P.O. Box 53055    
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Genesis: The Gift of Life

Hello, I'm Connie Jeffery. And I'm Lonnie Melashenko.

CONNIE: Today's program is very special, isn't it Lonnie?

LONNIE: Well yes, it certainly is. Today we begin our journey through the whole Bible--over the coming months we'll be looking at every book of the Bible and every story in the gospel--one book or one Gospel story each week.

CONNIE: And we're starting at the very beginning today.

LONNIE: That's right--a very good place to start!

CONNIE: With the book of Genesis--the book of beginnings

LONNIE: One of the most crucial questions facing mankind is, Where did I come from?

CONNIE: Well that's one of the main three isn't it Lonnie? Where did I come from? Why am I here? And where am I going? And I think, Where did I come from is so important. You have to understand that in order to understand the other two.

LONNIE: It's so important today, particularly in our rather mixed up confused society where people kind of wonder who they are and where they fit in. And you know Connie, Genesis is a book about the beginning of life--as a gift--a good gift--from God. It's a gift we should treasure and share

CONNIE: Well Lonnie, you recently spoke with one of our staff members here about how he made a very practical application of that principle, literally offering a part of himself to give the gift of life to a little boy he had never met. Let's listen to that interview with David Smith right now.

LONNIE: David, I've heard of heart transplants and kidney transplants, and even liver transplants, but bone marrow gets down to something very, very serious. You're usually the producer here of the broadcast. What's the story of your sacrifice for a young boy you didn't even know? What happened?

DAVID: Well a number of years ago I was donating just blood which is easy to do, and they said, "Do you mind if we test you to see if some day down the road in the future, the variables may line up and you could be a bone marrow donor?" And thinking that it would never happen, I said sure go ahead and they took a little test tube out and I forgot about it. Then about four or five months ago they came back and said well guess what David you may line up and actually be a possible bone marrow donor, and I said, "Oh dear, what have I signed myself up for?" Then the wheels spun a little more and they came back and said there are 6 factors in a person's blood, and guess what, you line up with a 6 year old boy who desperately needs it, you line up with him 6 for 6.

LONNIE: You didn't know this person?

DAVID: Never met him, I never have met him. I have no idea who he is, his name, anything. He's a little 6 year old boy with leukemia who ended up needing the exact type of bone marrow that was in my body at that very moment.

LONNIE: A life threatening situation, he was in jeopardy.

DAVID: Life threatening, he would not live without something happening like this.

LONNIE: What happened?

DAVID: Well they began to prepare me for it and they began to prepare the little boy for it, like I say, I lined up 6 for 6. I felt like I had won the lotto, I mean you line up 6 for 6, what are the odds of doing that? I began to read what it entailed on my part, it was going to hurt, there were going to be big needles. I was going to sleep through that part, but they were going to stick me 240 times, and pull bone marrow out of my pelvis and I was going to be very sore, and purple afterwards, and so from a human point, Lonnie, I said to myself, "I don't want to do this. This is going to hurt." I've never liked needles. When I was a missionary boy we got stuck and I didn't like it, I don't want to do it.

LONNIE: And technically you could have walked away if you wished.

DAVID: I could have walked away, they can't obligate you. They make you sign a contract, but it is a moral contract, not a legal contract, but then I thought what the little boy was going through, and I thought what his mom and dad were going through with their little boy's life hanging in the balance, and at that point I simply stopped thinking about myself and said, "However much it hurts is not a factor. However many times they stick me is not an issue. This boy is going to die." If I was that mom or dad, I would be so desperate to find that gift of life and so at that point, my pain, my hurt, my sacrifice, my hospital inconvenience were just not an issue, I completely stopped thinking about it, once I began to look across the fence and feel like the dad of that little boy.

LONNIE: David, I can't tell you how my emotions just come to the surface here to think about this. I mean, in a sense, you had this little kid's life in your pocket, didn't you?

DAVID: Well I'll tell you when that really hit me, that's exactly how I felt, but when it really hit me was this. As I said a moment ago, they can't obligate me to do it, they can't force me to do it, you can pressure people, they don't even do that. They don't even tell you the kid's name so you won't feel pressure of knowledge. Ten days before the procedure if you agree--and I did--they begin to prep the boy. He goes through chemotherapy, he goes through radiation. Meaning that he is completely stripped of all protection. All his immune system is gone.

LONNIE: Defense systems gone. He's in a tent, right?

DAVID: He's in the tent for ten days waiting for me to show up at the hospital. So that's pressure, and then they said, David even in those ten days, you could walk away and at that point I realized for those ten days the life of that boy would be in my pocket, in my hand, and I burst into tears when I heard that because that is so spiritual, so awesome because of course that is how God is with us. We have nothing but God to cling too, and for ten days I had that boy's life in my hand, and I'll tell you, I drove my car carefully on the freeway for those ten days, but that was a very spiritual awakening for me to sense how I was a part of this drama that is so spiritual so much a reflection of what Jesus has done for us. It was very moving, very moving.

LONNIE: And then finally the moment comes and you're there, you're submitting to the surgeons, and to the procedure, and to the long needles, 250 of them, and I mean this really, this was in the lower part of your back.

DAVID: Lower part of the back. Now fortunately I was sleeping through that, it's a couple of hours then you wake up and you're very sore, and you slowly recover.

LONNIE: They're extracting bone marrow.

DAVID: Bone marrow from the pelvis, yes.

LONNIE: Alright, now as we sit here today David, you are preparing to go down again because the procedure took place, but there's been some difficulties. What's going to happen as of now?

DAVID: Today we're going in for round 2, so I'm sitting here with my veins already getting ready to go, and for 4 or 5 hours this afternoon, I will be sitting in a chair as they extract blood. They will then spin out or pull out these stem cells which are part of the blood that we hope and pray, Lonnie, will have a life saving quality to them, and they put the blood without the cells back into me. It's a very simple procedure for me, it's 4 or 5 hours of being rather motionless, but this is for the child, this is really the final option, which we are praying desperately will work for him today.

LONNIE: What have you learned through this Dave?

DAVID: I'll tell you. The Lord gives each of us an opportunity to help someone else, and for me it was such a clear cut opportunity, but for everybody I think the day comes when something is put before you, and God says you can do this for your fellow man, you can maybe not save a life, but you can participate in the life saving process of reaching out to another person, sharing Christ with them, simply loving somebody, and we either do it or we turn away, and I just pray that we will all take the opportunity when God gives it to us.

LONNIE: Good luck Dave. God Bless You. We'll keep you in our prayers.

DAVID: Thanks a lot.

CONNIE: Thank you David, and Lonnie, for that wonderful testimony about giving the gift of life. And our prayers continue to be with that little boy who received your gift.

Ever since God first gave the gift of life to Adam and Eve, He has been sharing life with us, so that we can share it with others. Ralph Henderson reminds us where our very lives come from in the song "Power in the Name."

"Power in the Name", Ralph Henderson, from More Precious than Rubies CD, Track 1

CONNIE: Yes indeed, God is the Great I AM--the Living One and the source of all life. Joining me in the studio now is our producer, Ken Wade. Ken, we learned in last week's program that you didn't used to believe that way about God, did you?

KEN: No, I certainly didn't. In fact, as a high school student I became rationally and thoroughly convinced that there was not a God at the source of life.

CONNIE: Something obviously has changed your mind

KEN: In those studies I had in High School, my large concentration was in the area of science, biology, and that sort of thing, and dealing with the teachers there just seemed like all of the really intelligent people I knew were all atheists, and they give you a world view that just says this happened, this chemical combined with that chemical and this cell divided into that cell and I'd had a religious background, but hadn't really put the two together, and so I'd pretty much abandoned all of the religious teaching and said, "Oh that's just what old folks believe in."

CONNIE: So there was no room for God in your whole world view?

KEN: There just wasn't, because I was so convinced by these scientific arguments. Well out of High School I ran into some situations. I went to work. I was going to go to college, I was going to study Biology, but you know how God has a way of calling a person up short sometimes in their lives, and I can't go into the whole story today, but I ended up in some situations where life was just going from bad to worse for me, I guess you could say, and at one point in that experience I came to a point where I just thought, "Man, it just can't get any worse than this." I accidentally offered a prayer to God. I said, "Look God, if there's a God in the universe I sure wish my circumstances would change here." And the amazing thing was is how quickly they changed. The next day I was working a different job instead of the one I had been on. I was given a lot of time to think and was miraculously, I believe, was led to begin reading a little book Steps To Christ, that had been given to me more than a year before.

CONNIE: Really?

KEN: And as a result of that I began to look at the universe a little bit differently, and I began to realize, "Well maybe my science teachers didn't tell me everything they should have about life."

CONNIE: And the origin of life, and you know actually I wanted to mention that the book we're offering today, BUILT TO LAST, by Dwight Nelson, deals with some of these very issues you dealt with in high school and on, about the evidences of God's creation, and if you call 1-800-872-0055, and ask for that book. We'll be telling you a little later about how to receive it. But thank you Ken for being here and telling us that, because don't you believe that it's absolutely true that what we believe about the origin of our life can make a huge difference in how we go about living today.

KEN: Oh it certainly can.

CONNIE: And in his message today Lonnie Melashenko shares some fascinating insights about the stories we find in Genesis. The book that tells us how God first gave the gift of life to humanity and how He kept on giving. It's certainly true that what we believe about the origin of our life can make a big difference in how we go about living. And in today's sermon, our director/speaker Lonnie Melashenko shares some fascinating insights about the stories we find in Genesis--the book that tells us how God first gave the gift of life to humanity, and how He kept on giving!

LONNIE: Ah, Genesis! It's the book of beginnings! The place where the Bible begins. The place where life begins.

You remember the story of Creation--how God created all the living things on earth, and then at last created Adam--the first man. But notice something interesting as the story is told in Genesis 2: God created all the animals and brought them to Adam so he could name them. But when all was said and done, Adam himself was lonely. There was no one like him to share the joy of life with.

Genesis 2:20 describes the situation this way:

So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field. But for Adam no suitable helper was found. (NIV)

And of course that's where Eve comes into the picture. Because of Adam's loneliness, God caused him to go to sleep, and while he was asleep, God performed the first "Bone Marrow Transplant" in history.

That's what so fascinated me about the story we shared earlier, of David Smith's donation of bone marrow to help a little six-year-old boy, literally giving him the gift of life, even though it meant that David had to go through a bit of pain and suffering in the process.

But here's Adam, lying down on the grass, there in the Garden of Eden, going to sleep entrusting his life into the hands of his Creator, and when he awakes, God has removed one of his ribs and from it created a wonderful gift for him. A beautiful young creature, just like him--with a few modifications of course. Someone he can talk to and share his life with on the deepest, most intimate levels.

When Adam first met this gorgeous young maiden, he didn't really give her a proper name, as he had done for the other creatures God brought to him. Genesis 2:23 reveals that Adam simply said " 'she shall be called "woman," for she was taken out of man.' " In the Hebrew language, "woman--isshah--is simply the feminine form of the word man. So Adam just called her something like man_ess.

That name seemed to suffice for a time. But then came the great tragedy when the woman, and then Adam, succumbed to temptation and ate some of the forbidden fruit on the tree of knowledge of good and evil. As a result they received the death sentence. They were expelled from Paradise. They were compelled to begin life anew outside, in the cold world where the soil would yield thorns in place of flowers and fruits.

And it's in the context of that immense, overwhelming tragedy that the woman finally receives a name.

If you were Adam, what would you call someone who had been instrumental in leading you into a crime that earned you the death penalty?

Maybe you can think of some names you'd want to call a person like that--probably none of them any too complimentary.

But notice this in Genesis 3:20. I'm reading from the New English Bible:

The man called his wife Eve because she was the mother of all who live.

And in the New English Bible there's a footnote on that name Eve, and looking down at the bottom of the page, there's the translation of the name Eve.

Here's what it says: "That is Life"

Did you catch that? After the great tragedy of sin that led to death, Adam looked at his wife and gave her a name: LIFE!

What a marvelous story! What a fantastic testimony to the understanding of our first father. Some people say that the first stories in Genesis demean the role of woman and make her into a scapegoat. But Adam certainly didn't do that.

Even after she had played a significant role in bringing death to our planet, Adam looked at his beloved wife--the beloved gift he had received from God, and he named her LIFE! She was indeed the gift of life, for without her, human life--Adam's life--could not continue.

Now that's just one of the marvelous stories in the book of Genesis. As you read on through the whole book, you'll discover that story after story focuses on God's gift of life to humanity.

Sure there's the terrible story of the Flood, where so much life was lost. But even in that story we find that God made provision for life to go on. He warned Noah and told him to build an ark and to " 'bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you.' " (Gen. 6:19)

God made it plain that He was not in the business of destroying life, but of preserving life. At the end of the flood story, God made a covenant--a contract--with all living things, promising never again to destroy all life on the earth.

So even this tragic story reveals how God gave life, and what He did to preserve life on our planet.

One of the most compelling stories in all the literature of the world is the account found in Genesis 22 of Abraham and Isaac's journey to the top of Mt. Moriah. Father and son climb that steep hill, the son carrying the wood to offer a burnt offering to the God his father has taught him to love and trust. The God who has worked a miracle of life so that this boy could be born even though his mother was far past childbearing age.

And as they near the top of the hill, Isaac looks around, thinking that his dear old father has forgotten one important detail: " 'Father,' " he says, " 'Here are the fire and the wood, but where is the young beast for the sacrifice?' " (Gen. 22:7 NEB).

Abraham has come to this place bearing a terrible secret. God has called him to bring his son to the mountain to slay HIM as a sacrifice. What can he say now in answer to his son's question?

His words are heavy with understanding of the God he worships, but no doubt also weighted with fear and impending grief. " 'God will provide himself with a young beast for a sacrifice, my son,' " he says (v. 8).

Abraham has learned through hard experience to trust God's beneficence. He has received this son in answer to a century of prayers. He is struggling now to understand how God's plan can include the sacrifice of this gift of life. This gift of a future. But he answers in confidence, saying "God will provide."

Go back and read the story again in Genesis 22. Relish the tension, every emotion that surges through the interaction between Abraham and his God, and between Abraham and his son.

It's a powerful story that ends with the gift of life.

God provides a substitute--a ram that can be sacrificed in place of Isaac, sparing the boy's life. And in that puissant story is a wonderful promise about our God. A God who always wants to give us the gift of life. A powerful promise of a Savior who would one day sacrifice His life on a mountain near Moriah in order to give life to all who would accept the gift.

For God so loved the world, that he gave HIS only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Genesis ends with the story of Isaac's grandson Joseph, whose life seems to be sacrificed in slavery, but actually turns out very differently as God uses him to give the gift of life to thousands of people when famine strikes.

Genesis. The Gift of Life. The story of God's grace bursting forth in life for humanity, over and over again!