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The fig leaves
with which Adam and the woman covered themselves after they sinned
were not acceptable to the Lord, so He killed a lamb and covered them
with the skin of that innocent substitute.
Then the Lord taught them that in the
future He would send His Son, in perfect humanity, to die as a
substitute for them. His death would pay not only for their sins but
also for the sins of all people who would be born on this earth after
them.
Adam and Eve accepted the coats of skin
and believed the promise that God gave them about a future Saviour.
They taught their children, Cain and Abel, what God expected of them,
and the boys made a sacrifice unto the Lord as their parents had
instructed them to do.
Cain was a farmer, and he had a
beautiful vegetable garden. When the time came to offer a sacrifice to
the Lord, Cain brought the best of his produce and put it on the altar
of sacrifice, but the Lord did not accept his offering.
Abel was a shepherd, and he brought a lamb from his flock and
offered it upon the altar. Abel remembered that his parents said that
the death of an innocent substitute was the only sacrifice the Lord
would accept. The Lord was pleased with Abel's offering,
and He sent fire down from heaven to consume it.
When Cain saw that God refused his
sacrifice and accepted the lamb his brother had offered, he was very
angry, and soon afterward, when they were alone, Cain killed his
brother!
The Lord gave Adam and Eve another son
who was obedient to Him. His name was Seth. Beginning with Seth and
his family, people began to trust the Lord and believe the Word of
God.
Many hundreds of years went by, and the
population of the earth became very great. In general, people resented
God's authority because they wanted to have their own way.
God became very displeased with
everyone on the earth except one man and his family. That man was
Noah. God told Noah that he would destroy the earth with a great
flood, but before He would do that. He would give the rest of the
people 120 years to believe in Him.
At the beginning of those 120 years,
the Lord told Noah to build an ark in which he and his family would be
safe from drowning in the great flood.
While Noah was building that ark,
people would come to him and ask, "What are you doing, Noah?"
Noah would answer, "The Lord told me to
build this ark, because He is going to send a great flood to destroy
everyone on the earth who will not believe in Him."
Noah's answer usually made people
laugh, because it had never rained on the earth before. God had a kind
of sprinkler system by which He watered the growing things on the
earth.
There was an old man by the name of
Methuselah about whom the Lord said, "Methuselah will live 120 more
years, and the day he dies, I will send a flood upon the earth.
When the ark was finished, the Lord
said to Noah, "Take two of certain animals and seven of other animals
into the ark." Then, just before the 120 years were over, the Lord
said to Noah, "Bring your wife, your three sons and their wives into
the ark."
There was one door in the side of the
ark, and there was one window on the top of it. As soon as they were
all safely in the ark, the Lord shut the door. No one could leave, and
no one could enter. Then the Lord opened up the fountains of water
that were stored in the center of the earth, and He also sent rain
from heaven upon the earth for 40 days and 40 nights.
At the end of the 40 days and nights,
the Lord stopped the rain, and He let the waters rest and go back into
the earth. Plants began to be seen once more. Noah opened the window
and saw that the rain had stopped, so he sent a dove out of the ark to
bring a branch back to him.
 The
dove returned to Noah with a green twig in its mouth, and then Noah
knew it was safe for him, his family and the animals to leave the ark.
Then the Lord said to Noah, "I will
never again destroy the earth with a flood. I will put a rainbow in
the heavens, and when you see the- rainbow,-Noah, you.-will
remember-my promise."
Those eight were the only people who
did not die in the flood, and the Lord said to them, "Be fruitful and
multiply on the earth."
Noah's sons were Shem, Ham and Japheth,
and from those three sons and their wives, every person who has been
born on the earth since that time comes from the families of one of
those sons.
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