count, for the Bible tells us that it was "In the beginning," God made
the heaven and the earth.
The earth on which we live now, where there are trees and beautiful
flowers, and horses and cows, as well as men and women and children,
was quite empty then. It was always dark there in those days, and all
the ground was covered with water!
You can think how desolate it must have been: nothing to be seen but
mist and darkness!
But God had not forgotten this earth of ours.
And we read another thing in the Bible about "In the beginning," and
that is, that Jesus the Son of God was "in the beginning with God."
That is such a comforting thought! Before our world was prepared for us
to live on, Jesus was with God in Heaven!
You children love your fathers and mothers very much; you like to go on
their messages, and to do what you can to help them, do you not? The
Lord Jesus loved to do God's will, and to carry out all His Father gave
Him to do.
And what do you think God did give Him to do? Perhaps you have begun to
guess!
God His Father gave Him the wonderful work of making our earth, and
preparing it all for us to live on!
It says in the Bible "All things were made by Him, and without Him was
not anything made that was made."
So the first thing that happened when God began to prepare this earth
for men to live on, was that God's Spirit came and "brooded" over the
dark waters that covered the earth.
You wonder what that means? Perhaps you have seen a hen sitting day
after day on the nest of eggs, and "brooding" over them till they get
warmth and life?
Well, that is what the word means! God's Holy Spirit came near our
earth, and surrounded it with His warmth and love.
And then God said, "Let there be light!" or "Let the light come!"
And lo! Instead of the dark waters and deep shadow, there came a
shining over the earth; and God called the light Day, and the darkness
He called Night.
Next to the day and night, God made the air and the sky and the clouds.
And He told the sea to stay where it was, and the sky to stay above the
earth, and He called the sky Heaven.
But still there was no land to be seen; so in His wonderful power, God
told the sea to go back to a certain distance, and then the mountains
and the hills and the plains stood out, and the earth was ready to be
furnished for us men, who were to live on it.
So God our Father, and Jesus Christ our Saviour, and the Holy Spirit
our Comforter, all prepared this beautiful earth for us.
It is God's power (by His wonderful laws) which holds the earth up in
the sky, so that it does not tumble out of its place.
And it is His power which brought the trees and the grass, the flowers
and the corn, the fruit and the vegetables to make us happy.
And now came something else.
God planned for us to have the beautiful sun to cheer us, and to tell
us what time of day it is; and He gave us the moon to shine at night,
and also to remind us what time of the month we have reached. He set
them in the sky to make us happy, and to remind us every day of His
love and power. Then God made the fishes and the birds, the cattle
and the sheep, as well as the lions and tigers, the horses and the
elephants.
And not only the large animals, but the little ants and bees and
caterpillars—everything that lives on this earth.
But there were no men or women or children there, yet.
Then God talked to the Lord Jesus about it; for we are told in the
first Chapter of Genesis that He said "Let us make man . . . after our
likeness."
So God made Adam and Eve, and blessed them, and promised to give them
some little children, and told them He had made everything on the earth
to make them happy and to do them good.
And then God saw that His work was very good; nothing had been left
out, it was perfect! Every leaf was perfect, every flower, every
insect, every animal, every star; all were very good!
Thus the heavens and the earth were made, and God rested on the seventh
day, and blessed the seventh day, because in it, He rested from all His
work which He had done.
This is why we have Sunday; and we shall find that in keeping His day
of Holy Rest, we too are promised a great blessing for "in keeping His
Commandments there is great reward."
XXVIII. Adam and Eve
When God made the earth ready for men and women and children to live
in, He made a beautiful garden called Eden, and there God put Adam and
Eve who were the first man and the first woman.
[Illustration: THE GARDEN OF EDEN]
In this garden they were very good and happy. God himself used to come
down and talk to them in the cool of the evening.
He told Adam and Eve that He had made everything for them, and that the
trees with their sweet fruit were for their food.
But God gave them one command. He said they were not to eat the fruit
of one particular tree in the garden. God knew the fruit of this tree
would make Adam and Eve very unhappy, if they ate it.
Now I must explain to you that there were some of God's angels who had
been very disobedient, and they had been shut out of heaven because
they would not obey God.
Adam and Eve were very happy, as I said, and they did not think of
disobeying God till Satan (that wicked angel who tries to make us do
naughty things) hid himself in a serpent, and came to Eve and began to
talk to her.
Eve was not surprised that a serpent could talk to her, for so many
wonderful things were around her, that she listened to him, and
answered him, without thinking it was any harm.
This is how temptation often comes to us, children!
Satan began by asking Eve a very clever question. He said, "Are you
sure God has said that you may not eat of every tree in the garden?"
Then Eve said eagerly, "We may eat of every tree except one; but if we
eat of that one we shall have to die!"
Then the serpent said to Eve, "You will not have to die! You will only
be a great deal more wise than you are now!"
And so Eve looked longingly at the tree, and when she saw that the
fruit looked so nice, and heard that it would make her clever, she
forgot all about obeying God, and picked the fruit and ate it, and gave
some to Adam her husband, and he ate it too.
[Illustration: PICKED THE FRUIT AND ATE IT.]
Oh, how sad was their disobedience, and what sorrow it brought on them
and their children!
So the Lord God sent them out of the beautiful garden, because there
was in the midst of the garden the Tree of Life, and God did not wish
them to eat of that tree now.
So He put angels at the gate of Eden with a flaming sword, to keep the
way of the Tree of Life.
Then Adam and Eve went out sorrowfully from their lovely garden, and
Adam had to work very hard in digging the ground to plant things to
grow for that food.
Eve was very sad too, and in the end they both had to die, as God had
said.
But God is very pitiful, and when He was telling Eve how wrong she had
been, and what a cruel enemy the Serpent was, He promised her that some
day a Deliverer should come, who should destroy the serpent, Satan.
This Deliverer is Jesus Christ our Saviour, Who came to earth to live
and to die for us, that He might undo all that Satan had done to hurt
us, and make all who will trust Jesus, happy in heaven for ever.
And in the Revelation, we read a beautiful promise, which tells us
something about Heaven that we never could have guessed when we saw
poor Adam and Eve driven out of Eden—
"To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the Tree of Life,
which is in the midst of the Paradise of God!"
XXIX. Cain and Abel
By and by God gave Adam and Eve two sons. The eldest was named Cain,
who helped Adam till the ground; and the younger was named Abel, who
was a keeper of sheep.
After a time, both these young men brought an offering to the Lord;
and the Lord accepted the offering of Abel, which was a lamb from the
flock, but He could not accept the offering of fruit which Cain brought.
Perhaps you wonder at that, dear children? But I will try to explain
it to you. God looks on the heart, and Abel's heart was obedient. He
brought that which God had appointed as the way to come to Him. But
Cain was not obedient; he thought that the fruit of the ground which he
had taken such trouble to grow, would do just as well!
So when he found that God did not accept his offering, he was very
angry, and his countenance fell.
And the Lord said to him, "Why are you angry, Cain? If you do well,
shall it not be accepted? And if you do not do well, a Sin-offering
lies at the door."
I think that GOD meant Cain to understand that it was only by a
Sacrifice that we can come near to Him. And when, all through the Old
Testament, we read of the sacrifice of a lamb as an offering for sin,
God accepted the lamb, because He looked on to the time when the Lord
Jesus would be "The Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the
world."
But Cain did not heed God's gentle persuasion, that he too could bring
a sin-offering; and presently, when he was alone with his brother, he
got more and more angry, and at last rushed at him and struck him and
killed him!
Oh, the misery of poor Cain! No one can tell how he longed to undo that
cruel deed. No one knows the sorrow and punishment of his whole life.
Children, let it be a warning to us not to let anger and jealousy live
in our hearts, but let us pray every day, "Deliver me from Satan, the
Evil one, who would tempt me to sin against Thee, and accept me, for
Jesus' sake!"
XXX. The Escape from Sodom
Then the two angels rose up and went towards Sodom, and the Lord
remained talking with Abraham.
He told Abraham that He intended to destroy Sodom, because the city was
so very wicked!
Now Abraham knew that his nephew Lot was living there, and he begged
God to spare Sodom if there were fifty good people there. And the Lord
promised to spare it if there were!
But Abraham began to fear there were not so many; and he kept on asking
the Lord, till at last he got down to ten! and the Lord said He would
spare it for ten's sake.
And then the Lord went on His way, and Abraham went back to his home.
But when the angels got to Sodom, they could not even find ten who
loved God!
They found Lot and his family, and urged them to escape for their lives
across the plain, and not once to look behind them, for Sodom was going
to be burned all up!
So Lot escaped with his wife and two daughters and fled for his life.
But his wife was disobedient to God's message, and turned to look back,
and she was turned into a pillar of salt.
And so the great and wicked city was destroyed by a terrible judgment
from the Lord, but Lot was saved!
Dear children! God has sent Jesus to be our Saviour, let us fly to Him
from our sins, and so be safe for ever in His happy, happy land.
XXXI. The Tower of Babel
"What a great tower!" says someone. "And how high it is! Look; the
houses are so small down there on that great sort of field, and the
tower is going to be built higher still, because, you see, it is not
finished!"
You are quite right! That beautiful tower never was finished, though it
was begun four thousand years ago!
I told you about the Flood; and this is the next story after the Flood.
You remember that when the rain stopped, and God allowed the waters to
go down, the tops of the mountains began to be seen, and then the green
fields were uncovered, and Noah and his children and all the animals
were able to come out of the Ark, and to begin to live on the earth
again.
But, alas, as men began to increase on the earth, they began to forget
God, and the way He had saved them in the Ark. But they remembered the
flood, and they thought in their pride, that they would build a very
high tower whose top should reach to Heaven, so that no flood could
overwhelm them any more.
But there was another thing they forgot; and that was God's promise to
them, that He never would send a flood to destroy the world again.
Then God came down from Heaven to see all that the men on the earth
were doing. And when He saw their pride and their forgetfulness of Him,
the Lord said, Let us go down and prevent the men from understanding
each other's speech.
[Illustration: THEY WOULD BUILD A VERY HIGH TOWER.]
And when God had done this, the men could not speak to each other about
their work as they used. It was just as if someone were to speak German
or Italian or Spanish to you and expect you to understand.
So the men could not build any more, for no one could understand what
the others said. So they left off building and were scattered to all
parts of the earth; and the city they had tried to build was called
Babel—which means Confusion.
But God did not forget His servant Noah, nor Noah's good son Shem.
He took care of Shem and of his children after him, and by and by of
Shem's grandchildren and great-grandchildren, till at length Abraham
was born.
And Abraham had the great honour of being called The Friend of God!
Perhaps you think how much you would like to be called such a name as
that?
Then let all of us who would like to be called God's friends set out to
be obedient.
God has put in the Bible rules which are to guide us every day. If we
follow them, that is being obedient.
Do you remember what the Lord Jesus said about that, when He was on
earth?
Here are the words,—
"Ye are My friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you."
"For whosoever shall do the Will of My Father which is in Heaven,
the same is My brother and sister and mother."
XXXII. The Friend of God
"Now the Lord had said to Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from
thy father's house, unto a land which I will shew thee; and I will make
of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee . . . and in thee shall
all families of the earth be blessed."
So Abram obeyed, and went out from Ur of the Chaldees, and came into
the land of Canaan.
God had given Abram most wonderful promises, as well as frequent
assurances of His love. He was also very rich, for God had given him a
great deal of money, and many sheep and oxen and camels.
But there was one thing which God had not given Abram, which he longed
for very much; and this was a little child of his very own.
God loved Abram, and He would not have denied him his desire without
some wise and loving reason.
God promised Abram that he should have a son, but He wished to prove
to all the world, and to the angels who are looking on at what happens
on this earth, that Abram could trust Him, and trust His promise even
though he should have to wait twenty years for it.
Abram had brought his wife Sarah, and his nephew Lot with him, when he
left his own country; but after a time he and Lot had so many sheep and
oxen that there was not grass enough for them all; so Lot chose the
land towards Sodom, and Abram dwelt in the land of Canaan.
One day the word of God came to Abram in a vision or dream, saying,
"Fear not, Abram, I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward!"
Then Abram told the Lord how he wanted a son of his own, for he had no
one to take all his riches by and by, except the servant who managed
his property.
And God promised Abram that he should have a son of his very own.
And God led him out in the night when all the beautiful stars were
shining in the deep blue sky, and God said, "Look now towards heaven,
and tell the stars if thou be able to count them"; and God said, "So
shall the number of your children be!"
And Abram believed in the Lord, and He counted it to him for
righteousness.
Do you not think, children, that as Abram walked on those lonely
mountains in Palestine, that he must often have thought "God has
promised all this land to me and my children!" And then, when he looked
up at the stars at night in the clear atmosphere, that he must have
been lost in wonder at the thousands and thousands of stars which he
saw, and have said to himself, "God promised so shall my seed be!"
The Lord Jesus, in the New Testament, tells us something about Abraham
which we do not read in Genesis.
He said "Abraham rejoiced to see my day, he saw it and was glad!"
How wonderful it is that God notices and remembers when we try to
please Him, and sees our hearts when nobody else can!
At length Abram was ninety years old, and the Lord appeared to him
again, and told him that his name should not be called Abram any more,
but Abraham, because he was to be a father of many nations. And then
God told Abraham that very soon he and Sarah were to have a little son,
and that his name was to be called Isaac.
So one day Abraham was sitting at the door of his tent in the heat of
the day, when he looked up and saw three men standing by him; and when
he saw them, he ran to meet them and bowed himself to the ground.
Perhaps Abraham guessed that one of the three men was the Lord; for
afterwards he did not seem at all surprised when the Lord spoke to him,
and promised to give Sarah a little son very soon.
At any rate he begged the three men to rest beneath the tree while he
hastened away to prepare food to refresh them.
Then he took butter and milk and a young calf which he had cooked, and
set it before them and he stood by under the tree, and they did eat.
Then they asked him where Sarah was, and Abraham answered that she was
in the tent.
And the Lord said, "I will certainly return and Sarah, thy wife, shall
have a son."
Now Sarah was just inside the tent, and when she heard the words, she
laughed within herself.
And the Lord said to Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh, saying, 'Shall I of
a surety have a child?' Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the time
appointed I will return unto thee, and Sarah shall have a son."
And Sarah was ashamed that she had doubted God's promise, and she
denied, saying, "I did not laugh," for she was afraid.
But the Lord said, "Nay, but thou didst laugh."
XXXIII. In a Thirsty Land
This is a nice story for children, because it tells us that God listens
when children pray, and sympathizes with all that happens to children.
The boy you see in the picture is almost dying for want of water.
Perhaps none of you children know how dreadful it is to be really very
thirsty, and have nothing to drink, however thirsty you may be.
Hagar, the mother of the boy, is very sad. She knows that the bottle is
empty, and she cannot see any sign of a well, or of a spring of water,
in the great sandy desert which stretches in every direction as far as
the eye can see.
Ishmael is her one child, and God has allowed them to be sent out
into the wilderness, with only a bottle of water and as much bread as
they can carry; for Hagar had been turned out of her home, and had
been obliged to take that long and dangerous journey, because of the
unkindness of her mistress Sarah.
But God was watching over her and Ishmael. He would not allow anything
to really hurt them, and in His great pity, He sent to save them when
all other help had failed.
By and by there was not one drop of water left in the bottle, and
Ishmael had no strength to walk any further.
Hagar knew that all hope was over, now that Ishmael could not walk
another step! So she laid him down under a little shrub that grew
there, and went some little distance off, for she said in her grief, "I
cannot bear to see him die."
So she sat down in her misery and cried bitterly.
But God heard the voice of the lad, and He sent His angel to call to
Hagar from heaven. "What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid, for
God has heard the voice of the lad, where he is. Arise, lift up the lad
and hold him in thine hand; for I will make of him a great nation."
Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water; and she went and
filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad drink, and he revived,
and presently got quite well.
And this is the lesson which we may learn from Ishmael's cry, children.
God knows our difficulties; God hears us when we speak to Him; God
is nearer than we think; God is more loving than the most loving of
earthly friends. He tells us to call upon Him in trouble.
Let us think of Ishmael dying for want of water, and crying to God in
his distress, and let us do the same in our troubles!
No matter how small they may seem, God says He cares.
Let us take courage, then; and if God whispers to us when we are
sorrowful (like He did to Hagar), "What aileth thee—what is the
matter?" Let us listen for another whisper, for He will surely finish
the sentence to us, as He did to Hagar, with the cheering words, "Fear
not!"
XXXIV. The Offering of Isaac
So Abraham was given his dear little son Isaac, and he was the delight
of Abraham's life, and of Sarah's too.
But by and by, God wished to try Abraham's faith more than even in that
long waiting time for Isaac. God was going to ask him to do about the
hardest thing that a man could be asked to do.
God told Abraham that he was to take his dear son whom he so fondly
loved, and to go to a mountain a long way off, in the land of Moriah,
and to offer him up to God as a sacrifice.
This was to try Abraham's obedience and faith.
Was he to take Isaac! On whom all his hopes rested, who was the joy of
his life, and through whom all the world was to be blessed; was he to
lay him upon the altar, and offer him up to God, as he did the lambs
from his flock?
But Abraham did not hesitate. If God told him to do a thing, he obeyed.
He knew that God could even raise Isaac from the dead, if He thought
good. At any rate he had nothing to do, but to obey!
So he got up very early in the morning and saddled his ass, and took
two young men with him, and his son, and the wood for the burnt
offering, and set out on his journey to the place God had told him of.
The most precious thing Abraham had was that son who was walking beside
him. And besides his love for his boy, God had promised that Isaac
should live to have a son, and that by and by the Saviour should come
into the world as one of Isaac's great-great-great-great-grandchildren!
Isaac was now grown into a strong young man, but he went with his
father; and though he asked him on the way, Where was the lamb for the
burnt offering? He was satisfied with his father's answer, "My son, God
will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt offering."
When they reached the place which God had told him of, Abraham bound
Isaac his son, and laid him upon the altar; and then he stretched out
his hand with the knife in it, to offer up his son as God had told him.
But as quickly as the knife was raised, so quickly an angel of God
called out of heaven, "Abraham, Abraham!"
Oh, how glad Abraham was to draw back that dreadful knife and answer,
"Here am I!"
And God said, "Lay not thy hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything
to him; for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not
withheld thy son, thine only son, from ME."
And when Abraham looked up, he saw a ram caught by his horns in a bush;
and he took him and offered him up instead of his son.
So Isaac was given back to his loving father, and God was very pleased
with Abraham's obedience, and He told him that in Isaac's children, by
and by, all the nations of the world should be blessed.
For in about eighteen hundred years after this, the Lord Jesus Christ
was coming to this earth to be "The Lamb of God which taketh away the
sin of the world"; and I think that when Abraham said, "God Himself
will provide a lamb," he was thinking, not only of the saving of
Isaac's life, but of that far-off day when Jesus should bear our sins,
instead of us, on the Cross of Calvary, that we may go free!
XXXV. A Bargain Between Two Brothers
By and by Isaac grew up to be a man.
Abraham and Sarah heard that in Abraham's old home in Mesopotamia, his
brother Nahor had a family of sons and daughters, and they thought it
would be very nice if Isaac could have one of these daughters for his
wife. So Abraham called Eliezer, his chief servant, and told him to
prepare for a long journey, as he wished him to bring back a wife for
his son Isaac.
Eliezer was afraid that the maiden would not come so far, but Abraham
told him that God would send His angel with him to prosper him on his
way.
So Eliezer took some valuable presents, and set out with camels and
servants to seek for a wife for his master's son.
He at length reached the city of Nahor, where Abraham used to live.
It seems that Eliezer used to pray about everything! If he could not
kneel down to pray, he prayed in his heart; and to those who tell God
everything, God sends very quick answers.
In those hot countries, the caravans stop outside the city at the well,
so that the thirsty men as well as the camels may drink.
Then Eliezer prayed, and asked God to send out the maiden to draw
water, who was to be the wife of Isaac, and to point her out to him by
her offering to draw water for the camels; and it all happened just as
he had prayed.
Rebecca came out of the city with a pitcher upon her shoulder, which
she carried to the well and filled with water.