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made our bodies (Gen. 1:26). He who is three in one, Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit, made us in His own image and likeness. Likewise,
man is in three parts, spirit, soul, and body. (1 Thess. 5:23.)
Before this, God had created many wonderful and beautiful
things: trees, plants, flowers, great whales, fish, animals, and birds.
The air was filled with the scent of blossoms, the whir of swift
wings, and the music of bird songs.
But when He made man, He did not form him like any of these.
He made him like Himself, godlike, like God. And God gave man
dominion over His works. He was the ruler of them all. After all
was done, God looked at His work and said it was very good.
(Gen. 1:31.)
How fine the body of the first man was! God called it very
good. That means every part of it was perfect. No trace of sickness
or weakness. Not the slightest blemish upon it. Our first father,
Adam, walked this earth in a body fit for the king that he was. God
gave him work to do that no man living today could do. He was told
to name all the animals; and as they passed meekly before him, he
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gave to each bird and beast the right name. (Gen. 2:19,20.) What a
brain he had to be able to do that! How strong he was to stand such
a strain on mind and body!
Now I know the question that you want to ask. It is, Why are
we not like that today? Almost everybody I know has something
wrong with him or her. It is nothing but sickness, sickness every-
where. Can you explain it?
Yes. The book of instructions, the Bible, tells us all about it.
Sickness came because the first man failed to obey the rules God had
given him about his body, the wonderful living machine.
In the garden in which God placed Adam (the most beautiful
garden that ever was because the Lord planted it), there were all
sorts of trees bearing luscious fruits. Man could enjoy the most deli-
cious meals, for God told him that there was no limit. Of every tree,
excepting one, he might freely eat. But if he dared to disobey and eat
of the fruit of the forbidden tree, God told him he would surely die.
(Gen. 2:16,17.)
Man disobeyed and dared to take into the wonderful living
machine what God had forbidden him to eat; and through his sin,
disease and death came to him and all of his children down to this
day. That is the cause of every case of sickness you see. There was
no disease till man sinned. It was not known on earth till then.
From that sad day tiny babies come into the world with bodies
that are apt to get sick. Sometimes they are even born with some
awful disease in their blood.
People sometimes bring sickness upon themselves by their own
sins; for, as with Adam, sin and sickness go together. There were two
men who were called Mr. Chang and Mr. Eng. If you asked one to
dinner, the other came whether you wanted him or not. They were
the famous Siamese Twins who were joined by a band of flesh that
could not be cut without killing them. Sin and sickness are like that.
If you invite sin, sickness comes along.
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Chapter 2
A Promise and a Covering
If Satan, who tempted Eve to eat the forbidden fruit and share it
with Adam, tempts you to do wrong, you need not yield. We are
warned that he goes about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may
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devour. One way he devours those who yield to him is by eating up
their flesh with terrible sicknesses so that they are just skin and
bone. The Bible tells us to resist him and he will flee from us.
(James 4:7.)
Obey your book of instructions, and you will be kept, body,
soul, and spirit by the power of God.
A little old hymn I wonder if you ever sang it when you were
a tiny tot in Sunday school tells how this may be done.
Yield not to temptation
For yielding is sin,
Each victory will help you
Some other to win.
Fight manfully onward,
Dark passions subdue,
Look ever to Jesus,
He will carry you through.
Now we find God in the cool of the day going to the beautiful
garden He had made for man s first home to visit Adam and Eve.
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His Healing Power
But alas, they were nowhere to be found. Instead of running to the
One who had so loved them and given them such precious things,
they ran away from Him and hid among the trees of the garden. As
He called Adam by name, they came trembling and afraid, for they
had sinned and told the saddest story earth has ever heard the
story of the Fall. They stood ashamed and helpless before God. They
had listened to Satan and disobeyed their maker.
The awful sentence was pronounced, the death sentence. & The
soul that sinneth, it shall die (Ezek. 18:4). God always keeps His
Word; and He had warned them that if they ate of the forbidden
fruit, they would surely die. (Gen. 2:16,17; Rom. 6:23.) So He said
to them, Unto dust shalt thou return. (Gen. 3:19.)
Right then and there death began to work in those wonderful
living machines, their bodies. From that time sickness, which is just
slow dying, began to be seen and felt by the children of men.
But even then God did not forsake them. He gave them two
wonderful things: a promise and a covering.
The promise was that there was to come one glad day a virgin-
born Son, the seed of the woman, who was to destroy the old
serpent who had deceived Eve, by bruising his head. (Gen. 3:15.)
When a serpent s head is mashed, that is the end of the serpent.
This was partly fulfilled when the Lord Jesus Christ was born in
Bethlehem of Judaea of the Virgin Mary. Then when the Lord Jesus
was crucified on Calvary, Satan was brought to naught; and his
power over all who trust in the precious blood of Jesus was broken
(Heb. 2:14).
The second precious gift was a covering (coats) that God
Himself made and put on them because without them they could
never dwell in His presence. What were these coats made of?
For the first time, suffering and death entered that beautiful
Garden of Eden. Innocent animals cried in anguish as their lives
were sacrificed and their blood shed. Of their beautiful skins God
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fashioned coats for Adam and Eve. Those coats covered them, spirit,
soul, and body. They are a picture of Christ made unto us right-
eousness (rightness) when He died on the cross to redeem us. (1 Cor.
1:30.) He made us right in spirit, soul, and body. And a right body
is a healthy body.
When disease began to show itself in the bodies of men (because
the Fall had made them apt to get sick), God told them to pray to
Him in faith in the Christ who was to come and die for them, and
He would heal them.
In the book of beginnings, Genesis, we have the story of a king,
Abimelech by name, who was stricken with a sore sickness in his
own body, as well as among the members of his family, because he
had taken another man s wife, intending to make her his wife. (Gen.
20.) He did not know that she was Abraham s wife or he would not
have done it; but he had done wrong to take her, and God told him
that if he did not make the wrong right he would surely die and all
his family with him. God promised him healing if he obeyed and
told him exactly how to obtain it.
(You will remember that I told you that this book of instructions
tells us how to have the wonderful living machines repaired by their
Maker; so listen carefully for God says, I am the Lord, I change
not. ) (Mal. 3:6.)
God told Abimelech that he must first make restitution by taking
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