Messianic Viewpoint

Jacques Isaac Gabizon: Chapter three then is the beginning of our history. Not a good one, not a good history, not a good beginning, not a flattering history. But this chapter three may be one of the most important ones for us because in there we will see the reason why we suffer, the reason why we struggle in life.

Guest (Female): While it is true that we do suffer and struggle, we often do not see things the way God does. How much did David suffer, often not even knowing why he suffered? Yet, his trust, based on his relationship with God, is what pulled him through until an answer became more clear. Because God is in control of all things, He sees and uses our trouble as opportunity to teach us. He sees it as opportunity for our betterment.

Chapter three of Genesis does not have a good start, but chapter three does have a good ending. What seems at first like a rejection and an abandonment from God in Adam and Eve's being sent out of the garden turns out to be for them, for their betterment. They will learn through the thistles and thorns that there is a consequence for sin, and that is a positive result. How many do not learn, let alone recognize or take responsibility for sins they have committed?

In every tough story, we're always looking for a good ending, and there's always a good end with God. Why do we want good endings? Because good endings can bring us hope that good can come out of bad. And good endings appeal to us because we want justice served. We want to see wrong be made right. And so if our times are tough right now, remember that the end justifies the means. God is watching over you with plans to prosper you, not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Welcome to Shalom Ariel and welcome to our continuing study in the book of Genesis with Messianic leader Jacques Isaac Gabizon. Be blessed as you listen in and Shalom.

Jacques Isaac Gabizon: So welcome to Beth Ariel. By the way, have you heard of Mars One? Who heard of Mars One? It’s a non-profit organization that plans to establish a permanent human colony in Mars, by 2025. In 2024, Mars One intends on launching four carefully selected applicants in a Mars-bound spacecraft. So they will be there forever, that is, they would not be able to come back. Would you believe that 200,000 people from around the world wanting to be among the first human settlers on Mars put their application? They are down actually to 400.

But why Mars? There are many areas on our earth that were not exploited yet. What about the ocean? They say that only two percent of the ocean floor has been explored, leaving a lot more to be discovered. What about the Amazon rainforest? They did not completely explore it. What about feeding the poor with the money that they're going to invest in these things? A third of all deaths in children under the age of five in developing countries are linked to malnutrition.

By the way, did you know that there's another flight available? This one actually is with unlimited space and this one also is a non-return flight. You know which one I'm talking about. Let me read you a verse. "And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and receive you to myself." The good thing about it is that He's there already making the place ready. These people are going there, they don't know what they're doing. They don't know what’s going to be there. So if you believe that Jesus is your Messiah, yes, there’s a flight that is scheduled, maybe tonight, who knows? And we'll be in heaven forever.

Let’s open up our scriptures to Genesis chapter three. In the first chapter of Genesis, we've seen the great account of the creation of the heavens and of the earth and of life, animal life, and that of man and woman. In the second chapter of Genesis, we encountered another account of the creation. There, man is first and supreme over all the physical and animal creation. He seems to have been the main purpose of the creation. All was given to him by the Creator, dominion over all the earthly creation.

It was in conjunction with his creation of man where God introduces His proper name, a different one than the one we see in the first chapter: the exclusive and mighty name of Jehovah, Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh. The name which reflects His grace, His redemption, the name through which we know Him as the covenant keeper. By the way, when I say Jehovah, that is not the proper pronunciation; it was lost in time. If it is introduced right here in chapter two, it is surely because of what was going to happen right at the beginning of chapter three: the fall.

It is there where the story of the fall of man begins and continues until the very last pages of the Bible. A long and difficult history, a yo-yo like history where the account of the fall is reenacted over and over as man falls and God pulls him back and saves him over and over. We see it with Israel. We see it with the church. We see it with individuals. Like a perpetual movie shown through different perspectives, but at the end, it is the very same story. It all begins in chapter three.

It is also there where we find a third party, the serpent, who is the Satan. His name means adversary, from where we get the word *sitna* meaning enmity, accusation. Eden, I want to tell you, could not have been this beautiful place. It could not have been what we originally thought it was because this fallen individual was there. He was waiting to tempt, to accuse.

Chapter three then is the beginning of our history. Not a good one, not a good history, not a good beginning, not a flattering history. But this chapter three may be one of the most important ones for us because in there we will see the reason why we suffer, the reason why we struggle in life. There we find the origin of evil as far as man is concerned, and it is there where we learn the remedy for sin and suffering. There is laid for us the anatomy of sin because the serpent's ways are the same then and now. He reenacts the same strategy over and over. If we get the story right, we're going to be strong; we're going to be strong in the Lord.

What is striking is that the story of the fall itself is given in such simple terms. While there are things in the Bible that are hard to understand, the most important things like the fall and salvation are of the easiest to grasp. Reading chapter three, one may have the impression that he's reading a children's story and seeing a cartoon with a speaking serpent, until one realizes that there's a very serious message behind it. If it is easy, so easy in the outset, it is because God doesn't want us to miss the message in there.

It is truly my prayer that the account of the fall will give us the freedom spoken of by Yeshua when He said, "And you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free." This knowledge will affirm you and give you power in the Lord. Now, before we dig in chapter three, there's one verse that comes in between the creation and the fall, one which seems to come from nowhere but is very much part of the whole. It is Genesis 2:24. What is it doing there? Let’s read it.

It says, "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." What is this verse doing there? Adam and Eve had no mother or father. Like someone said, they didn't have belly buttons. Yet, right at their creation, we read these words as if the Spirit could not wait to tell us about the importance and the sacredness of marriage in a society, when in fact there was none yet.

I find it extraordinary that in the midst of such major events as the creation of the heaven and the earth and the fall of man and the redemption of humankind, we have practical advice concerning our spouse and our in-laws, which in the final account seems to be as important and even more to God than the creation perhaps of heaven and earth. Marriage is, in fact, a creation of God. We can see it as a creation from one family in heaven to another on earth, from the Trinity to your marriage.

As we are made in the image and likeness of God, so is our marriage as well. It is made in His likeness and His image. So central it is to Him that He even designed the whole story of redemption from a marriage. Yeshua is called the groom and who is the bride? You, the church. And we are told so many times that Jesus loved His church so much that He asked the husband to love his wife so much and to give his life just like He gave his life to the church.

There is then a powerful message in this verse about the sanctity of marriage, and see the three words used by the Spirit to describe this union: to leave, to cleave, and to be one. The last one, "joined together," being one word in the original Hebrew. The first one: to leave. While there was no one to leave at the time of Adam and Eve, this first sets a vital truth.

As soon as a man and woman marry, a leaving of the former life and of the former relationships are necessary so that the husband and the wife can be fully committed to each other and to God. When a man and a woman leave home to start a new family, they are no longer under the influence or the authority of their parents, nor should they be under any other influence coming from siblings and friends that could disturb the marriage. Everyone should know to take their distance from what God considers to be precious.

Let us not have this problem like the one of a young woman in Singapore who had to go to court to force her husband to stop letting her his mother sleep under their bed. Imagine. And there's something else very powerful I want to tell you in that word "leave." In the scriptures, there are many homonyms. This term is given to words which are spelled exactly alike but have different meanings. There are many of those in the scriptures. They are often used for wordplay and with a touch of irony.

For instance, the word for grace, *chesed*. It means grace and other times it means shame. The word *ta'av* means to desire, at other times it means to abhor. The word *asaph* means to protect, at other times it means to destroy. All of these things make the Bible reading in the original language very interesting.

In our verse in Genesis 2:24, the word "leave" has two meanings, and these two meanings happen to be true in the same verse. The word *razav* means to leave and it means to help, both. Like in Psalm 27, when David speaks to God and says, "You have been my help," the same word. How could this word be both leaving and helping in the same verse? You can read it both ways because there's a message here. "Therefore a man shall help his father and mother and be joined to his wife," or "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife."

What this tells us is that on the one hand, the spouse should make sure the parents do not disturb the marriage. It is sacred. And on the other, the children are commanded to help their parents. It’s not a forsaking, a complete forsaking. The verse doesn’t tell us to forsake completely but to separate while keeping the commandment to help and support our parents. This is a biblical commandment. You find it in the law of Christ, First Timothy 5:4, when Paul says, "And if any widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to show piety at home and to repay their parents, for this is good and acceptable before the Lord." So we have work to do.

Guest (Female): Don't go away, we'll be right back with the second half of our program coming up just after this message.

As we wind up for the second part of our program today, we would like to remind our listeners how blessed and privileged we feel to be part of your radio day. We pray that the messages you hear will instruct you, edify you, and encourage you to love the Lord more and follow Him into obedience in even greater ways. We are all changed by the challenges and transformed by the trials of life, and as we walk them together, we keep looking up to Him who is mighty to break down the walls of Jericho that stand before us and to hand over to us the spiritual victories in life.

Yeshua has broken down the greatest barrier, the greatest wall that has separated us from God the Father. Thank you, listeners, for joining us in prayer and in financial support for this ministry. If you have it on your heart to give to this ministry, then you can by logging on to our congregation website at Beth Ariel—B-E-T-H-A-R-I-E-L.ca. And if God leads you to contribute from the treasures that God has blessed you with for the continuation of this radio ministry, Shalom, Shalom, as we begin part two of today's program.

Jacques Isaac Gabizon: While we are here told that the husband and the wife must be one, being joined together as one flesh, right in the following verses, the story is different. Adam and Eve are separated, and we find Eve alone with Satan at a very crucial time of decision. And where is Adam in the fall?

Guest (Female): After creating Adam, God said, "It is not good for man to be alone," and so God gave Adam a companion. Now, while it was not good for Adam to be alone, it was really not good for Eve to be alone, especially when the serpent's evil intents were hissing not far away. Now, some question whether Adam was with his wife at the time of her being deceived. Well, there's no mention of Adam anywhere during her conversation with the serpent. And God does not condemn Adam for listening to the serpent, but rather for listening to his wife and obeying her.

Now, what would have happened had Adam been there at the time of this notorious conversation? We don't know, but what we do know is that a man was given a helpmate, and it is his responsibility to take care of her, to love her. God is the Creator of the institute of marriage, and His desire is that one man and one woman would stay together in strong unity, bonded throughout even during the most difficult circumstances. Some men have a hard time leaving their mothers and loving their wives, but Adam didn't even have to go through mother separation. He had no mother. Yes, he should have been with Eve, but even more than that, he should have been united in mind with his God, because if he was, he would not have listened to Eve. If Adam was cleaving, he would not have been leaving her. And talking about godly direction, it's not right that he left. Men, stand by your wives, but more than that, heed the word of the Lord that you may take the right authority in leading your home in godliness.

Welcome to Shalom Ariel and welcome to our continuing study in the book of Genesis with Messianic leader Jacques Isaac Gabizon. Be blessed as you listen in and Shalom.

Jacques Isaac Gabizon: So children have this obligation to make sure their parents are taken care of and the parents have this obligation not to mingle in the affairs of their children. The other word, "cleave," is also powerful. This word is used for physical things sticking, clinging to each other, like in Job, where it says that his bones cleave to his skin. So is a husband to his wife. Separate the skin from the bone and the whole unit dies. This word means also to solder. I don't believe there’s a stronger word than this one that shows the connection between a man and a woman.

The third word, I believe, is the most powerful: "one," *echad*. Like the unity and the family of God in the *Shema* in Deuteronomy 6:4: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is echad—Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad." The word *echad* is a compounded word. While the Trinity is three, yet they are one. It’s a compounded one, just like a marriage is. It is like the Trinity, where one times one times one is one. So with man and woman, it’s one times one equals one.

In fact, the marriage is also a trinity: husband, wife, and God, designed in heaven. And I have found in these past years of counseling married couples that when God is removed from this equation, problems arise. It is inevitable. My first question in a troubled marriage is, how is your spiritual life? It is never good, and I know it cannot be good because they're not in the word.

And there's a beautiful play of words in the Hebrew text that will illustrate this for us. In the previous verse, verse 23, the rabbis have noticed something in the Hebrew, something interesting I want to bring to you. So you have four words in there. The first one on top is the word Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh, which is the name of God. And then you have the word for man, *ish*. And then here the word for woman, *ishah*. You see the *Yud* here is brought here. The *Heh* is brought here. So the rabbis said that God has to be in a marriage because if you take off the *Yud* and the *Heh*, you have *esh*, which means fire. Take off God from your marriage and you're going to have fire in your house. This is what it says. They’re smart, right? They got it right. I don't know if that’s as inspired, but it is true. This is so illustrative of the need to have God in our marriage, in our lives. Take Him out of relationship and fire comes.

You know that the best marriages are the ones who are in God. And I want to tell you that there are very many around, right? We've been made to believe that 50 percent of marriages, even marriages of believers, end up in divorce. That is not true. That is simply not true. They computed this figure because they observed that the number of divorces each year is about half the number of marriages that same year. But the 50 percent divorce figure ignores the number of intact marriages from years and decades earlier.

The truth is that about one of 50 marriages end in divorce. That is according to the National Center of Health Statistics. Pollster Louis Harris, a well-recognized American opinion poller, maintains that 90 percent of marriages survive until one partner dies. It’s not true that we cannot make it work. We can make it work. And we can say that the best marriages are those who are in God and in His word, and they last long. Let us not be discouraged by false statistics. There are many great marriages you can look around you and take advantage of their lives.

However, there may be another reason why this verse, Genesis 2:24, is placed right before the fall. It may very well be an introduction to the fall itself. Why? While we are here told that the husband and the wife must be one, being joined together as one flesh, right in the following verses, the story is different. Adam and Eve are separated, and we find Eve alone with Satan at a very crucial time of decision. And where is Adam in the fall? Nowhere to be seen. Even though he was given the leadership of the marriage. The sad thing is that the order of marriage is reversed. While man was called to oversee and care for his wife, he’s absent. It is my conviction that if they both had heeded the words of Genesis 2:24, the outcome would have been different.

Now, the fall really begins in Genesis 2:25. The next two verses go together even though one belongs to one chapter and the other to the next. There is another play of words here in the Hebrew that sets another precedence. Let’s read 2:25 to 3:1. "And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, 'Has God indeed said, "You shall not eat of every tree in the garden"?'"

In the original Hebrew, the word "naked" and the word "cunning" are spelled the same way. And in this case, it may mean the same thing but in a reverse order. Rashi, a well-known respected rabbi from the 11th century, noticed it and understood the word "naked" as indicating that Adam and Eve were naked in the sense of being devoid of wisdom and morals, while Satan was well-full of himself. In other words, as a serpent is so cunning, so was Eve so gullible.

And this word is used especially in Ezekiel to show the spiritual nakedness of Israel just before her fall, which brought her out of her land until today. In both cases, the same word is used of their spiritual void. And this set the stage for the story of the fall. It says that they were not ashamed or confounded. Perhaps they should have been ashamed even in the sight of the serpent who actually spoke so badly of the word of God and of God Himself.

And as we read in Genesis 3:1 that the serpent was there, not any person, it's the serpent. Who is this serpent? Satan. Revelation 12, Revelation 20 says that that serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan. Even the ancient rabbis understood that it was Satan himself. In discussing the fall of Eve, the *Zohar*, a collection of rabbinical thoughts published in the 11th century, said Samayel—it was Samayel and he appeared on a serpent. Samayel is another word for Satan. And it says that Samayel was the serpent. Why do I say this? Because today they don't teach that. Today modern Judaism for the most part has forgotten Satan, and this is exactly what he wants. In the new Jewish study Bible published not long ago, they say that, and I quote, "Genesis does not identify the talking snake with Satan or any other demonic being." They should look into their own writings. And they just leave the readers hanging there. By saying this, they are defeating the whole purpose of the story.

Let me ask now a question. What is Satan doing there in the Garden of Eden, already fallen? Just the fact that he's there tells us that man's existence, his life, his fall is related to this being. So we cannot ignore him. And the Bible does not leave us ignorant concerning this being. Not much is said about him; this is God's business. But enough is said about him that we should know.

In sum, it tells us that Satan was originally a good angel who thought to be so wise and good that he convinced himself to be better than God, just like what happened to Adam and Eve and to their children, whom our society is composed of. This is a case of pride and arrogance when the creation says to the Creator, "I'm better than you," when the pot says to the potter, "I'm wiser than you."

His existence before this time is given to us in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28. It's all there. Ezekiel 28, we read that he was in Eden also, he was in the garden of God. Perhaps the same Eden, but surely in the same earth. See that we are two tenants now in the same home. No wonder there's so much evil in this world. Ezekiel also tells us that he was a cherub, a created angel.

And Isaiah exclaimed something when he speaks about him in Isaiah 14:13. Now listen well to what he says because this is exactly how he enticed Eve to fall. How he enticed her to follow the same path. Speaking to Satan, he says, "For you have said in your heart, 'I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will also sit in the mount of the congregation and of the farthest side of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the cloud and I will be like the Most High.'" Five "I wills" in here. The five "I wills" of rebellion. It is also a synopsis we have here of Genesis 3. As he fell, so he tempts Eve to walk the same path of arrogance, promising her that she's going to be like God as well. And he's so shrewd and so convincing that he even convinced himself that he is better than God.

Liar's are first liars to themselves. The first victim of lies is the liar himself, even though they do not realize it right away. Jesus said it in John 8:44: "For he is a liar and the father of lies." Now let us see how the serpent enticed Eve to sin. Remember, he does the same thing today.

Guest (Female): Shalom Ariel is a daily radio program emphasizing the Jewish perspective of scripture. God is not through dealing with Israel, nor will He renege any of the promises He has made to her. Our teacher for this program, Jacques Isaac Gabizon, is a Messianic Jewish believer and Messianic leader at Beth Ariel congregation right here in Montreal. If you've been encouraged by the messages, we'd love to hear from you. Give us a call at 1-888-685-5902 or you may write us at info@bethariel.ca. You are also welcome to join us for our Saturday morning services. We are located at 6297 Monkland Boulevard, corner of Madison in NDG. The message is given in English but we do offer simultaneous translation into French and Russian. Services begin at 11:00 AM. We have Shabbat school for children of all ages, up to and including teens. You may also download audio messages from our website at bethariel.ca and enjoy other in-depth teaching from Jacques. If you would like to sign up for informative newsletters, log on to our website and add your name to our email list. Shalom Ariel is a listener-supported program. If you have it on your heart to donate, it will be a great blessing for the continuing ministry and outreach of Beth Ariel. Thank you and Shalom, Shalom.