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Genesis 6:8, Hebrews 10:7, Ephesians 2:8-9

It’s All HIS Story

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
September 18, 2025

At the end of my ministry, I couldn’t stop preaching about how the entire bible is HIS story (history), referring to Jesus Christ. Jesus said so himself to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus and to a larger group of disciples in the upper room before he ascended into heaven. He referred to all that was written in “the law, the prophets, and the writings.” That’s the summary of the entire Old Testament. Those under the law looked for redemption and forgiveness through their bloody sacrificial system. Throughout the Bible, Jesus became the ultimate sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. The author of Hebrews 10:7 quotes Jesus; “Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, ‘Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure.’ Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.’” The entire “Scroll of the Book” is about Jesus.

One place we find Jesus in the Old Testament is in “type.” A type is an example or illustration that points to a person or an event. Finding Jesus hidden in type is a most exciting and rewarding study. As it says in Proverbs 25:2: “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings is to search out a matter.” Where’s Jesus in the Story of Noah? Everywhere! He’s absolutely everywhere!

Noah is a “type” of Jesus, and we can find Him throughout the story. I’m really enjoying all the things that I’ve discovered by comparing Jesus with Noah. The first and really important thing is that salvation for Noah was not by works but by Grace. Before the flood came, God was the one who provided the way to escape from judgment. This is seen clearly in Genesis 6:8 where it says, “Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” I’ve often heard that God chose Noah because he was “righteous.” If we are going to be saved from the coming judgment like Noah, we too must be righteous. But that’s not the lesson! It’s not righteous first then grace, it’s grace first which declares us righteous. Ephesians 2:8-9 teaches us that it’s “by grace we have been saved, through faith, it’s not of works so that no man can boast. It is a gift of God.” Salvation for Noah was a gift from God, so too is our salvation. Noah believed God! That’s what made him righteous. It’s the same for us today, believing God about Jesus Christ is what saves us, not works. Thus, God’s massive love for the whole world is offered to everyone. It doesn’t matter what we’ve done. Through faith in Christ, he declares us righteous also. God doesn’t want anyone to perish. He wants us all to be saved. God says in Ezekiel 33:11, “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked.”

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Genesis 4:15

Marked By God’s Grace

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
September 17, 2025

Cain’s life is marked by God’s grace everywhere you look. Even though he offered an inferior sacrifice to God, God did not abandon him. That’s grace. God approached Cain in a fatherly manner, giving advice and counsel concerning Cain’s attitude. That’s grace. God exhorted Cain to resist temptation and live honorably in His presence. That’s grace. After he murdered Abel, the Lord confronted him with his sin and offered him an opportunity to repent. That’s grace. Cain resisted God’s grace and failed to repent. Even so, God placed a sign on Cain that would protect him throughout his natural life (Genesis 4:15). Now that’s amazing Grace.

What that mark was has been the subject of debate for millenniums. Some argue that it’s a tattoo of some kind. There’s a website, www.bodyart.com, which has a blog on “Cain’s Mark.” Some suggest it was a special hairstyle. That’s funny. Others have suggested it was his color, i.e., he was made black. An Eastern Christian writing says, “The Lord was wroth with Cain. . . He beat Cain’s face with hail, which blackened like coal, and thus he remained with a black face.” Until recently, the Mormons taught this and refused admittance of any black man to the priesthood. (How strange is that?) It’s not possible. One ancient Rabbi suggests that God gave Cain a dog that went with him everywhere he was and protected him. I can imagine a huge Doberman with a spiked collar and a surly disposition. Some Renaissance painters put a horn in the middle of Cain’s head. I don’t think so! Some argue that the word “mark” should be translated as “sign.” God gave Cain a sign that assured him of his protection from vengeance. Maybe! Who knows?

But whatever the mark was, it is certainly an indication of God’s grace for one of his created beings, even a murderer. God offered Cain His Amazing Grace of forgiveness and restoration. But Cain refused.  No one wants to identify with Cain. Yet, the scriptures make it clear that we are all like sheep that have gone astray. We’ve all turned away from God. In His marvelous grace, God offers all of us sinners the same thing he offered Cain. And Like Cain, we all need it. Horatius Bonar wrote in 1861:

Not what these hands have done
Can save this guilty soul.
Not what this toiling flesh has borne,
Can make me whole.

Thy Grace alone, O God;
To me can pardon speak;
Thy power alone, O Son of God,
Can this sore bondage break.

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Genesis 4:1, 5:29, 6:1-4

The Promised One

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
September 16, 2025

Amidst the narrative between the fall and the flood, three crucial passages illuminate the profound anticipation of the promise of Genesis 3:15. This promise, concerning the advent of the seed of the woman, was to bring salvation from sin and triumph over the serpent. The first instance is Eve’s exclamation at the birth of her first son. While most translations state, ‘I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord,’ it’s important to note that much of this phrase is added by translators. As Arnold Fruchtenbaum points out, the literal rendering of the Hebrew phrase should be ‘I have gotten a man: Jehovah’ (Genesis 4:1). This reveals her expectation that Cain would be their deliverer, a hope that was ultimately dashed.

In Genesis 5:21, the Righteous Enoch, the one who walked with God, named his son Methuselah. The name has been interpreted to mean, “When he dies, ‘it’ will come,” referring to the flood. However, it seems that a few generations later, Lamech, the father of Noah, misinterpreted the prophecy to refer to his son Noah. Fruchtenbaum argues, “Lamech clearly hopes that Noah, meaning ‘comfort,’ will be the longed-for Messiah. It is clear from the ages and years given in Genesis 5 that Lamech was 56 years old when Adam died. Lamech would, therefore, have been given a clear firsthand account of all that happened in the Garden of Eden and all the words that God had spoken.” Lamech’s words at Noah’s birth make this misinterpretation evident: “Lamech called his name Noah, saying, ‘Out of the ground that the LORD has cursed, this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands'”(Genesis 5:29). He, like Eve, expected Noah to be the great deliverer, but he was mistaken.

In Genesis 6:1-4, we read about “sons of God” that cohabit with women and produce the Nephilim creatures. I believe they are fallen angels. Peter and Jesus’ brother Jude both refer to them during the time of Noah as angels who left their own domains. You see, the prophecy talks to us of the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, Satan. Let me rest on the comments of Arnold Fruchtenbaum (a Messianic Jew). Arnold writes, “In order to try to corrupt the Seed of the Woman, at Satan’s command, fallen evil angels, ‘the sons of God,’ intermarry with human women, foreshadowing the supernatural conception of the Antichrist… The results of these marriages were grotesque creatures—the Nephilim. It was the appearance of these diabolic creatures which brought the judgment of the Flood upon the earth. By means of this flood God destroyed all the Nephilim and preserved a line through which Messiah would be born.”

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2 Corinthians 5:21, Genesis 3:21

The Great Exchange

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
September 15, 2025

As Adam failed in the garden to trust God’s love and good intentions for him, all men have failed also. In the Garden, the failure was an issue of trusting God’s love. But when God calls his children, Israel, out of Egypt and gives them the law at Sinai, they fail in the wilderness to obey God’s laws. Generally speaking, man failed in the garden through a lack of faith and in the wilderness through a lack of obedience. Jesus, on the other hand, was led into the wilderness in Matthew chapter 4 to be tempted to disobey God’s law, but he was victorious over Satan. Then, in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus wrestled with trusting God regardless of the circumstances he was facing. He prayed, “Not my will, but thine be done.” Adam failed! All of us fail. There is none righteous, no not one! That is, we are all born of Adam’s seed. But the one born of the seed of the woman, conceived of by the Holy Spirit. He is righteous and perfect in every way.

Now, this is where the greatest miracle of all takes place. Through our faith in Jesus a great withdrawal from our account is made. Jesus takes away our sin, deposits it in His own account, and then pays the penalty for it all on the cross. But it’s not only that our sins are credited to His account and considered His, but his righteousness is also deposited back into our accounts. J. I. Packer writes, “The judge declares guilty sinners immune from punishment and righteous in his sight. The great exchange is no legal fiction, no arbitrary pretense, no mere word-game on God’s part, but a costly achievement.” The biblical statement of “the great exchange” is 2 Corinthians 5:21, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

There are two sides to this divine transaction: the eradication of our sin and the infusion of Christ’s righteousness into our accounts. This is the most exhilarating news in the world, and that’s what the word “gospel” means: good news! In Romans 1:16, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes…” This is what we call the “Great Exchange:” My sins for Christ’s righteousness. Adam and Eve attempted to conceal their sin with fig leaves but found them to be insufficient. Mark Water encapsulates it perfectly, “The gospel is given in Genesis 3:21 when Moses tells us that God clothed them. They needed something they couldn’t provide for themselves; and God giving man what man needs to stand in His favorable presence is the essence of the gospel. Luther merely restated what true Christians have understood for centuries that justification is by faith alone.”

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John 10:7-9

The Right Door!

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
September 14, 2025

Questioning God’s Word inspired eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Satan aroused doubt in our first parents about the goodness and love of God. If God won’t let you have “everything” you want, He must not truly love you. This seems to be the approach that Satan took as he targeted the faith of Adam and Eve. “Look,” Satan says, “it looks good, it feels good, it tastes good, and it will satisfy that gnawing curiosity of wandering what that forbidden fruit is all about.” That curiosity killed the cat and drove the first two human beings to experiment with the forbidden. Isn’t that always the case? But the root of that experimentation seems to be the desire to find out for myself.  You’ve heard it said that money will not bring happiness. I always reply that I’d like to find out for myself.  That seems to be why Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. It’s the knowledge tree.

Why is that forbidden? How do I know it’s not good? The curiosity is killing me! I need to “know.” Proverbs 9:17 says, “Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.” In the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer wrote, “Forbid us something, and that’s the thing we desire.” In the ancient Annals of Tacitus, we read, “The illicit has an added charm.” In Pudd’nhead Wilson, Mark Twain said it well, “Adam was but human—this explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple’s sake; he wanted it only because it was forbidden. The mistake was in not forbidding the serpent; then he would have eaten the serpent.” It is said that Phineas T. Barnum, the famed circus magnate, hung a large sign over one of the exits of his museum, which read, “This way to the egress.” Many people in the crowds, eager to see what an egress looked like, passed through the door and found themselves out on the street.

“Hey,” as Si of Duck Dynasty always says, don’t think we’d have done anything differently. None of us have trusted God completely. Shakespeare said it well in Romeo and Juliet (III, 2, 87), “There’s no trust, no faith, no honesty in men; all perjured, all forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.” We’ve all been drawn by our quest for the knowledge of good and evil and the desire to find out for ourselves. We are all lured by the sign, and we want to find out for ourselves. And we all have found ourselves out in the street. We’ve all taken wrong doors. All we like sheep have gone astray. Thank God for Jesus! He says, “…Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep…I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture” (John 10:7-9).

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Hebrews 12:2-3, Zephaniah 3:11

No Shame!

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
September 13, 2025

I’ve done many things in my 78 years that I’m ashamed of. When something drives one of those things home to me, even today, I want to cover my face with my hands and shiver with my shame. I understand what it means to cover myself with fig leaves, don’t you? I suppose everyone has some things that they are ashamed of. Shame is disgrace, embarrassment, dishonor, humiliation, indignity, and ignominy. I don’t want to stir your memory with painful moments, but I’m sure you remember something that brought those sensations to you. I can’t imagine the horror I’d feel if some of the things of my past were recorded and broadcast over the screens at church. Disgrace, embarrassment, and humiliation would not be sufficient to describe my feelings.

It’s likely that many of you, like me, carry these memories of shame. Some in this world bear a heavier burden than you, and I do. Can you fathom the weight of carrying the collective shame of all humanity? I can’t! Max Lucado beautifully captures this in his writing, “One wave of shame after another was dumped on Jesus. Though he never cheated, he was convicted as a cheat. Though he never stole, heaven regarded him as a thief. Though he never lied, he was considered a liar. Though he never lusted, he bore the shame of an adulterer. Though he always believed, he endured the disgrace of an infidel.” How did Jesus bear the shame of the world? The burden is unimaginable, but it’s a burden he willingly took upon himself, offering us a path to redemption.

Max continues, “What gave Jesus the strength to endure the shame of all the world? We need an answer, don’t we? Like Jesus we are tempted. Like Jesus we are accused. Like Jesus we are ashamed. But unlike Jesus, we give up. We give out. We sit down. How can we keep running as Jesus did? How can our hearts have the endurance Jesus had?” The answer lies in Hebrews 12:2-3. It tells us that because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne. Consider the hostility he endured from sinful people; then you won’t become weary and give up. There’s joy awaiting us also. In Zephaniah 3:11, we read, “On that day you will no longer need to be ashamed, for you will no longer be rebels against me.”

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1 Peter 2:6, Genesis 3:9-10

It’s a Shame!

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
September 12, 2025

If we understand Satan’s rebellion properly, we see that his great sin was pride. It was the motivating force for him to desire to take God’s place. We usually take the words of Isaiah 14:14 to be those spoken by Satan. In that passage, he says, “I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.” Thus, pride is often referred to as the source of all sin. Well, the wisest man in the world tells us that it always comes before a fall (see Proverbs 16:18). But, later on in Proverbs 11:2, he says something just a little different. The King James Version says, “When pride comes, then comes shame.”

Eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was also motivated out of pride. Satan’s temptation was that we’d be like God, knowing good and evil. One aspect of this temptation was to fully break away from God’s instructions regarding good and evil and take upon ourselves: the right to decide what’s wrong and right. It’s choosing to take God’s place in our own lives. It led to the “Fall.” That’s what we call Genesis chapter three, where Eve speaks to Adam, and Adam chooses to eat the offered fruit from the tree. The fall of all mankind! Pride, indeed, led to a great fall. I believe Lewis Carol’s children’s poem, “Humpty Dumpty” was written to teach this lesson. You know it! All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again.

In Genesis 2:25, the man and woman were naked, yet they were not ashamed. However, as soon as they partook of the fruit to become like God, they were suddenly aware of their nakedness, filled with fear and shame, and they hid themselves (Genesis 3:9-10). Both pride and shame can have a similar impact on our relationship with God. As Max Lucado writes in “He Chose the Nails,” “Pride says, ‘You’re too good for him.’ Shame says, ‘You’re too bad for him.’ Pride drives you away. Shame keeps you away. If pride is what goes before a fall, then shame is what keeps you from getting up after one.” Peter, however, offers a glimmer of hope, teaching us about something more powerful than all the kings’ horses and all the kings’ men. We can be redeemed. In 1 Peter 2:6, he assures us, “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”

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Genesis 2:2-3, Matthew 11:28-29

The Giver of Rest

Filed Under: Devotions by Chuck
September 11, 2025

In the creation account, we learn about God’s rest on the seventh (Sabbath) day.   Genesis 2:2-3 states, “And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. So, God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it, God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.” Tim Keller reminds us, “According to the Bible, the Sabbath is about more than just taking time off. After creating the world, God looked around and saw that ‘it was very good’ (Genesis 1:31). God didn’t just stop working; he took joy in what he had made. This is the essence of the Sabbath for us. It’s about finding joy in God’s creation, in his salvation, and in the fruits of our labor. The Sabbath is a time of joy and peace in what God has done.”

We live in a driven society. Every employer wants to know how good a candidate can be at multi-tasking. Compared to earlier, less technological generations, I expect we are all a little obsessive-compulsive. We need to keep our lives in perspective. Although the Sabbath, created for man, includes the idea of resting from our labors, it is far more than that. It is necessary to find inner rest for our souls as well. Keller goes on to say, “We need rest from the anxiety and strain of our overwork, which is really an attempt to justify ourselves—to gain the money or the status or the reputation we think we have to have. Avoiding overwork requires deep rest in Christ’s finished work for your salvation (Hebrews 4:1–10). Only then will you be able to ‘walk away’ regularly from your vocational work and rest.”

In Mark 2:27-28, Jesus identifies himself as “the Lord of the Sabbath.” He’s the Lord of rest! One of the most comforting passages is Matthew 11:28-29. Jesus invites us all when he says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” After the fall, man’s work was never as effective as it was intended. “Labor” in bringing forth children was part of the consequences of sin. “Labor” in the fields that would bring forth thorns and thistles instead of wheat and grain made everything difficult and painful. But the work of Jesus on the cross of Calvary done on our behalf is perfect. It’s complete and the only real rest to be found in this sinful world is to rest confidently and comfortably in the hands of Jesus. No one or nothing can separate us from his loving care!

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