In The Beginning Was The End: How Sin Changed Our Lives From Begining To End

By Trish Atkinson

When I decided to try my hand at writing I knew the topic I wanted to write about something that would help young people to see that life doesn't have to be filled with guilt and pain if we just follow God's plan for humanity before we make all the wrong choices.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Agar Publishing
• Release date: Jun 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9781956096859

Book preview

Copyright © 2022 by Trish Atkinson

ISBN:     Paperback       978-1-956096-84-2

               eBook             978-1-956096-85-9

LCCN: 2022907967

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Introduction

1. In the Beginning

2. Roles of Husbands, Wives, Mothers, and Fathers

3. Time Heals All Wounds

4. Primmum Non Noncore

5. Identity Crisis

6. Love at First Sight

7. True Strength Comes from Jesus

8. Choose Happiness

9. Blessings through Obedience

10. What the Future Holds

11. God by Any Other Name

Introduction

When I first started digging through the Scriptures, it wasn’t with the idea of writing a book. Writing was never a thought in my life, but God had other plans for me. When I started reading the Bible, it was to read about marriage and what God had in mind for marriage. I have been married three times and divorced three times. I was definitely doing something wrong. I really wanted to know what.

What should I have done different? As I got further into my studies, I realized what I was missing, not just in my marriages but my life as a whole—Jesus Christ. The more I thought about what the Bible had to say, the more I wished that I would have paid attention to the Bible from the beginning. Before I ever got married. My purpose for writing this book is to help other people through my mistakes, by relating what I have learned through a lifetime of self-imposed hardship. I truly hope this book will help people make better decisions through Jesus Christ.

1

In the Beginning

Not made out of his head to rule over him, not made out of his feet to be trampled on by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected by him, and near to his heart, to be love.

—Matthew Hennery

No man succeeds without a good woman behind him, wife or mother, if it’s both, then he is twice as blessed.

—Harold MacMillan

In the beginning —we all know those words as the opening of the first book of the Bible. The beginning of life itself. A bold statement ensuring us that something phenomenal is about to happen, as it always does when God is involved. The first thing God did when creating the earth was to lay a firm foundation.

Everything that is built from the ground up has to start with a solid foundation to stand on. Marriage is no different. If we start out on our own foundation, it will crumble.

God, as our Creator, has given us a place to start. His plan for us. His foundation and his can never crumble. Men and women have specific roles in marriage and family life. Unfortunately we, as humans, have decided that we know a better way than God’s way. We have our own way. It’s easier to go our own way. Well, we have certainly proven that our way is not the best way or the easiest. In the world today, divorce is a common household word. We even have divorce cakes to celebrate our divorces—like wedding cakes to celebrate our weddings. How have we become so unfeeling that we celebrate such a sad ending to what was once supposed to be a lifelong commitment to each other? Commitment not just to each other but God himself? How? Because we didn’t commit ourselves to the marriage or commit our marriage to God in the first place. Committing our marriage and our lives to the one who created men and women to live our lives together is the one sure way to make it through the rough times in life. We can’t do it without him. I have truly come to believe that if humanity would go by the plan God laid out for us in the beginning, that divorce would be all but eliminated. Instead we listen to the world around us. We have somehow decided, from the first married couple (Adam and Eve), that the plan God set out for us is wrong and we needed to change it. Satan put his plan in play, and we ran with it.

God, the Creator of all the universe, who spoke everything into existence with his words, knows what we need and what is right for us. We obviously do not. It is because we have insisted on going about marriage our own way that it is the unhappy institution it is today. If we put God at the center of our marriage and the head of the family, we can be happy as God intended us to be. Through him alone can we receive the qualities we need to be successful and loving in a lifelong marriage. In order for us to truly understand just what God’s plan for us as husbands and wives, we need to go back to the beginning and read what God says about our roles as he intended. We can turn to the only reliable source of information we have—God’s own words. The Bible. Satan will and does lie to us; the world will mislead us, but God will never betray us. He alone wants the best for us in this life if we are willing to receive it.

Let’s start by looking at the role of a wife. In Titus 2:4–5, we see that wives are to be mentors, Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and their children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be kind and be subject to their husbands so that no one will malign the word of God. And in 1 Peter 3:1, we see that wives are to be witnesses to their husbands, Wives in the same way be submissive to your husbands so that if any do not believe in the word, they may be won over by the behavior of their wives.

I find it interesting that God did not say avoid those who do not believe the Word. As believers of the Word, we know that Jesus himself did not avoid the unbelievers, he did not minister to the righteous but to the spiritually ignorant, those who never had a chance to hear the true words of God. Jesus did not just minister to them; he ate with them, stayed at their houses, he taught by example. That is what wives are supposed to do; even though men are supposed to lead as the head of the family, women are also to lead in certain areas of life.

In Timothy 3:11, we learn in the same way, their wife’s worthy of respect, not malicious talkers but trustworthy in everything. Not malicious talkers, what does this mean exactly? Well, gossip is one example. Another example is something we have all done before. How many times have you heard a coworker complain about their spouse? How many times have you done it yourself? At one time or another, we all have, out of frustration. We vent to our friends and family out of frustration, to relieve stress. Some don’t mean their venting to be malicious; but when we air our dirty laundry and tell everyone our business, it is malicious. The people around you then have no respect for the person you are complaining about, even if they never met them. They go by what you say about them. Wives, respecting our husbands is not a friendly suggestion from God but a command. Wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord. This is not a matter of women’s choice.

Let’s look at the key words here and what they really mean, not what the world tells us they mean.

Submit: In biblical terms, this means to adore and respect your husband. It does not mean to be under the dominion for your husband. However, cooking and cleaning does not come under the heading of slavery. It also doesn’t mean that wives have no opinion or voice of their own or that wives have to agree with everything a husband says. What it means is that you trust in him as he trusts in the Lord for guidance.

Subject: This goes along with submit. Again this means to love and respect your husband. The thing about respect is that it’s a two-way street. You have to be respectful to receive respect. What it doesn’t mean is he can treat you any way he chooses. Wives are not property as it is in other countries.

Over time, we have come to believe that being subject to our husbands and the husband being the head of the house is some kind of personal affront against women. That God has a lower opinion of women. This is not the case at all. What people are missing is that being a wife and mother is a respected position. We are all made in the image of God, but God gave both men and women specific roles in life and marriage and then gave us the ability to be successful in those roles. We both have a specific purpose, one no less important than the other. What we need to get past is the attitude that one role is more important than the other or that one role works harder than the other. We have equal responsibility in our marriage but just in different areas. The punishment of this whole thing came from the sin of disobedience that Eve committed in the garden. That was a choice she made.

In Genesis 3, we see Eve alone in the garden; we know Eve is alone because of the passage itself, Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the women. Has God indeed said, you shall not eat of every tree in the garden? Now it says the serpent spoke to Eve, not Adam and Eve. Some theologians believe this was a strategic move on Satan’s part, to tempt Eve without Adam there to stop her. His plan worked well. Genesis 3:2, And the women said to the serpent ‘We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but the tree in which is in the midst of the garden, God said, You shall not eat nor shall you touch it, least you die.’

Now by adding this last part to God’s words, she adds lying to her sins and gives Satan an open door he was looking for. Remember malicious talkers? She didn’t mean any harm, but this turned out to be a big mistake for everyone. Satan now knows that Eve is willing to disobey God and he uses her own words against her, and Satan grabs the opportunity and tells Eve, You will not surely die, for God knows that on the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

We all know Satan is a liar, but this time, he didn’t lie completely, showing us that even the truth can be used to trip us up. This was a lie by omission. Adam and Eve did not die right away when they ate the forbidden fruit, but what Satan didn’t tell her was that death would come into the world, and eventually, they would die. He didn’t tell her that everything would change for eternity.

I often wonder if Eve told Adam that it was the forbidden fruit when she gave it to him? We will never know; however, we do know that Eve knew the terrible truth of the sin she committed against God and she still gave it to Adam. Did Eve not want to face God alone in her sin or did she want to share her new gift’’ with Adam? Either way, their perfect life in paradise came to an end quickly. After the damage was done, we see in Genesis 3:8 that God is walking in the garden, 3:9, Then God called to Adam (not both) and said to him ‘Where are you?’ I love this passage because, of course, God knows where Adam is and what has happened. God just wanted to hear the truth from Adam himself. In 3:10, Adam said, I heard your voice in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself. Somehow I doubt that them being naked was their concern. Now 3:11, and God said, ‘Who told you, you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you that you should not eat?’" First off, this was a command and they were expected to obey. Now here is where the buck gets passed for the first time in history.

In 3:12, Then the man said, ‘The women you gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.’ In order to deflect God’s anger, Adam blamed Eve and then Eve blamed Satan. It also looks as if Adam assigned some of the blame to God as well, stating that God gave Adam Eve. The problem was that for Adam, the buck stopped with him. He could not blame her for his part as Adam was head of his family, and as such, he was responsible for her actions as well as his own. We know this to be true because in Genesis 3:13, God turns his attention to Eve, though he is far from done with Adam or the serpent (Satan). ‘What is this that you have done?’ The woman said, ‘The serpent deceived me and I ate.’ When we really think this through, did the serpent deceive Eve? She already knew the command from God to not eat the forbidden fruit. Satan could have said anything he wanted to and she could have walked away, but she was willing to listen to Satan.

We all have to live with the consequences we create for ourselves by our decisions, and Eve’s consequences were immediate and direct. I will greatly multiply your sorrow and conception; in Pain you shall bring forth children, your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you (v. 16). Thanks, Eve! What started out to be natural part of marriage for the husband to lead the family is now a curse to us all.

Then to Adam he said, "Because you have headed the voice of your wife and eaten from the tree from which I commanded you saying, ‘You shall not eat of it.’ Cursed is the ground for your sake; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorn and thistle it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground. (vv. 17–19)

It is hard to imagine that now, even the ground and all living creatures are cursed. Death did not come over man but all the earth and all on it. Now Satan also earned his own curse for what he had done,

Because you have done this; you are cursed more than all other cattle, (beast of burden) and more than all beasts of the field, on your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the women and between her seed and your seed; he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his