KING of GLORY Illustrated Study Guide

A s we read at the beginning of His book, the King of the universe created man in His own image and likeness. He made humans for His glory. People would be His special treasure, close friends, and holy citizens in His kingdom of light. But first there must be a time of testing. The LORD God gave Adam a small test with big consequences. God told him that he was free to eat from all the trees of the garden except one. What did God say would happen to Adam if he broke this one rule? Did God tell Adam that he must begin to recite prayers, fast, and do enough good deeds to balance out his bad deeds? No! God said, “When you eat of it you will surely die ” (Genesis 2:17) . We know what happened. Man chose to disobey his Creator-King. Adam and Eve sinned. But did they drop dead that same day? No. So what did God mean when He said, “When you eat of it you will surely die”? What, according to the Scriptures, is the meaning of death? Look at the picture. What is happening with the branch? What will happen to it after it is broken from the tree? Will it be alive? Or dead? The branch might still look alive, but it will be dead because it has been separated from its source of life. Death means separation . This is bad news. When Adam and Eve chose to go their own way instead of God’s way they lost their connection with God, like a branch cut off the tree. Their relationship with God was dead. They no longer wanted to be with Him. They tried to hide. Adam and Eve were dead spiritually. Your sins have cut you off from God (Isaiah 59:2 NLT). Adam and Eve also began to die physically. Even as the leaves on a broken branch do not dry up instantly, so their bodies did not return to dust the day they sinned. But the aging process had begun. Death was an enemy from which they would not escape. But the bad news gets worse. Unless God provided rescue, Adam and Eve faced eternal separation from God in “the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matthew 25:41) . T he M essage in the S tory • 2 T he B ad N ews S ome people mock the idea of hell—a lake of fire where souls contaminated by sin will be quarantined for all eternity. But is it wise to mock what we do not understand? As humans, we cannot grasp the concept of eternity. It is another dimension. People also mocked the prophet Noah as he built the ark and warned them of the coming flood. But once the door of the ark was closed and the flood came, they understood the truth they had mocked. In a similar way, the moment people enter hell, they will understand its solemn logic. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power (2 Thessalonians 1:9). The King will not allow sin to pollute His universe forever. Sin is the most destructive force and far-reaching disaster on our planet. Sin is the cause of all evil. Like a contagious disease, Adam’s sin has infected us all. Just as each twig and leaf on a broken branch is dead, so each of us is affected by Adam’s sin. We are all a part of the Adam branch. When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned (Romans 5:12 NLT). Back in Moses’ day, people had the same wrong idea that people have today. They hoped that if they did more good than bad, God would show themmercy on the Day of Judgment. To correct their wrong thinking, God came down on Mount Sinai in blazing fire and gave the people ten commands to obey. Anyone who did not keep all ten rules perfectly was declared guilty and worthy of death. The Ten Commandments are like a mirror. If your face is dirty, a mirror helps you see the dirt, but it cannot remove the dirt. In a similar way, the Commandments were not given to make us right with God. Instead, they show us that we are guilty sinners before a holy God. We are unfit to live in His righteous kingdom. We are helpless sinners in need of a perfect Savior. For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard (Romans 3:23 NLT). The bad news is that we do not measure up to God’s perfect standard of goodness. The good news is that there is one person in history who did. His name is Jesus. 6.You shallnotmurder. 7.You shallnot commitadultery. 8.You shallnot steal. 9.You shallnotgive false testimony againstyour neighbor. 10.You shallnotcovet yourneighbor’swife… oranything thatbelongs to yourneighbor. 1.You shallhaveno othergodsbeforeme. 2.You shallnotmake for yourselfan idol… for Iam theLord yourGod. 3.You shallnotmisuse thenameof the LordyourGod. 4.Remember theSabbath daybykeeping itholy. 5.Honoryour father andyourmother. 162 163