This morning I was wondering whether Adam and Eve ever doubted the Lord's promise that a Redeemer was coming. The Lord had said that a man of their family line would be the Promised One. They must have hoped that one of their two sons would be the Messiah or that a descendant of Cain or Abel would be. Now Abel is dead, killed by the hand of his own brother, and Cain is living in exile from his family. But the Lord is a promise keeper. "The Lord is trustworthy in all He promises and faithful in all He does." (Psalm 145:13b) The Lord gives Adam and Eve another son, the one from whose line the Redeemer will come.
"Adam made love to his wife again, and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth, saying, 'God has granted me another child in place of Abel, since Cain killed him.'" (Genesis 4:25) Abel is gone and Cain is as good as dead to his family. Would Abel's line have been the line of the Messiah if Cain had not killed him? It's hard to say, but if so then this serves to back up the fact that nothing man did was capable of derailing God's plan of salvation. The Redeemer was coming, no matter what man did. The Redeemer was coming, no matter what Satan and all the demons of hell did to try to stop Him.
"Seth also had a son, and he named him Enosh. At that time people began to call on the name of the Lord." (Genesis 4:20) Of course people knew about the Lord before now and I'm sure at least some of the people living on the earth prayed to Him. But perhaps their faith in Him was stagnant until they saw His intention to fulfill His promise. The Lord had said, before He banished Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, that One of their descendants would bruise the head of that old serpent called Satan. But when Cain became a murderer and killed Abel it may have appeared for a while that fulfilling the promise was impossible, but all things are possible with God. (Matthew 19:26) I think sometimes we make too much of ourselves, believing that mere human beings like us can throw God's plans off track. He is the God who spoke everything into existence out of nothing. Is keeping a promise too hard for Him? Is there anything our frail mortal selves can do to cause God to break His promises?
We can be rebellious and get ourselves outside of God's will and miss some of the blessings He wanted to bestow upon us, but the promise of the coming Redeemer didn't depend on man keeping his end of any kind of bargain with God. In fact, God sent the Redeemer because man couldn't keep his end of any bargain. Man couldn't live a sinless life. Man couldn't keep the law. Man couldn't go a single day without doing or saying or thinking something wrong. If we were able to live perfect lives, there would have been no need for God the Son to come into the world in the flesh to suffer and die on the cross as a sacrifice of atonement for our sins. Thank God our salvation doesn't depend on our own efforts! I would be without hope, for I fail daily. Thanks be to God that: "My salvation and my honor depend on God; He is my mighty rock, my refuge." (Psalm 62:7) Thanks be to God that: "The Lord is my strength and my defense; He has become my salvation." (Psalm 118:14) Amen! "Surely this is our God; we trusted in Him, and He saved us. This is the Lord, we trusted in Him; let us rejoice and be glad in His salvation." (Isaiah 25:9)
God did the work of salvation for us. No one else could do it. This is why the Lord Jesus---God the Son---was able to say of Himself, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." (John 14:6)
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