The presentation of the word
of His grace .
Note that the
delivery of this piece has been fully paid, procured and
secured by and in
the blood of Jesus.
…………………all for His glory and
honor…we are his; we are his people (Ps100:3b)
We may not know a lot about the future, but we know the most important matter about
it: Christ will be with us in the future. Indeed, our greatest advantage as
Christians is not in the tradition of the sun rising in the morning and setting
in the evening: it is in the surety of the presence of Christ in our affairs,
even to eternity.
We meet God when each one of us has his own version of how
things should be. Even our values have been set. The God with the original
design of us encounters a people who already have a design of the working of
affairs. And thus an unsaid/unvoiced/silent conflict looms. Well, who shall
carry the day?
Many things today do not exist in their original form,
whether by default design or by artificial input. Man has sought to change the
items in his environment to suit his comfort. The danger of it is man wanting
to change himself to be what he thinks befits him plus the urge to change what
God instituted as all-age unchanging to fit into the life of his desire.
Of course
Objective – to present God and His Word as true and infallible.
To present Him as accurate and as well meaning in His instructions to us. To
appreciate the word of God as unchanging in all ages, all generations as God
intended it to be. Heb 13:8 Jesus Christ
is the same yesterday and today and forever.
.. .The ever unchanging Redeemer working
through His all season word.
…The Word that works the way it is: without
need of modification.
…Has Christ changed with time,
situations..et al. Or is there need for us to modify Christ or is He still
relevant to us the way He was in the beginning.
The benefit of understanding/capturing what
God has said about a matter and walking in light of His whole counsel.
To arouse us to the
likelihood of our own departure from the unadulterated truth of God to the
fashionable secondary message the devil propagates.
Call everyone to
desist from all forms of God-Word/voice-mutilation and make an invitation for
us to intently search what God has said.
Reading, Gen3:1-7
The constant ambition of the enemy to
Ø
Present himself as God’s ambassador/angel – as
the one to channel God (or His message) to us. 2Cor11:14. The devil presented
himself as a friend to Eve.
Ø
Consequently misconstruct godly meaning and ‘misrepresent’
God and His truth.
The deception through distortion
Deception - A
misleading falsehood
Distort - Make false by mutilation or
addition; as of a message or story
Alter the shape of (something)
by stress
Twist and press out of
shape
God desires
to Shepherd us and lead us alright.
The enemy desires to mislead, and
constantly so.
1.
God was (and wanted to be) clear to Adam
concerning His expectation and his responsibility. God gave him his job
description. The reason God desires to be clear to us is because He has plans
for us on how we ought to live. Sadly, the devil also has a ‘competing’ idea of
how things should be. Secondly, cannot recall/repent or even divorce His word.
The word of His clarity. What He says is what He means. What He has not said,
He has simply not said.
Because He watches over His word, Jer 1:12, " for I am watching over my word to perform
it.".
1Sa 3:19 ¶
And Samuel grew, and the LORD was with him and let none of his words fall to
the ground.
The question is whether Adam got God clearly. It
would be good to ask Adam: ‘Adam, what did the LORD say?’ or ‘Adam, what did
the LORD say?’
Have you been walking in the clarity of God’s voice
and word?
Don’t you know it is possible for God to be clear
to you every time. He is not a strange God, He will not engage us with a
strange voice. We are His people.
God will never be himself to be associated with
confusion.
The challenge of our time, as has been all-age, is
not in the unwillingness of God to speak Himself to us. It is in our reception.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
All things are clear in the presence of light and
dark in its absence. Or what can’t we see in light.
2Co 11:3 But
I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so
your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.
Christ came
in a manner that is humanly possible: He came as a person like everyone of us.
Heb 2:4 ¶ Since therefore the children share in flesh and
blood, he himself likewise partook of the same nature, that through death he might destroy him who has the power
of death, that is, the devil, 15 and
deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage.
The clarity
of God is in His complete/full/unlimited understanding of the state of man:
even as a High Priest.
Heb 4:15 For
we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our
infirmities (KJV)
2.
The voice and word of God [should] precede his
commission and is present during the real execution. If He has to send, He
gives instruction. The word of God in every matter is the evidence of His
stamp/permission and authority: indeed His presence. He told Adam what to do
with and in the garden. If God had not spoken, then Adam would have the right
to ask God what to do. But because He had already spoken, Adam just needed to
retrieve the word of God and obey it. Indeed, He just needed to stand with the
word of God even at the appearance of the enemy.
What did God tell you when you got born again? Have
you been true to it?
Or even when you got married?….r u still trusting
that which God said? Or when He called you to serve in the church? In your
place of work...what did He tell you?
Abraham moves at the God’s word.
Moses moves to Pharaoh at the Word of God.
Christ commissions His disciples for ministry.
The word was
present ahead of all things. The word was/existed before any situation and
hence qualifies as supreme before all other things.
3.
The serpent more subtle than any other wild creature that the LORD had created. The
devil as the highest authority/mastermind of deception. Indeed he is the source
of all evil. When dealing with him know that he is good at what he does:
deceive.
Subtle [KJV
and RSV] -Difficult to detect or grasp by the mind or analyze.
-Able to make fine distinctions.
-Working or spreading in a hidden
and usually injurious way.
Cunning
[Gideons] - Showing inventiveness and skill.
- Marked by skill
in deception.
- Attractive
especially by means of smallness, prettiness or quaintness.
He is the reason the world is corrupted: broken families,
murders, hatred,
4.
The serpent is a creation of God. He should not
be assumed, yet his appearance should not be over-stretched to win him credit,
even through fear.
5.
We see God creating man and giving him
instructions. We understand the devil’s presence/awareness of the instructions
when he tempts Eve. Therefore we know that he was created before man. The
devil’s motive was to ‘soil’ God’s instructions and hence separate man from the
good pleasure of God concerning him.
6.
God created the ordinary trees (for the food of
man) and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Man wasn’t supposed to
touch the latter. God knows why: for His own pleasure. Suggestion: God desired
that from the beginning man would live under the authority of His word. God
knows why He has created things the way He did-walk in His instructions.
7.
God has given us a word: the basis of our
relationship with Him. The knowledge and obedience of it is the platform upon
which our progress is pegged. There was a word attached to everything that God
created-how man was to handle it. 2vs16-17: the LORD commanded man. It was a command, meaning God would not change
His mind about it. Our standing is pegged on leaning on the word of God.
8.
God put a distinction between what man would do
freely and what he would be prohibited. 2vs16-17. God set boundaries. He was
the one to command the boundaries of man. The command of God is the source of
or freedom for it clearly spells to us the way of life.
It is not
about entertaining the talk/dialect of the enemy, it will come in various
options. However, she engaged the enemy in her own words. She forfeited the
word God had left.
When you
forsake the Word God has spoken, you lose on godly authority since it is
attached to that word and consequently give yourself to the influence of the
lie.
At what
point did God speak?
The devil’s
desire to rob man the word/ discredit God’s message to man – sower parable
Jeremiah and
the false prophet
The voice of
God – the voice of one crying in the wilderness
God
emancipating a people, He lifts up people through whom He can accurately
(though they be weak, 2Cor4:7) convey all godly instructions. Similarly the
devil appoints his pointmen/delegates/agents thru whom he propagates demonic
agenda. The appointments are scarcely through an open declaration but more by
encouraging ignorance and misconstruction of God’s voice.
Jer 26:2 Thus
saith the LORD; Stand in the court of the LORD'S house, and speak unto all the
cities of Judah, which come to worship in the LORD'S house, all the words that
I command thee to speak unto them; diminish
not a word:
Do not hold
back a word