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The host of the Shema Israel podcast discusses the Jewish Scriptures, emphasizing that they are complementary and teach us about the beginning and the end. He highlights that the Bible, also known as the Tanakh or Torah, is a miraculous book that has impacted countless lives. He delves into the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and how they fell to temptation, introducing evil into the world. He mentions the existence of both good and evil in the world today and warns about the deception of the enemy. The host also refers to a prophecy in Genesis 3:15 about a coming Redeemer or Messiah who will defeat the enemy. He emphasizes that it is God's will for us to have a blessed life and encourages seeking help from God rather than looking elsewhere. He concludes by discussing the consequences of sin, including death, and reflects on the sorrow and hardships experienced by Adam and Eve as a result of their disobedience. Greetings, this is David Paschal, the host of the Shema Israel podcast. We're excited to be able to bring the teaching and preaching from God's precious word. So let's begin our journey through the Jewish Scriptures. When we talk about the Jewish Scriptures, we're talking about the whole of the Bible. Some people have an idea that the Bible's been divided, and that it was written by man, and that it's contradictory, but actually, the 66 books in our Bible are complementary. They teach us the beginning, and they show us what takes place at the end. So here you have an incredible, amazing miracle that we call the Bible, or the Jewish Scriptures, or the Tanakh, or the Torah, or whatever you want to call it. It is essentially the Bible, and the Bible is not like any other book in the world. It is a book that's been, you know, attempted to be destroyed. It's still here with us, and it's impacted more lives than any book in the entire creation beginning of time. We find everything in this book. From the beginning, we find that God created the heavens and the earth. God created everything that was on the earth, and even the things that are under the earth, and even the seas, and the fishes in the seas, and the whales, and the birds, and the animals that roam on land, and yes, even man, which is so significantly created. God created man in his own image, in his own likeness, and so we are, if you will, a shadow of what God is as human beings. We don't have all the power that God has, but God created us like himself. He gave dominion to us over the sea. He gave us dominion over the fishes, over the fowls, over the animals, and this is a blessing that God has given to us to be able to, you know, be good stewards of what he's created. But we have a problem, and that problem was introduced back in the book of Genesis in chapter 3. It's going all the way back to this idea of the evil and the good in the world today. Yes, there's evil, and there's good in the world today. And if you would take time to spend time reading in the Bible with us from the book of Genesis or Revelation, you see one incredible redemption story unfolding from what took place in the beginning and what's going to take place in the last chapter in the book of Revelation. In Genesis chapter 3, we read about, in the beginning, you know, how that God created the heavens and the earth in chapter 1, and then chapter 2, how he created man. And then in chapter 3, we see that there was evil that was introduced into the garden, and the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said you shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, For through the tree which is in the midst of the garden God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die, for God doth know that in the day that ye eat thereof that your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as God's knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat. Now what's interesting is up to this point, Adam and Eve didn't know what evil was. And so it's kind of like people do things they don't know about and wish they didn't. After the fact, in her situation, Satan lied and manipulated her and tricked her into something that he wanted her to do. And I guess we can take away from that lesson that, you know, it doesn't necessarily mean it's a good thing if we haven't done it, especially when we know we shouldn't and we feel tempted to do it. I think about people that have ruined their lives through, you know, experimenting with things like drugs and alcohol. Once you do some things, there's no going back. And unfortunately, some people lose their lives because of things that they've done, and there's no way to redeem them. There's no way to bring them back from the dead, per se. So we have to be careful because we have the same enemy Adam and Eve had back in the garden, and he would seek to deceive us and lead us astray. In the days in which we're living, men call evil good and good evil. And it's so relevant today. If you look at what is accepted as the norm in society, it isn't right. It's not normal. We call good evil and evil bad. It's almost like we don't know the difference. We can't even discern what's right and what's wrong anymore. Some people teach their kids, yeah, if you get, you know, caught stealing, you're going to be in trouble. But they don't tell the kids not to steal. Same thing with lying. You know, people lie every day, and they don't even think about it. It's just part of the way they live their life. And yet when they get caught, well, they get caught. They wouldn't have to worry about getting caught if they didn't lie. Well, in the garden, Adam and Eve fell. And unfortunately for us, ever since that day, men and women have been born with a nature that we call a sinful nature or an Adamic nature. But God, in His love, wanted to provide a way to redeem us. And even back in the book in Genesis chapter 3 and verse 15, we see this kind of being alluded to, being taught. And I like to think of this as the first prophecy of the coming Redeemer or the Messiah or the Savior of humanity. And it says, and I'll start in verse 14 of Genesis 3, And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle and above every beast of the field. Upon thy belly shalt thou go, and thus shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. In verse 15, and here's that prophecy or that promise of a Redeemer. And I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed. Now, that word enmity means adversaries. That our adversary is not our friend. He's our adversary. He may play like he's our friend, but he has nothing but evil intent for our lives. And I'm talking about the enemy, the devil. You know, in the Gospel of John chapter 10, the Bible talks about, And the Lord Jesus Christ was speaking to His disciples, and He said, the thief. And I believe that verse in John 10.10 refers to the enemy, the devil. The thief cometh not before to steal, to kill, and to destroy. But Jesus goes on to say in the same verse, I am come that they might have life, that they might have it more abundantly. And I want to encourage you to know that it is God's will for you to have a blessed life, not a messed up life. It's the will of the enemy to mess your life up and to make you regret living to make you depressed and make you discouraged and make you feel hopeless. God is not interested in making us feel hopeless. He is the one who can help us. And often we look everywhere for help other than the one that can truly give us the help we need. But going back into this text in verse 15, And I will put enmity between thee and the woman between thy seed and her seed. It shall bruise thy head and not shall bruise his heel. Ultimately, the work of the enemy will be defeated. But along the way, mankind in general is going to have to suffer the consequences of the fallen nature that he's inherited. You know, if you think about the world around us, you think about the sadness, and you think about how we should be happier than we've ever been, especially in America. We have more prosperity in this country than probably any country in the world. Yet we've likely got more depressed people in this country than we do any country in the world because we believe a narrative that's not true. We think happiness is found somewhere outside of the will of God. But the will of God is good and acceptable and perfect. And so, my desire when I was in the military back in 1986, I thought about the things. I didn't grow up in church. I didn't grow up religious. But I thought about everything I tried, and I said to myself one day, you know, I've tried everything but God. How does somebody try God? You think you tried everything? Well, I didn't try everything, but I tried everything I thought I would want to try to find happiness. And I found out that sin, and that's often what we associate happiness with, is, you know, things that are sinful. Things that, well, you use that old word, sinful. Yeah, sinful things. The Bible talks about the pleasures of sin are good but for a season. But the Bible also teaches about the wages of sin, which is death. Now, you go to work every day, and you get a wage to go to work, and that wage is what you're counting on because you've earned for it. But, you know, there's a wage the Bible talks about, which is sin, and the wages of sin is death. And so, ultimately, because of our sins, we all die. Even back in Genesis chapter 3 and verse 15, that's why Adam and Eve died, because of sin. Let's go back to the text in Genesis chapter 3. Verse number 16, unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow, and thy conception in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. And on Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it, cursed is the ground for thy sake, in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life, thorns also, and thistles shall it bring forth to thee, and thou shalt eat the herb of the field. In verse 19 of Genesis 3, In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground, for out of it wast thou taken, for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. And if you would, let's reflect again on verse 15, And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, between thy seed and her seed, it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. So in verse 20 of Genesis 3, Adam calls his wife's name Eve, and that word Eve is a significant word, and it has the idea of mother of life. Mother of life. And so, you know, there's, amongst Christians, especially in Catholicism, there's a really big emphasis on Mary. That, you know, Mary, because of Mary we can continue to live, and yet in reality, Mary is a lady, like every other lady, in the sense that she needs a redeemer too, and she was looking forward to and hoping for the one who would come and would redeem humanity. So we go to the book of Luke, and we look in the Gospel of Luke, and as we look in the Gospel of Luke, we see there's a passage here that refers to what we read in Genesis chapter 3 and verse 15, and it says here that the angel appears to Mary and tells Mary about the Messiah that's in her womb. And so in Luke chapter 1 and verse number 26, and in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God onto a city of Galilee named Nazareth to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David, and the virgin's name was Mary. And the angel came in unto her and said, Hail, thou that art highly favored, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women. And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind, what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favor with God. And behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest. And the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David. And he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever. In his kingdom there shall be no end. Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? She at this point had never had relations with any man. We think of her as a virgin Mary. She is truly a virgin at this point in her life. And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee. Therefore also the Holy Thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. The Son of God? The Messiah? The Savior? The one that was promised back in the book of Genesis in chapter 3 and verse 15 that through the seed of a woman a Messiah was going to come which was going to undo the works of the enemy? Yes, this is the one that's coming. And Mary gets to understand that. Mary gets to be a part of that. And so Mary says this before we get there. Verse number 36 of Luke chapter 1, And behold, thy cousin Elizabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren. For with God... And folks, this is just encouraging all the way around. For with God nothing shall be impossible. You may say, well, my life's impossible right now. Well, trust the Lord right now. Give every burden that you have to God right now. Because the Bible says, For with God nothing shall be impossible. Now, verse 38 is a key verse in Luke chapter 1. And Mary said, Behold the handmaiden of the Lord, be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her. And so Mary accepted the responsibility of, yes, some people say the mother of God, the mother of the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, came through a virgin Mary that was a Jewess. And this was prophesied as well in the Bible. Let me show you. In the book of Isaiah chapter 7, let's look around verse number 13. And he said, Hear ye now, O house of David, is it a small thing for you to weary men? But will you weary my God also? Verse 14, Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold, a virgin shall conceive a bare son, and shall call his name Immanuel. And that word Immanuel means God with us. And the name Jesus means God is salvation. We would say it in Hebrew, the name Jesus Yeshua, or God our Savior. And so this is a promise that through the seed of a woman, a Messiah would come, not only any woman, but a virgin's womb, a Messiah would come, and his name would be called Immanuel, which means God with us. And we see how this is fulfilled in the New Testament, this prophecy in the Old Testament. Going back to the Gospel of Matthew chapter 1, verse number 18, the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise, when as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, physically had the union of husband and wife. They were espoused, but they had not consummated the marriage. So it's important that we remember that. Before they came together, she was found with the child of the Holy Ghost. Then Joseph, her husband, being a just man and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily. But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins." Again, that Hebrew name, Yeshua, the Savior of humanity, God our Savior. Verse 22 of Matthew chapter 1, Now all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is God with us. See how God fulfills His promises? Verse 24, Matthew 1, Then Joseph, being raised from the sleep, said as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife, verse 25, and knew her not, they had no physical union, according to the Bible, according to even Joseph's account, and he knew her not until she had brought forth her firstborn son, and he called his name Jesus. He called his name Jesus. Now, the Bible says in the Bible, this name Jesus is God's salvation. God's salvation. John 3, 16, The Bible says, For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. And it goes on to say, For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but rather through Him that the world might be saved. Let's look at that text, if you would, in the book of John chapter 3. So if you would, let's look over in the Gospel of John chapter 3 in verse 15. That whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting or eternal life. The text says eternal life. Verse 16, John 3, For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. Verse 17 says, For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He that believeth on Him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And so here we see this is every person in the world has to understand that the way to get to heaven is to accept God's plan of salvation. And God's plan of salvation was a plan from the beginning. And we see it stated in the book of Genesis chapter 3 in verse 15 where it talks about through the seed of a woman a Messiah will come which will bruise Satan's head. And in the Bible, in the book of Romans in chapter number 10 in verse 13, the Bible says, For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And it doesn't matter your background, your heritage, how you grew up. There's only one Savior for every one of us forever, and that is the loving, gracious Lord Jesus. You say, well, you call Him loving and gracious. Yes, because He laid down His life for us so that through His sacrifice we could have eternal life. See, the Bible says in the book of Romans chapter 10, I like to use verse 12 to make this clear. For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon Him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And that name that we need to call upon is Jesus, God's Son, the one who came as the Savior of the world, the one who came to be the sacrifice. John the Baptist looked to Him and said, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world. And as we study the Shema Israel podcast, we look at all of the Bible. We see in the Old Testament, not that it's outdated, but in the Old Testament you see that God ordained a sacrificial system where people offered up lambs and rams and bullocks and goats. And these were sacrifices for a variety of things, but some specifically were offered for sins. And so the statement that John the Baptist stated when he saw Jesus in the wilderness, he said, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world. Well, I trust that this has been an interesting 25 minutes of your time today, and I would like to encourage you, if you would be so kind as to come visit us. We meet on Sundays at 2.30 here in Long Beach, New York at the People's Church. Now we're the Olive Branch Baptist Church. We meet at 2.30 on Sundays, and our address is 111 Delaware Avenue in Long Beach, New York. That's 111 Delaware Avenue, Long Beach, New York. So I'd like to invite you to come to services. Services last about an hour, and after then we have time of refreshment, get to know each other, talk about the message, or pray for each other, encourage one another, or just have a good time together. And so that's Sundays at 2.30, and the address again is 111 Delaware Avenue in Long Beach, New York, the Olive Branch Baptist Congregation. Also, if you'd like, you could email me. Now I have several emails. This one I'm going to give you is dapfishing at aol.com. That's dapfishing at aol.com. Also, you can check us out on the web at OliveBranchBaptist.com OliveBranchBaptist.com If you have any comments or suggestions, please feel free to reach out to me. Also, I would like to encourage you to consider coming back to the podcast each week to hear new insights from the scriptures. Also, I would encourage you to like us. If you would like us and subscribe to us, that would be a great blessing. And as always, I look forward to speaking to you next week right here on the Shema Israel podcast. Until then, God bless you, and have a blessed day.