What did the LORD say?

 Thus says the LORD

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