I had another great week at Camp Salvation near Trinidad, CO. The second week I was able to minister to 7th and 8th grade students. I also had the privilege to bunk in a cabin with the boys. This gave me a greater opportunity to get to know them and minister to their spiritual needs.
God blessed us with twelve lives given to Christ, three of which were in my cabin. Some of the questions asked were: “Why did Jesus have to die?”; and “Why did God have to become a man to save us from our sin?” To answer these questions, we needed to go back to Genesis.
The penalty for sin (eating the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil) was death, and Scripture does not only mean spiritual death, but also physical death. God would clothe them with coats of skins (animals had to die and shed blood) – which was a blood sacrifice for their sins.
But the death of animals could not atone for sins, only a perfect man could to that. The fulfillment of the prophecy of the seed of the woman (Gen. 3:15) was Jesus Christ, who is God and the perfect man. Only by putting trust in His death and bloodshed, as a substitute for our sins, can we be saved. Some of the campers thought they were saved, but after hearing this they realized they were not. Starting in Genesis gave them a better understanding of the gospel message. Praise the Lord!
Rich Stepanek
