Intro

What a week last week was!  The men that we often associate with being stalwarts for God and even the New Testament calls them faithful men, we saw sin in some really unfortunate ways.  A man who can crush the head of satan will have to be a man who can stay strongest even when the temptation is great to sin.  We are going to need someone sinless.  Is there really a man like that?  Wouldn’t this all be easier if God just sent Himself to rescue us and not worry about a man being our rescuer from the enemy?  This week we will look at the reasons why it had to be a man who could defeat the enemy the way God has always worked in the world through his relationship with mankind.

Day 1-All Creation Needed a Savior

• Let’s take today and look at the reason why it was necessary for a Man to come as the Savior that is mentioned from Genesis 3:15.  When God created man in the Garden of Eden, He gave him a specific job to do. 
• Read Genesis 1:28. 
  • What did God command Adam to do with the creation God had made?
  • When you think of “dominion”, what do you think about?  What does exercising “dominion” look like to you?
  • In the Hebrew, this word is used to mean to rule over or to reign over.  Adam was created with the intention of taking care of and reigning over all of creation.  This included Adam ruling over the serpent who was sneaky enough to slither his way over to Eve and tempt her to break the rules.  Had Adam exercised this God given role, the situation in the garden might have looked a little different (but based on what we learned about Noah, Abraham and David, it probably would not have looked different for long!)
• Read Genesis 3:17-18
• Read the first part of Romans 8:20. 
  • While humanity’s relationship with God has been damaged as a result of Adam and Eve’s sin in the garden, what else was damaged as well? 
• Read Psalm 8. 
  • What do you learn about the special relationship between God and man?  What did God always have in mind for mankind (vv5-8)?
• Read Revelation 21:5. 
  • What does it say will be new?
• It is not just humanity that needs to be rescued, it is all of creation that needs to be reborn as well!  We can see both from God’s command to Adam in 1:28 as well as Psalm 8 that the care for the earth and God’s creation had been given to the man, Adam.  To restore mankind is to restore all of creation back to its intended state as well.  And rightfully, this should be reigned over by a man.  But in order for the same situation with Adam to not rear its ugly head again, we will need a very special man indeed!

“For by Him, all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities – all things were created through Him and for Him.” – Colossians 1:16

Day 2-Covenants

• We saw yesterday that while the seed of Eve so far is not looking very promising to help restore everything back to its original state, it does make sense that creation has suffered, as well as humanity and it was always God’s intention for a man to have dominion over creation.  So for creation to be restored, a man will be needed to exercise rule over it (properly this time). 
• The covenants that God makes with men over the course of history have served to govern His people and His creation.  It is a picture of mankind’s dominion, a God ordained work.  Covenant is a word that does not often come up in the course of conversation.  We might instead say two parties came to an agreement, or they made a promise to each other, but the implication there is a covenant. 
• In the case of Adam and God, God chose Adam as His first man to live and work in the garden, and Adam agreed to work and be fruitful and multiply and do what God asked him to.  This included not eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.  However we read in Hosea 6:7, that Adam transgressed this covenant and then after him came others that broke covenants that God established.  We will take the next few days and look at the covenants that God established with men over the course of history.  Yesterday we looked at the covenant with Adam and creation, today we will look at the covenant God made with Noah and then with Abraham.
• Read Genesis 9:8-17.
  • What is the covenant God initiates with Noah?
  • Who else does this covenant include?
  • What was the purpose of the covenant?
  • What is the sign of the covenant?
• Read Genesis 9:1-3
  • Note the similarities between what God commanded Noah after the flood and what God commanded Adam in the garden in Genesis 1:28-30.
• We looked at Noah last week as a possibility for the seed of a woman who could defeat our enemy.  We see God flood the earth and start it fresh again with only one family present.  This family is led by a righteous and blameless Noah, who is known to walk with God.  This a continuation of the creation covenant started with Adam, but renewed again with Noah, another man who is like another Adam.  But we know from what we saw of Noah last week, he is very much like Noah in that he sins as well.  However, because God is always faithful to keep His side of the agreement, the rainbow reminds us each and every time we see its glorious colors in the sky, God has yet to every flood the earth again.  And all the while….man continues to fail to live up to his end of the agreement.
• If we know that God is faithful to keep His promises, this means that promise from Genesis 3:15 will be kept too.  Let’s look at the agreement God made with the righteous man that comes after Noah, the father of the nation of Israel, Abraham.  While people begin to populate and move about the earth, God calls out a special man to begin a nation of chosen people who God will call His own.  While this might look like a brand new agreement God is making with man, it is actually a continuation of the garden again.  God always desired that His creation would be governed over appropriately, but He also a desired a people after His own heart.  Adam and Eve were to be those people and create generations that would follow in worship and adoration of their Lord and Creator.  But as these people continue to transgress the covenants through disobedience, God again sets out to create a people to call His own.
• Read Genesis 15:1-21; 17:1-14. 
  • What agreement does God make with Abraham (there are two parts, one for land and one for people)?
  • What is Abraham’s response to the covenant?
  • What was the purpose of this covenant?
  • What is the sign of the covenant? 
  • Here we see the promise of new land (Canaan, a promised land symbolized as a new Eden) and the promise of an entire nation of people who will descend from Abraham (a seed of woman) who will produce nations and kings.  These will be God’s special people (symbolizing the return of an Adam and Eve and the people of God). 
  • Notice something unique though in the covenant God made with Adam and Noah versus the covenant with Abraham.
• Read Genesis 1:28 and 9:1. 
  • Who will be responsible for the command to be fruitful and multiply in the covenants of Adam and Noah?
• Now read Genesis 17:2-4. 
  • Who will be responsible for the command to be fruitful and multiply in the covenant with Abraham?
  • Why do you think this is different?  (HINT:  Think about the way the church grows now in the New Testament era?  Who is responsible for new believers coming into the fold?)
• While Abraham marks a continuation of the covenant of God to establish His creation and His people, Abraham is the first to be told that God will multiply him and God will make him fruitful.  This will no longer be from Abraham’s effort, but will now be from God’s!  Not that Abraham doesn’t have some …well we’ll call it “work” to do…but in our current day, evangelism is our work as well.  However, the results are fully the work of God!

“For by grace you have been saved, through faith.  And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God” – Ephesians 2:8

Day 3-Another Covenant

• So far this week we have seen a covenant to restore creation and a covenant to restore a people for God.  But if you will recall, a covenant is a two-sided agreement.  God requires some things to be done in His way (which is always the best way) and we are to obey God’s requirements.  Today, we will look at the Mosaic Covenant.
• Before we get into the Mosaic Covenant let’s refresh our memory about the Covenant God made with Abraham.  It included two promises.
• Read Genesis 17:1-8. 
  • What are the two promises God makes to Abraham in His covenant with Him?
• Fast forward over 400 years later and the nation that God promised has come to fruition and they have left the land of bondage (Egypt) and are now headed for the promised-land (Canaan).  But to maintain the land they’ll have to abide by some requirements God has for them.  Sounding familiar?
• Read Exodus 19:1-6.   
  • What is this covenant about?
  • Who all is included in this covenant?
• Read Exodus 20:1-17.
• Then read Exodus 24:1-3.
  • What are the 10 simple rules that God gives them to follow in order to be a people of His own possession?
  • In the Garden of Eden there was no need for Adam and Eve to fear God.  Perhaps this was a means of easy temptation for satan to use.  But read Exodus 20:18-20. 
    • How do the Israelites feel about God at this point and how might this be useful to prevent sin in the future?
  • In the second passage of Exodus what do the Israelites decide about their participation in the covenant?
• Read Deuteronomy 7:6-11.
  • Why is God continuing to covenant with the new nation of Israel, despite the sin of Adam, Noah and Abraham? Before we read today’s final passage, knowing what you know about man, how well do you think the new Israelite nation is going to keep up their end of the covenant?
• Read Deuteronomy 30:11-20 and 31:24-29.
  • What are some similarities between the first passage and the blessings and curses that God gives Adam and Eve in the Garden (Genesis 2:15-17)?
  • What does Moses know will happen to the nation eventually?
• We know how things worked out in the garden, we saw the sin of Noah after God restored creation, we see the sin of Abraham when God restores a people to Himself, we now see the sin of the nation when God restores a people to their promised inheritance.  In a sense, this is like a return of Adam and Eve to the garden.  This is a fresh start for creation and the people God has taken as His own possession.  But true to man’s nature is the inability to keep the righteous standards of God and therefore break the covenant again.  Walking with God daily was not enough to keep Adam and Eve from sinning and now fear of God is still not enough to keep man in obedience to God.

Day 4-The Final Covenant

• You might be wondering why we keep looking at God’s covenants with man.  We will look at one more today and hopefully shed some light on how this all fits in with the need for a man to come and restore a people and a creation.  You are already seeing that creation suffers because of man’s sin, and man is quite clearly unable to keep the covenant with God.  Yet, God has promised a seed of woman to come and crush the head of the enemy.  All the men we have seen so far are falling far short of someone who has the ability to defeat satan.  Today we will consider the final covenant that God made with mankind in the Old Testament.  This covenant says that while the nation of Israel continues to fall into sin and inheriting curses instead of blessings, there is a new covenant telling of a coming King!  Surely a King is just what the nation needs to be victorious over satan!
• Read 2 Samuel 7:1-17.
  • What is the covenant about?
  • Who is this covenant with?
  • Who will benefit from the covenant made?
• Notice in the covenant with both Abraham and Moses there was a required response from Abraham and then the nation of Israel.  But there is no involvement from David.  God will continue the line of David and establish his throne forever, regardless of what David does.
• Now read 2 Samuel 11:1-27.
  • This is a difficult passage to hear about a man who God has anointed to rule His people, watch over them and is told God will continue his lineage and reign over Israel forever.  David is disciplined for his behavior with Bathsheba and Uriah, but God never breaks His covenant promise.  We are seeing repeatedly that God will not turn unfaithful to His plan for a people and a creation for Himself, no matter how bad the people stumble.  David is no exception.  As you journey through the kings of both Judah and Israel after David dies, it is apparent they are equally as sinful as any man that came before them.  How is it that God will bring an offspring of woman from David’s line?  Man is clearly wicked.
  • It is apparent that there is no reason God can have an expectation of David or any king to follow him in maintaining His covenant.  They have no ability to do so.
• Read Deuteronomy 28:36-51.
  • In verse 36 who does God say He will enact His curse upon?
  • What are some of the curses God lays out in this passage for disobeying the law given to them through Moses?
• The blessings and curses of keeping or not keeping the rules God gave the nation Israel under Moses leadership are clearly defined.  This was a period long before any king had been anointed over Israel.  God already knew the sinfulness of man, knew they would not obey His righteous standards no matter the king God put in place and promised them that for their disobedience they would be carried away into exile and serve a harsh foreign nation.
• Several generations after King David dies, these curses become their reality.  The nation of Israel finds themselves taken away to foreign lands, serving pagan kings and learning pagan customs.  What do we make of God’s promise to David to continue his lineage and to have his line reign forever when there is no king at all over Israel?
• Tomorrow we’ll look at the prophets that spoke of the man to come who would come of the line of David and reign over God’s people forever.  And believe it or not…the prophecy starts sooner than you might think.

Day 5-Who Will He Be?

• As you think back on this week notice what God always covenants with.  He covenants with man.  He does not covenant with the trees, or with the heavens, He makes no promises to the fruit of the land or the oceans.  He makes and fulfills His promises to the most amazing part of His creation; man.  When considering the promise of the offspring of woman to come and defeat the enemy, that God always created man to have reign over his creation and man is always God’s covenant partner, it is right to fully trust that the seed to come would absolutely have to be a man.  And while much of what we have done to this point is inference from our reading about a man to come, today we will look at specific passages that speak to this truth.
• Read Deuteronomy 18:15-18.
  • God promises something new to His people in this passage.  What is it?
  • What is the role of this person to come?
  • What should the Israelites response be to the person God says will come?
• Moses is in essence the first true leader of the Israelite clan.  And while it is presumable that he might be the offspring to come and restore creation and mankind back to God, we see him sin through Scripture as well.  God begins to assure the people that while Moses is not the one to come, there is certainly one who will.
• Read Numbers 24:17-19.
  • Balaam speaks of one to come.   How does he describe him?
  • What lineage will this new ruler come from?
  • What will this new ruler do?
• Balaam was a pagan diviner who tried to seek out and reveal the will of the gods through potions and rituals.  This was not a man who was of the nation of Israel, he did not know Yahweh, the Lord, but God still uses him to bless his people and to tell of another one that would come.  Balaam says, he is coming, but not yet (v17). 
• Read Genesis 49:10.
  • What similarities do you see between what God says about the clan of Judah, to what Balaam says about the people of Jacob?
• Now read Isaiah 7:14.
  • Who does it say will come?
• This passage sounds familiar doesn’t it?  It is often the one you hear each Christmas season to remind us that the promise of the Messiah to come had been spoken of long before Jesus ever came to earth.  Matthew 1:23 uses this same scripture and says that it was fulfilled in Jesus’s coming to earth.  The man that Isaiah spoke of, most likely without realizing it, was Jesus.
• Much of Isaiah’s ministry is warning the Israelites of the curses from Deuteronomy that will soon come to pass.  He tells his people that exile is coming because of their transgression of the covenant that their ancestors agreed to at Mount Sinai under Moses’s headship.  But Isaiah’s prophecy is not all doom, he also foretells of a great hope.
• Read Isaiah 11:1-5.
  • Isaiah speaks of a man to come to.  What family line is the man coming from? 
  • What notable offspring came from this man that Isaiah speaks of?
  • We see the covenant that God made with David continuing to be fulfilled.  The line of Jesse through David is bearing a new man.
  • Where will this man get his power? (v2)
  • How would you characterize the man that Isaiah speaks of?
• Now read Isaiah 52:13-53:3.
  • Isaiah is speaking of the same man who will come from the root of Jesse and will judge in righteousness.
  • How is the man described in the passage from Isaiah 52 and 53?
  • How is the nation of Israel going to respond to the man that will come?
• God’s special man to redeem and restore His people and His creation is this man, from the line of Jesse, a king through David who will reign in righteousness, the prophet that Moses spoke of to come, the the star of Jacob as told by Balaam and the man that would be despised and rejected because there was absolutely nothing spectacular about him.  This man will appear so normal and ordinary, coming from nothing that it will be almost impossible to believe He could save anyone from anything. 
• One last passage for today and this week. Read Jeremiah 31:31-34.
  • God references the old covenant.  Which of the covenants you learned about this week is God referring to?
  • How will the new covenant be different?
• God always covenants with mankind.  But mankind continually falls short.  It is now time for something new.  But just as always God needs a man to mediate the covenant.  Noah was the mediator of his covenant to continue to be fruitful and multiply, Abraham represented the covenant of circumcision and the nation of Israel that developed from him, Moses mediated the covenant of the law given at Mount Sinai and David was the representative of the covenant for the continuing reign of a king over God’s people.  So for a new covenant to be established, we will yet again need a man to mediate it.  But now you’re getting a good idea of just who this man will be.