Gospel

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Within the Veil: Eternity Found

CHAPTER 2: The Fall

God ordered all things to sustain and protect
according to laws of cause and effect.
Both physical laws of moving and being,
and spiritual laws of sowing and reaping.
The beasts had no choice but to obey and submit,
they could do no evil nor folly commit.

But man was given a choice from the start,
to fulfill God’s commission, or break God’s great heart.
The choice was a plain one: to believe and obey,
and live by God’s life-giving love day by day;
or to seek knowledge and power apart from God’s will,
bringing death and destruction to all goodness kill.

The enemy of God was an angel named Satan
who desired to sit on the high throne of heaven.
In pride he rebelled against God’s right to rule
and was cast out of heaven full of hatred so cruel.
He came to the earth with his evil plan -
to rule God’s creation and subjugate man.

Man was created to live out of God’s center.
With hearts focused outward no evil could enter.
But the enemy knew that to drive the two sin-ward
all he needed to do was to turn their hearts inward.
He questioned God’s word and diverted their sight
toward themselves to define the wrong and the right.

Two trees in the midst of the garden were given:
one was encouraged, the other forbidden.
They had only to eat of the Tree of His Life
to live in union with God as His bride, as His wife.
But the way that was favored by the liar, the devil
was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and of Evil.

Satan began playing his deceptive hand
by tempting the woman to forget God’s command.
The man failed to speak and stand up for God’s word,
and allowed Satan to twist the truth they had heard.
They both ate the fruit of the forbidden tree,
and their eyes were opened, their own evil to see.

So deep was their shame that they could not face Him
who alone could restore and forgive them their sin.
So they hid in the garden, using fig leaves for cover,
and built walls to keep out both God and each other.
Ever since, men and woman have continued to hide
from the One whose purpose is to make them His bride.

Aware of their sin and their innocence lost,
they had yet to perceive all their failure had cost.
They had cast off the One whose love gave them life
to worship the author of death, pain and strife.
The power to rule was to them freely given;
now by their choice it was free to be taken by Satan.

God had given them choice, free will to elect,
but not freedom from laws of cause and effect.
The result of their choice was death to their spirits,
and death soon spread to the world and all in it.
Satan seized rule over all of the earth,
and death choked out life from the moment of birth.

Adam and Eve grew older and death,
which first claimed their spirits, claimed their last breath.
And all of their children fell one by one:
some by the sword and some by the gun;
some of old age, disease, or affliction;
but all a result of man’s evil volition.

Each child of man was born under a curse,
and under Satan’s dominion things quickly grew worse.
Man learned how to play by Satan’s new rules.
Death, hate and rebellion became man’s favorite tools.
Had God’s ultimate sovereignty not been maintained,
Satan would have destroyed all good that remained.

God’s love for man didn’t diminish or wane,
but God’s love required that He allow man free rein
to make his own choices and pay the full price
of suffering and hardship, the results of his vice.
Man’s suffering for evil broke God’s great heart,
but love required judgment for what kept them apart.

Still God maintained, by His sovereign might,
a remnant of beauty, a spark of His light.
And as each generation of man grew more evil
there was always a remnant His light would reveal.
Those who were willing to look up from their pain
would find His love waiting to forgive and reclaim.

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