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Just like a skyscraper or a plane, when God formed man, it required norms for quality and durability.
Then, ongoing maintenance specifications must be met to keep it at its optimum functioning level. These same principles apply to planet Earth and when the Creator formed man, its human inhabitants. But, when proper upkeep is not met, water seeps in, as does mental ill-health.
I want to Uncover the Nakedness Mystery
Understand that God has wisdom and knows what He did when He formed man to possess and maintain mental health(Proverbs 3:19-20).
28 For which of you, intending to build a tower, sits not down first, and counts the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?
29 Lest haply, after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him,
30 Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish.
God has taken into account all scenarios. Just as establishing construction requirements for a building, the architect must consider earthquake, wind, and soil conditions. They must also account for tolerance and resilience when assembling a plane flying through hurricane winds for scientific measurement purposes. The structure must withstand extreme pressure and still hold together to protect its precious cargo.
God Formed Man and Woman for Prosperity and Mental Health
When God formed man and Earth, He did the same. Humans have a tolerance for altitudes, temperatures, and air intake; we live in the tropics and the Arctic. imagine if someone took one puff on a cigarette or a sugar-laced soft drink and dropped dead. We have to do a lot of misuses before the cogs get clogged, and we come to a standstill. That’s physical health. Well, the same applies to mental health.
God formed man and woman with tolerant consciousnesses and minds. We can feed our mental faculties an awful lot of junk ideas, drugs, phony practices, fake news, and lies before there are signs of a downward spiral from mental equilibrium to instability. However, there is a pivot point where this happens, and the pendulum begins to swing in the opposite direction.
Let’s look at the Biblical narrative and follow this sad story of how God formed man to stand firm mentally and why we’ve stumbled, not to say tumbled, into mental ill-heath.
And the LORD God formed (Sam: H3335 with the required qualities, durability, and resilience toward the purpose of stable mental health) man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
God put the mentally healthy couple in an ideal environment, which they disdained, succumbing to the Adversary. They ate of the forbidden Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. God told them they’d have sorrow (Gen. 3:16-17) but clothed them with coats of skins in the most unusual event before expulsing them into Eden, illico presto, and their descendants into this world.
We’ve already seen that the coats of skins represent a new nakedness adapted to their spiritual blindness. Not the wisdom and righteousness associated with the Garden of Eden but the wisdom and righteousness involved with living in their new environment, this world.
And he [Jesus] said to them, You are from beneath; I am from above: you are of this world; I am not of this world.
Christ is from the Garden of Eden, spiritual righteousness. This world is human righteousness, which we’ll define in a minute. There’s a definite distinction between Christ’s white robes, and the coats of skins God formed man to wear in this world, which represent the code of ethics humans are to don
Do Good
I want to warn you that we are about to broach a very practical subject that is theologically, totally misunderstood. Since you’re hearing this for the first time, you’ll probably need to read it a few times and do some study and meditation. It revolves around the coats of skins God dressed His formed man and woman with. What is this code of ethics?
For my people is foolish, they have not known me; they are sottish children, and they have none understanding: they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge.
The prophet Jeremiah is talking about God’s degenerate, disobedient descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Israelites. This is a spiritually UNconverted people to whom God did NOT offer spiritual conversion as He does AFTER Christ’s Death and Resurrection. Notice, these Israelites, AND the rest of the world population, then and NOW, are wise, but to do evil not good.
What evil, and especially, what good is God referring to?
8 And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.
9 And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
Here’s the theological error. We look at this Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil ONLY as an evil tree. That is not fully the case. The truth is this Tree contains the knowledge of good. What is that? It is the good that human wisdom should be able to RECOGNIZE and DO! The coats of skins portray this good, this is human righteousness.
The fact is humans have the wisdom to know we should not murder, lie, steal, commit adultery, get drunk and drive, take drugs, and blow our minds. Most people lean toward the good with some evil. Some are a mixture, while others, a minority, are on the evil side. Humans are wise enough to reason what’s good and do a minimum in that area and be conscious of it.
13 For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.
14 For when the Gentiles, which have not the law (Sam: God’s OT law, fundamentally the Ten Commandments), do by nature (Sam: human wisdom) the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves (Sam: they’ve eaten of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and decide for themselves what the laws are):
15 Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts (Sam: they choose the good), their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another (Sam: human judgment with human wisdom);
This is human wisdom and righteousness, knowledge of good and evil. People devise their own code of ethics, and their knowledge can be, and in many cases is, in agreement with God’s code of ethics; this is the coats of skins God dressed His formed man and woman with.
Results of Human Wisdom Applying the Good
One of the repetitive themes throughout the Old Testament, whether with God’s people or everyone else, is the continual emphasis on choosing to do good. The first words to Adam are what to do with the two Trees: choose good. God’s advice to Cain is to do good toward his brother. Through Noah, a preacher of righteousness (2 Peter 2:5), God wanted the world population to do good. All this doing good is the good of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
It is essential to realize this preached righteousness by Noah, or devised by human wisdom, is not the spiritual righteousness of converted Christians in the New Testament. It is taking off the fig leaves and putting on the coats of skins; using your human wisdom to grasp that the laws God gave the people, first and foremost the Ten Commandments, are the basis of the coats of skins. Whether it be Cain, Noah’s epoch, Sodom & Gomorrah, the Exodus, or Deuteronomy, and the entry into the Promised Land, all the instruction was to help people use their human wisdom to apply fundamental laws for their and others’ good.
When applied, this wisdom had definite promises that are still valid today. Study the Old Testament for this theme.
9 And the LORD your God will make you plenteous in every work of your hand, in the fruit of your body (Sam: and the fruit of your mind with mental health), and in the fruit of your cattle, and in the fruit of your land, for good: for the LORD will again rejoice over you for good, as he rejoiced over your fathers:
10 If you shall hearken to the voice of the LORD your God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which are written in this book of the law, and if you turn to the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul.
11 For this commandment which I command you this day, it is not hidden from you, neither is it far off.
14 But the word is very nigh to you, in your mouth, and in your heart, that you may do it. (Sam: represented by the coats of skins)
15 See, I have set before you this day life and good, and death and evil; (Sam: The Tree of Good and Evil is in front of each of us)
19 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life (Sam: the good of the Tree), that both you and your seed may live (Sam: a message about parenting and nurturing mental health in our children):
Mental disease is not a fatality; it’s a national and personal CHOICE. God formed man, all of us, to do good and be blessed with mental stability. If we choose evil, mental ill-health is inevitable.
In the following chapter, we shall focus on the Bible’s code of ethics for humankind in this 21st Century, the good code that leads to mental health for all.
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