every detail it follows the order in which the world was created.  Verse by verse it is in agreement with what science has discovered.  I am a scientist, and am amazed at the truth of Genesis.

2.  God intended to put his Spirit inside of man.  That was his plan from the beginning.  But  even though Adam was in God's image, Adam lost the Spirit of God and was banished from His presence.  Every birth after that produced a child--not in God's image--but in Adam's image.  A person with an empty place inside.  Which caused a yearning in the hearts of every human: tribe by tribe, culture by culture, and clan by clan.  A yearning for a God.

3.  God didn't give up on man.  The rest (of the books in the Old Testament) is the story of God moving toward a restoration of His Spirit into the soul of men.  And when God's time was right, He came to earth, became a man, spilled His blood and died for sin, was raised from the dead to intercede for us, and gave his Spirit to anyone who believed in Him.   Hallelujah!

Christ in you, the hope of glory.

God had a plan.  He is going to put his Spirit back into man.  But first, He waits.  I have no reason why.  That's one of the questions I'm going to ask Jesus when we all get to heaven.  Why did God wait?  I know that "God's time" is something that I don't understand, but I also know that he has perfect timing.  I've experienced it.

Mark tells us in Mark 4:3b-6 "...we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world (sin);  But when the fulness of the time was come,  (God's time) God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law that we might receive the adoption of sons.  And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of this Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.   The Spirit in our hearts.  We are finally whole again.  Like God created Adam in the first place.

We have been redeemed.  Bought back.  God still wanted us to be his sons and daughters.  He wanted to put His Spirit back inside us where it belonged.  

Paul puts it this way in Colossians 1:23b, 26-27 "...and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which you have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven;...To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory;"

I love a good mystery.  I love the way Paul puts words together.  Christ in you the hope of gory.  And it was preached to every creature under the heaven.  The heavens declared the glory of God and the skies showed his handiwork.  In every language.

Did the Neanderthals have the capacity to receive the Breath of God?  Were the people in the land of Nod where Cain went--to the place where he found a wife--have the capacity to receive the Breath of God?  Did the people that came out of Africa 40,000 years ago have the capacity to receive the Breath of God?  I have no idea.  God didn't tell us.  All that I know is that Adam was made in the Image of God and Seth was made in the Image of Adam.  And Adam had the capacity to hold God's breath.  Which means that since Seth was made in Adam's image he, too, had the capacity to hold God's breath.

And in addition to that, in Genesis 6: 1-4 we find two kinds of human categories:  The sons of God and the daughters of men.  "And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose."  The two categories were "The sons of God,"  and "The daughters of men".  The sons of God passed on to their children the capacity of their fathers.  The capacity to hold the Breath of God.

The only problem was that none of these people actually held God's breath.  That would mean that they were alive.  And God said, in the day you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you will die.  Either God lied, or Adam died.  Of course, God didn't lie.  Adam died spiritually and that is what he passes on to his children. His grandchildren, his great-grandchildren, and to us.  Spiritual death.

Paul  put it this way:  Romans 5:12 "...as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; ...so death passed on all men, for that all have sinned; "   And when Paul was writing to the Colossians he said, "And you, being dead in your sins..."  he tells them that even though they look alive in the flesh, they are dead in the Spirit.

So we know that without God's Spirit a person isn't alive at all.  They are dead.

But God has a plan.

Belief in the Creator is such a critical choice in a person's life because there is no excuse that God will accept for denying Him.

Psalm 19 1-4  "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows his handiwork.  Day unto utters speech, and night unto night shows knowledge.  There is no speech or language, where their voice is not heard.  Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tabernacle for the sun..."

God is evident in all that we see in his creation.  In every language.  Failure to read the obvious is inexcusable.

Paul explains it this way:  Romans 1: 20-21a  "For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse;  Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were they thankful; but became vain in their imaginations..."

Every clan, culture, tribe etc. that anthropologists discover has some type of worship.  No matter how far flung around the world, these people groups make a God to worship.  A totem, a golden calf, the sun, a graven idol of some sort.  That one instinct I told you that I believe exists--and our only instinct--is to seek God.

God has said in Deuteronomy 4:29 "But if...you shall seek the Lord your God, you shall find him, if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul."  If you seek Me, you will find Me is what God says.  In those words, God gives a promise to anyone who is looking for Him.  Substituting anything else will not do.

A young child will eventually ask the question, "Where did I come from?"   What he or she is asking is,  "Where was I before I was here?"  You can say "Mommie's tummy", but that isn't really what he wants to know.  There is something within the child that brings him to ask such a question.  Other species don't do this.  But the human child wants to know something beyond his physical world.  Something spiritual.   The human species has an empty place within that 'a drive' can't  satisfy.  It is a need to know  whether there is something more, something that is bigger than we are.

Those are the questions that the human species asks that no other species does.  Our species wants to know something spiritual.  That knowledge does not help us with any of our basic drives to survive:  Hunger, Thirst, Sex.  The knowledge of where we came from helps us find our place in the universe.

So we are full circle.  Back to where I started this blog:  The two choices.    There are only two choices.
1.  Accidental.   If you choose this answer, you must ask yourself where did this accident happen?  Which is another question .  And if life is accidental,  then all life has evolved from the first molecule.  But where did that molecule come from? And why did some molecules become "Alive," and others become rock.

2.  Created.  If you choose this answer, the essential question of whether or not all of this could be accidental seems absurd.   It would have to be one accident after another.

So there is one Instinct that I believe humans have meets the scientific definition:  it is without exception in the species, full blown when stimulated, and is not learned.

We seek God

I said we have no instincts.  You may be conjuring up a few, so let me discuss Drives and Reflexes before we get back to Instincts.

1.  A Reflex is an uncontrolled reaction such as a knee jerk.  The doctor taps your knee with a hammer and your knee jerks.  You can't control a reflex.  Breathing: if you hold your breath you may pass out, but your body will 'reflexively' begin to breath again.
2.  A Drive can be controlled.  It is an "inner urge" that the species has and requires to survive:  hunger, thirst, sex...  You may be 'driven' to eat, drink, or have sex, but you don't have to indulge.  You may die of hunger or thirst and have no children but you still have control over your drives.

But an instinct?  What behavior does the human species exhibit that when stimulated will present itself full blown, is not learned and occurs without exception in the species?

In addition to reflexes, drives and instincts, many animal species exhibit one or more of the 5 basic social institutions.
1. Education,  2.  Economics,  3.  Government,  4.  Family,  and 5.  Religion.

1. Education: Think of a mother bear teaching her cub to fish.  2. Economics:  Think of all of the animals that store up food for the winter.  3. Government:  Think of a wolf pack and an Alpha wolf.
4. Family:  think of Elephants that mourn the death of one of their group.  Humans exhibit all 5 social institutions, but only one is unique to humans:  5.  Religion.  We alone ask questions such as:  where did we come from; what happens when we die; who made us; why are we here; what is our purpose?

We alone search for God.

Lucifer is called "The Prince of the Power of the Air," in the New Testament.  Suffice to say, we all have something inside us that lets us know evil when we see it.  And you choose what you do.  Right or wrong.  And you know within yourself when you choose to do something that is wrong.  Let me ramble for a moment, and I will get back to that point.

My husband taught Sociology on a college campus after he retired from the Marine Corps.  He used to walk into the classroom on the first day and start his lecture thus:  "There is one fundamental question that affects the way you think about everything else in your life.  That question is: 'Do you believe there is a God'?  What you 'think about God' will determine what you think about everything else."  And then he added, "I will not argue the point about the existence of God, but it's only fair to tell you that I believe that He is, and it will affect every thing that I say this semester about human interaction (Sociology)."

One of the things he said struck me as outrageous.  "Human beings have no instincts."  But based on the scientific definition of the word "Instinct,"  which is:  "A genetically transferred pattern of behavior that when stimulated will present itself full blown.  It is not learned and occurs without exception in the species," then it is true that humans have no instincts.  (But I believe that they have one, and will discuss that tomorrow.)

One example of an instinct is the migration of the Monarch butterfly.  A Monarch breeds in S. America, flies North to lay eggs and then dies.  The eggs hatch, and the next generation returns to the same place in South American where they were conceived.  They instinctively know where to go.  No one teaches them; their parents are dead.  That is an instinct--it presents itself full-blown and without exception in the Monarch butterfly species.

The reason this is important is that if a behavior is instinctive, then God can's hold you accountable for that behavior.

A serpent,  the evil one, satan, the devil, lucifer, the prince of the power of the air, and so on, etc.  There is no point in dignifying those names with a capital letter.  We know who "it" is.

I have a friend who teaches teenagers and tells them, "Sin is so momentarily fun.  If it wasn't, it wouldn't be any temptation at all.  But the payoff will kill you."   Satan knows what is tempting to you.  He knows all of our personal weaknesses--and that is what he will throw at you every time.  Over and over again, you will be tempted by the same things.  It will be the same old fight every day.  And without the In-dwelling Spirit, you will lose the fight.  But by resisting, you do get stronger.  Likewise, by giving in, you get weaker.  Then it gets easier and easier to give in.  Before you know it, you are changed into a person you never wanted to be.  It's a spiritual disease called "Hardening of the Heart."

Where did this horrible evil-spirit creature come from that is intent on destroying people's lives?  And why!!?  He slithered out of Eden and has been intent on human destruction ever since.  Why is he here in the first place.  Well, truth is, I don't know.  All I can do is quote scripture.  And the problem with that is that the scripture on the subject would fill this page.  So I will pick out a few thoughts.

Is. 14:12-13a  "How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!...For you said to yourself, "I will ascend to the heaven and rule the angels..." (He thought he was equal with God.)

First, people are not the only created beings.  God created angels as well.  Lucifer decided to rule the angels.  God punished him, cast him out of heaven, banished him to earth, and in Is. 14:16b-17 after he was cast out, God said to him, ...Can this be the one who shook the earth and kingdoms of the world?  Can this be the one who destroyed the world and made it into a shambles, who demolished its great cities and had no mercy,,,"

Sounds like the condition of the world that God had created perfect--that was destroyed--somewhere between Gen.1:1 and Gen. 1:2.  A condition that was dark, void and without form.

I've written to you on the first five chapters of Genesis.  In review:

1.  God created a perfect heaven and earth.  But something happened.
2.  The earth was without form and void and dark.  It had been destroyed. There were extinctions.
3.  God cleared the mists and let light through, the earth revolve, the waters separate and seeds sprout.
4.  God created new animals. (Sea life never died.) Some animals had survived--if they lived in water.
5.  God created Adam, then Eve.They were different from anything the world had ever seen.
6.  They were able to receive the Breath of God.  In his image. Filled with His Spirit.
7.  God gave them instructions and responsibilities concerning the care of the earth and animals.
8.  God gave them 4 trees, one tree they couldn't eat from.  The tree of Life. If they ate, they would die.
9.  Eve was enticed by a serpent.  A beautiful winged creature. They ate from it.  they died spiritually.
10. God sacrificed an animal to cover their sin and cast them out of the Garden of Eden.
11. Cain killed Abel.  Seth was born in "Adam's image." Adam couldn't have children in God's image.
12. The genealogies were recorded to give us a time line.
13. God had a plan to cover the sin of all "Spiritually empty"people born after Adam.
14. God planned to come to earth as a man and sacrifice himself to cover sin. His name would be Jesus.

This makes blog sixty-six.  I couldn't possibly cover everything, but the only thing I avoided was the question:  "Where did the serpent--the evil one--come from?  How did he get into paradise?  Where was he before this?  Why did God allow him to be there?

There are a million unanswered questions on this subject.  I will share some thoughts on the subject tomorrow.

The book of Genesis is true.  I started this blog by saying that there were three areas in which the world would attack your faith:  The virgin birth, the resurrection, and the creation story.  I have shared my thoughts on the creation story because I have always found the topic so very interesting.  Perhaps sharing my thoughts will strengthen your confidence in the truth of God's word.

I have always been interested in science, engineering, dinosaurs, archeology and extinctions of animals on the earth. It led me to a life of study in those areas, finally ending up by studying statistics  to see what was statistically feasible--and 20 years of teaching math at a junior college.   I could have saved myself a lot of trouble by just saying "The Bible is true.  Without error."  But I've always been a "Prove it" kind of person.  And there was so much bickering on the topic of Genesis.

The story of Thomas in the new testament was the story that sealed my own conversion.  Give me a good doubter any day.  They tend to make you want to prove whether something is true or not.  Thomas said that he wouldn't believe in the resurrection unless he put his hand in the hole in Jesus' side and in the holes in Jesus' hands.  If the resurrection wasn't true, well there goes the whole validity of Christianity.  Without the resurrection we have no hope.  So even though all his friends (the other disciples) said they had seen Jesus, that he was risen, Thomas said he wouldn't believe it unless he saw it himself.

So Christ appeared to Thomas and told him to put his hand in His side and touch the holes in His hands.  Thomas didn't need to.  He fell to his knees and said, "My Lord and my God."  No one ever called Jesus "God" before.  In an instant, Thomas became a believer and did a 180 degree turn.  He began to travel and tell the story of the resurrection of Jesus.  That is enough for me--to prove the resurrection of Jesus.

Like I said, give me a doubter any day.  They make you work hard to find the truth.

The book of Genesis is true.

God sacrificed an animal to make Adam and Eve coats of skin.  After they were banished from the garden, God began to prepare a plan to sacrifice himself to cover our sin.  Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin.  Matthew 26:28  puts it this way:  (Christ is speaking),  "For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins."

Heb.  9:22,  puts it this way:  "And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission."  You don't hear much from the pulpit anymore about blood.  It isn't very popular.

I was going through an old hymnal the other day, and was surprised by the number of hymns that were composed about the blood of Christ.  "Power in the Blood",  for example.  I personally have not heard a religious song about the Blood of Christ in many, many years.

In Acts 2:38 the Gospel is defined:  "...Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost."  In other words, God will put his Spirit back into you--where he wanted it to be in the first place.

Paul says in Rom. 3:25 "Whom (Jesus) God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins...".

You just can't have the gospel without the blood of Christ.

The Bible says that Seth was born in the likeness of Adam:  Gen. 5:3  "And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image;  and called his name Seth..."

"...In his own likeness, after his image..." Interesting.  Adam was not able to bear children in the image of God.  He could only bear children in his own likeness, in his own image--which lacked something critical .  Something that Adam had but that he couldn't pass along to his own children.  Something that God gave Adam that couldn't be inherited by his children.

Do you remember, way back in the first chapter of Genesis, we read something about images?" Gen. 1: 26-27, "And  God said, Let us make a man in our image, after our likeness..., ...So God created a man in his own image, in the image of God created he him: male and female created he them."  And in Gen. 2:7 "And God breather into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."  Adam was in God's image.  Seth was in Adam's image.  Big difference./

And you remember that I told you that Christ was referred to as the "Second" Adam by Paul in 1 Cor. 15:45.  "And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit."   So....from Adam to Christ, no one was born (in between them) that was in "The image of God.   All people after Adam did not have the Spirit within. The Spirit came upon on them.  But Jesus was born with the Spirit within.  He was the Spirit.  In human form.

After Adam, the Spirit came in the form of a burning  bush, a cloud, a pillar of cloud by day, a pillar of fire by night.  The Spirit came upon the tabernacle, in the door of the tabernacle, etc.  But the plan of God all along was to put his Spirit back inside man.  To make us his tabernacle.

But it would take blood.  It would take a sacrifice.

So God wrapped himself in flesh, and became a Quickening Spirit.  His earthly name was Jesus.  And he was preparing to die.

Someone recently asked me if I thought that Adam was the first man.  I actually did hesitate before I said, "What kind of man?"   Adam was different.  He was unique.  There were no men before him that were like Adam.  Adam held the Spirit of God.  And we are Adam's "seed".

When we look at the scripture in Gen. 5, the entire chapter is a bunch of "begats".  Which if you are like me, you usually skip when you are reading the Bible.  But the "begats" let us trace the time from Adam to Noah.  It seems that Adam lived nine hundred and thirty years.  One hundred thirty of which were before his son Seth was born.  Seth is the only other son--mentioned by name--that Adam and Eve had.  It is the genealogy of Seth that is traced to Noah.  Noah lived five hundred years. (There is no genealogy for Cain.  He is outcast.)  Through these "begats" we are able to trace the limits of time that passed from Adam to Noah.  Through other "begats" in other scripture we can determine the outside limits of time from Noah to Christ.  And of course, Christ lived approximately 2013 years ago.  You can't possibly come up a scenario that is older than 10,000 years.  And that is a stretch.

Because of  skeletal remains discovered through archeology, we know there were men on earth up to 40,000 years ago in Africa.  (I used to have a Time or Today or some other such publication that had a cover picture of a woman with the title, "We have found Eve and she is black.")  Certainly scientists had found an African woman that was born long before Eve.  And through mitochondrial DNA--using placentas from women today--they had traced the time to when she lived, and had determined that we all have some of her DNA.  It was an interesting study.  I loaned the book to some one and they didn't return it or I would be more precise.

There is  one interesting sentence in Gen. 5:3.  "...Adam...begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth."  Seth is honored.  He is the firstborn as far as Adam is concerned.  Abel is dead, and Cain is forever cursed and banished. Mention is made in verse 4 that after Adam had Seth, that Adam had other children.  Daughters are born after Seth--this is the first mention of daughters.

I answered the question at the beginning of the blog, "Adam and his descendants were designed to hold the breath of God.  After Adam, all men had this capacity.  And God was getting ready to fill them up."

To be a fugitive, there has to be something to be a fugitive from.  Somebody who is out "there" in the place where God is banishing Cain.  The only reason for a person to be afraid of being killed by "someone,"  is that there is "someone" out there who is trying to kill you.  

And God is in complete agreement with Cain that someone will try to kill him.  So much so, that God puts a mark on Cain.   Gen. 3: 15b,  "And the Lord set a mark on Cain, lest any (one) finding him should kill him."  God even set a curse on any person who killed Cain, "...vengeance will be taken on him sevenfold..." God said.

This scripture passage gives us two conclusive ways  of knowing for certain that there are people "out there":  1.  God gave Cain a mark lest anyone should kill him, and  2. God curses anyone out there  that kills Cain.  Whoever this someone "out there" is, they have the intelligence to recognize a mark that is placed on Cain by God, and intelligent enough to recognize what it means.

Further adding to the fact that there were people "out" there is validated in Gen. 3:16.  "And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelled in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.  And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived...".

Nod was a place with people living there.  Cain knew it.  And God knew it.  What does that mean?  We can look at the genealogy of Adam (and Cain), and determine how many years ago they lived within 5000 years or so.  We can't determine how long  people had been living in Nod.

But we can determine that Adam was unique in a critical way:  He was filled with the Spirit of God.
Adam and Eve were a new beginning of some sort.  A new kind of people.  Spirit filled.

Third curse coming up:  Gen.4:11-12 "And now you (Cain) are cursed from the earth which has opened her mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand;  When you till the ground, it shall not henceforth yield to you her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shall you be in the earth."

 'Henceforth' means forever.  No reprieve.  And the only thing Cain knows how to do (till the ground) will not bear a crop.  Blood has been spilled on the ground and nothing will ever grow for Cain again.

And Cain finally gets it.  God is omnipotent.  He has passed judgment on Cain and Cain realizes that God is in control of the world and has the right to condemn him.  He has no hope.

So Cain cries out to God.  God, who alone can save him.  Gen. 4:13  "And Cain said unto the Lord, My punishment is greater than I can bear.  Behold you have driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from your face I will be hid; and I will be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass that every one that finds me will slay me."

Punishment:  I think it was Billy Sunday who had a sermon titled: "Payday Someday", and someday is here for Cain.
1.  His punishment is greater than he can bear.
2.  Cain is to be driven out from the land he is living in, and from his parents.
3.  God's face will be hid from Cain from this time forward.
4.  Cain will be a fugitive and a vagabond.
5.  Everyone will be tracking him down and when they find him, they will kill him.

I have one question about all this.  Who were all these People that were going to track Cain down and kill him?  (I'll talk about this tomorrow.)
                                       

If God had not "Shut the gate", and closed Eden permanently,  Adam and Eve would have been kicking down the door to get back in.  But in Gen. 3:24, we read: "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."  They weren't getting back in.  And any hope of eating of the Tree of Life was gone.  Like I said the other day:  "Dead man walking."  It was just a matter of when.

They were all stuck with each other--outside the gate.

Gen. 4:9  "And the Lord said to Cain, Where is Abel your brother?  And he (Cain) said, I know not:  Am I my brothers keeper?"

Anger, murder, and now a huge lie.  In John 8:44 we read, "You are of your father the devil and the lusts of your father you will do.  He (Satan) was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him....for he is a liar, and the father of it (lying)."

And after Cain lies to God, he insults God's intelligence!!  He asks God a question--Cain thinks he can fool God.  He does not confess what he has done, and just like his parents before him, he is definitely not repentant.

"What have you done?"  God asks Cain.  And  if we were to put it into today's vernacular,  God is saying:  'Don't you know that I know everything!  Haven't your parents taught you anything about me?'  Then God tells Cain that, "...the voice of your brother's blood cries unto me from the ground."

And then God places a curse on Cain.  So far, everyone is cursed except Abel, and he's dead.

Things aren't going too well.

No food, no home, no place to go.   No domesticated oxen, no horses.  No chickens in the hen house.  No hen house.  Nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  And no one to ask how to do anything.  But the worst possible thing was: no access to God.  All they had was what they remembered.  The memory of a perfect garden.  The memory of a friend called God.

From this point forward Man could only speak to God when God chose to speak to Man.  And there would be appointed places for this to occur.  In a tabernacle, in a temple, on a mountain.  Man would have to actively seek God.  The Bible says that man would seek the 'face' of God.  But no man would be allowed to see God's face.  This was now denied.

 Then Eve has sons: Cain and Abel.  Cain tilled the ground.  Abel tended sheep.  You have to wonder how long it took before Adam rounded up a herd of wild sheep, how long before he figured out a way to dig the earth up so he could plant it.  How long before his sons were able to help him.  Everything was very, very hard.

And Eve: childbirth without ever seeing a child born before.  No idea of what was coming next.  And the pain--and no way of knowing when it would end.  Would it be hours, or days?  The result of her curse didn't arrive as soon as Adam's did, but when it came, Eve could see into the future and expect to go through this pain every time she had a child.  For every child that has been born into the world, some woman has suffered.   And all for a piece of fruit.

And then Cain kills Abel.  Over a sacrifice.  God demanded a sacrifice to remind them of the payment that had been paid in the garden for sin.  Nothing but a sacrifice would do.  But Cain wanted to offer something else.  A shortcut.  And when God didn't accept it, Cain got mad and killed his brother.  A new sin occurs:  Anger.  And anger produces murder.  What a mess.  What a family.

When God breathed into man the "Breath of Life",  I personally believe that He filled a place, a place that He had created within man--in his brain, in his heart, in his soul...wherever it is--that is unique, not found in any other species.  A place that He, God,  intended to fill, to live in.

In Job 33:4, Job speaks with total understanding of what this means.  " The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty has given me life."  Like I said yesterday, without life, you're dead.

So God created man and entrusted him with all a man could ever want.  But Adam disobeyed God.   So God placed a curse on him and removed him--threw him out--of the garden.  Along with his wife.  The only thing they got to take with them was  'skin-coats'.   They now had to work for a living.  No house, no food, no place to go.  At the mercy of the elements.  At the mercy of Satan.

And their children, and their grand children would be born without the Breath of God.   And without access to the Tree of Life.  How could you bear it.  How could you bear the thought that your children would never know what it meant to walk in the garden with God or to have him as your friend.  And know that it was your fault.

But God had a plan to put Life  back in the human race.  However, until this plan came to pass,  people were born empty with no hope of being filled with God's Spirit.  Born looking for something to fill the void in their lives.

We try to fill our lives with stuff.  With any number of things that destroy us.  Things that kill our sensitivity.  Today the term is "Making wrong choices".  (God calls it sin.)  Animals don't do this.  We do.

People today are still born empty, but now there is hope.

The first death (In the garden of Eden is about to occur).  God is going to sacrifice an animal to cover their sin.  Off with the aprons, on with the animal pelts.  God made them coats.  I wonder if this implies that they were going to have to suffer " the cold".   They will be cursed with horrible weather I am sure.

Gen. 3:21  "Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them."
This is the beginning of sacrifices among the people of God.  It makes the phrase, "The lion will lie down with the lamb,"  all the more meaningful.   That's the description of heaven:  Nothing, or no one, will  need to  be afraid of being killed ever again.

Death has come.  But that's not the worst of it.

Gen. 3:22-24a "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 forever: 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,,,"

There is a phrase in that section: "...lest he put forth his hand, an take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever..."   Adam was now denied the Tree of Life.   His future, which could have stretched out in front of him forever, was now doomed.  He was denied Life.  He was now one of the living dead.  God told him if he ate of the fruit of the forbidden tree he would die.  He died.

So Adam is now dead.  He just doesn't know it yet.  Without Life, all humans are dead.  You have to have Life to be alive!!  Romans l6:23 "For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. "

The ultimate sacrifice is far in the future.  But this explains why Christ is called the "Tree of Life."

The second curse was for Eve.  Gen. 3:16  "To the woman he said, I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception;  in sorrow you shall bring forth children; and your desire shall be to your husband, and he shall rule over you."  

I get it.  I've had five children.  They're a joy after the fact, but getting them here is a bummer. 

I also get it about the husband ruling over the wife.  They're bigger.  They're stronger.  God got to choose who was the biggest and the strongest.  It wasn't Eve.  

The third curse was for Adam.  Gen. 3:l7-19  And to Adam he said, Because you have harkened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree, of which I commanded you, saying, you shall not eat of it:  Cursed is the ground for your sake;  in sorrow shall you eat of it all the days to your life;  Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to you; and you shall eat of the herb of the field;  In the sweat of your face shall you eat bread until you return to the ground; for out of it were you taken: for dust you aren, and to dust shall you return."

Basically, what God was telling Adam was that feeding those children that Eve was going to have, was going to be awful.  He would have sweat pouring down his face and the ground wasn't going to cooperate.   Up to this point, God had provided their food.  Now he was going to eat bread.  That meant that he was going to have to dig, and plant, and harvest.  No more laying around picking dinner off a tree.  Work had just been invented. 

Things are going from bad to worse; and God isn't done with them yet.  What a pity.

  

Gen. 3:11  "And he (God) said, Who told you that you were naked?"  Adam didn't even know what 'naked' meant in the minutes before he grabbed some leaves, made an apron and hid.  But he knew now.  And then God said, "Have you eaten of the tree, that I commanded you that you should not eat?"  God already knew the answer to that.  The question was rhetorical.

Adam should have said:  "Yes.  I did it; I ate it."  But in true human form, he blamed someone else.  He blamed Eve.   Gen. 3:12  "And the man said, The woman that you gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I did eat."  Actually Adam was blaming God.  Adam came out of the bushes where he was hiding and told God that if God had just left well enough alone, and not created a woman in the first place, then Adam wouldn't have sinned.  So logically, God was to blame.

So God turned to the woman, and said:  Gen. 3:13 "...What is this that you have done?"  That's a very simple question.  She should have answered, "I did what you told us not to do.  I ate the forbidden fruit.  I'm so sorry."  But she didn't.  She blamed the serpent.  What a gal, "It's not really my fault,"  she explained,  "The devil made me do it."  Or in the words of the Bible:  "...The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat."

Beguiled.  She just couldn't help herself.  You can almost see her shrugging her shoulders.

And the punishment begins.  God curses the serpent, and instead of being beautiful, he was condemned to eat dust, and crawl on its belly.  He becomes a snake.  (Gen. 3:14)  So the word "serpent" and "snake" are sometimes used interchangeably, but in Genesis, they are two different things.  Many paintings in Art Galleries show Eve being tempted by a snake.  Not so.

But Adam and Eve get the worst curses.   Eve first, then Adam.