GENESIS 4: 7

“If you do well, will not your face look up?
If you do badly a sin-offering
Is ready for you, at the opening”:
Yet Cain still made his brother taste death’s cup.

Yet Israel still rejected Jesus Christ
Who thus became the One whose suffering
For sin and sins has perfectly sufficed.

05/02/2020

"Sin lieth at the door" - "sin" and "sin-offering" are the same Hebrew word.

GENESIS 4: 8

But Abel suffered for his righteousness:
Yet if God saw His righteous servant slain
By the malicious jealousy of Cain
Abel’s remained a name God would confess.

And now man’s malice would destroy the Just,
But God ensures His Man’s Name will remain,
Because God was the centre of Christ’s trust.

31/01/20120                                        Woolwich

GENESIS 4: 4

Abel took of the firstlings of the flock
To sacrifice to God, since what is choice
Is what will make the heart of God rejoice
Despite a world where sin would dance amok.

Christ’s excellence, which answered to God’s thought,
And thus evoked the loving heavenly voice,
Made Him the offering without taint or spot.

28/01/2020

GENESIS 3: 21

Although in consequence of Adam’s sin

The calm and warmth of paradise was lost

They did not need to face earth’s wind and frost

Before God tailored for them coats of skin.

Because the Son of God was crucified
And bore for us the penalty and cost
Clothed in His worth His saints are justified.

09/02/2020

GENESIS 3: 15

But sin infected Eden: what a fall
Was there!  But there the serpent learned he’d feel
The righteous rigour of the Victor’s heel,
Because Jehovah’s hand was over all.

But he would bruise the heel of Woman’s Seed:
Christ’s sufferings were intimate and real
To liberate the grace that meets man’s need.

GENESIS 2: 21-23

It was not good that Man should be alone

God saw, and knew that He must sow and reap;

And Adam saw, resulting from his sleep

His wife, derived from him in flesh and bone.

Thus Christ now has what answers to His heart,

Though both God’s counsels and His ways were deep,

In one prepared to be His counterpart.

This is the first of a few contemplations on the death of Christ as foreseen in the early chapters of Genesis.

PRAYER FOR MY SON

(Written a long time ago; but still needed.)

Lord, as I watch this little lamb
I ask you first to shepherd me
Since as Thy wayward sheep I am
As prone to wandering as he'll be.

Help us to feed among Thy sheep
Where both of us will know Thy care;
Protect us, water us, and keep
Our footsteps from the lion's lair.

But he himself will need to learn
The way his Shepherd had to go
And in his heart himself discern
The reason for his Shepherd's woe.

Help him to learn the Shepherd's voice
And follow in the Shepherd's way
Till he will constantly rejoice
In what his Shepherd has to say.

And bring him safely home at last
Secure eternally from harm
Where no wolves roam and no winds blast
Within the shelter of Thine arm.