The Bewarning: A Cautionary Outlook

Perhaps with all great stories, there is a warning and a caution in there somewhere. A sense of impending doom. An instinct. A feeling. A sense that something is wrong. Everything is not all right with the world around us and we proceed accordingly with trepidation. Sometimes the warning is implicit in the circumstances. Occasionally, the warning may be as explicit as a verbal or written note from a messenger.

To be wary is to be on one's guard. To be careful. The angel Raphael, a messenger of God, sits with Adam and Eve and tells them of the way things are and the things to be wary of. This is the Bewarning.

Internet Fair Use - Gustave Dore's The Bewarning

There is the Admonition to Obey the counsel of the Almighty. If this were a Game, there are Rules of Engagement. As players in the Game, one is subject to the rules. It may even appear that the rules change over time. But there is an aspect to the ensuing behavior whereby Adam and Eve cannot fully comprehend, receive, nor follow the warning.

"Attend: that thou art happy, owe to God;
That thou continu'st such, owe to thyself,
That is, to thy obedience; therein stand.
This was that caution given thee; be advised.
God made thee perfect, not immutable;
And good He made thee, but to persevere
He left it in thy power; ordain'd thy will
By nature free, not over-ruled by fate
Inextricable, or strict necessity:
Our voluntary service he requires,
Not our necessitated, such with him
Finds no acceptance, nor can find; for how
Can hearts, not free, be tried whether they serve
Willing or no, who will but what they must
By destiny, and can no other choose?.....

....Under his great vice-regent reign abide
United, as one individual soul,
For ever happy: him who disobeys
Me disobeys, breaks union, and, that day
Cast out from God and blessed vision, falls
Into utter darkness, deep engulf'd, his place
Ordain'd without redemption, without end.
So spake th' Omnipotent, and with his words
All seemed well pleased; all seemed, but were not all."

And I am now mindful of Isaiah 28:11-13 regarding the trap and the snare:

11 For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people.
12 To whom he said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear.
13 But the word of the Lord was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.

This is the warning. Onward Daily Walk.