To achieve the will and purpose of God on this earth we must know what God is doing, and what part we are to play in accomplishing that purpose. So many Christians have not taken the time to discover the issues that Father is interested in, and what part we are to play in bringing it to pass. So let us look at what we see in the world in this our day. We see wars in numerous places on the planet today, crime has greatly increased, while marriages are falling apart at an alarming rate, and religion has risen to the place where it has become a tool in the hands of people that are seeking to destroy TRUTH. These are only some of the problems we are facing in this modern world of the 21st century.
In Israel’s history, there was a time when the nation was in great need because the High Priest was old, and his two sons did not walk in righteousness, there was no one to represent the nation before God. The only person who seemed to be available to meet the desperate need of the hour was a barren woman, who was the wife of Elkana. As she was crying unto the Lord in the Temple one day, the High Priest Eli who was almost blind, thought she was drunk with wine and rebuked her. She told him she was not drunk but in great distress because she had nothing to give to God. There are not many people in the world today that carry such a burden to give unto the Lord. Her husband gave her the temple offering in money but this did not satisfy her heart cry. The truth is that we can only give to the Lord what he has first given to us. Her hearts cry was for her to birth the Christ for her generation, and to answer the desperate need of the hour, for the doors into God’s presence were closing and the Light of God was going out. Surely this is a picture of this very day in which we live.
The greatest need in this world today is for the Christ to be birthed in a people enabling them to fulfil the will and purpose of God. The need is not for more Bible Schools or Theological Colleges, nor is it the need for more Bible teaching, but it is for the birthing of the Christ IN A PEOPLE. The moment came in Israel’s history when Rome was in possession of their land and they were paying tribute to Cesar. God’s people were hurting under the Roman rod of King Herod who served Rome without thought for the people. Unknown to the people a messenger appeared to a woman whose name was Mary, delivering to her an amazing message. She was a virgin who was espoused to a man named Joseph. She was told that she would become pregnant and bear a child and his name would be JESUS. But this was not just a simple pregnancy for no human sperm would be involved. Mary’s response to the messenger was one of fear, knowing that her pregnancy would cancel the arrangements for her marriage. In fact it would appear to everyone that she had committed fornication and would suffer the consequences of the Law in Israel.
Beloved we are living in a time when the same situation applies, for there are forces functioning on the earth today that are destined to destroy people financially, and making it difficult to get medical attention, with crime increasing and generally causing unrest among the people. Our country is not overrun by another nation but is being exposed to forces in every walk of life that bring fear and distrust even of Governments. No statesman can resolve the issues facing the world today, and no Government has the answers either. New words are being used to describe our dilemma, like Recession and Meltdown, Financial Crash of Banks and Lending Institutions and the Stock Exchange. Even Christians are being caught up in this “Crash,” but how few even consider that there is a spiritual answer for the world. Two thousand years ago a child was born in Bethlehem who was designated as a KING who was over every other King or authority on the earth.
The Prophet Isaiah says of him, “Who hath directed the Spirit of the LORD, or being his counselor hath taught him? With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and showed to him the way of understanding? Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he takes up the isles as a very little thing. All nations before him are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity.” In this one lays the hope and the desire of the nations. There is only one problem and that is to find a virgin who will birth the Christ for this generation. Most Christians are not even looking for a virgin today for they have followed the fables of religious men who teach the people that there is no need for a virgin today. They teach that Jesus Christ is up in the sky somewhere and that his plan is to return one day and call up the Christians who have followed their teachings, into the clouds in the sky and take them away to a place called heaven. The rest of the story is that then with all the Christians have gone, all hell will break loose on the earth creating the great tribulation in which the wicked will be punished. So there is no need for a virgin today to bring forth the Christ on the earth today according to this teaching.
Not long before Jesus went away this is what he said, John 14:19, “Yet a little while and the world sees me no more; but you see me, and because I live, you shall live also. At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. He that HATH my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world? Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.
Jesus told the disciples that very soon the people who did not have a relationship with him, would no longer be able to see him, for they are limited to natural sight. By contrast the people who knew him by the spirit would continue to see him, and to see him living after the cross, provided the grounds for us to live also, because he IS OUR LIFE.
This is the principle in worship, that we must have an offering to give to the Lord if we desire to worship God. Abraham was directed to the top of the mountain with Isaac to worship the Lord but he needed an offering. Most Christians would have caught a Lamb or Goat and used that as an offering, but not Abraham who was directed to offer his only son that God had given to him after 100 years. Sarah had never produced a child in all her years, and now even when she was past her time to even think of birthing a child, she brings forth by the spirit her only son Isaac. Now Abraham is facing the test of true worship when God demands that his offering must be one, which he could never, produce himself. Can we grasp what this meant for Abraham to bind his only son on the altar as an offering to God? This is true worship and most Christians know very little of such dealings of God in their lives. True worship involves the offering of ourselves on the altar of sacrifice according to Rom 12: 1-2. This involves the sacrifice being consumed (death) and the emergence of a NEW LIFE that rises out of that death, bringing with it a transformation from mortal to immortality.
People bring an offering to the Lord on Sunday morning in the form of MONEY that cost them so little, and so their worship has almost no impact upon their lives. Right through the Old Testament every offering was DEAD at the point of sacrifice and so had no impact upon the people. The worship of God’s people today has no more impact on them than the offering of a bullock or lamb on the brazen altar of the Temple. But when we come to the New Covenant this must be ratified not by some animal sacrifice, but we see Jesus Christ in the Garden of, Gethsemane facing the cross and he is sweating great drops of blood as the Father’s will is made clear to him. GOD only has ONE SON and not two or a hundred, and Father required HIS LIFE be offered for the redemption of the world, so that he tasted death for every man. God’s only begotten son there in that “Olive Press” willingly laid down his life for the salvation of the world. This was no great ceremony nor any witnesses, bowing down together in honour of this great sacrifice, not even the disciples, for they were asleep. Jesus is the TRUE LAMB OF GOD that takes away the sins of the world. Today the world sleeps on ignorant of this momentous occasion, and every other lamb or beast offered on the altars of Israel pointed to this very event that was to come.
The one who KNEW NO SIN was made to be the MAN OF SIN so that we, the offspring of God, might be made the righteousness of God IN HIM. Down through the ages this offering has been distorted as we glibly claim that he died INSTEAD OF US so that we might not have to die. HE suffered, the JUST for the UNJUST that he might bring us to God. Jesus Christ said, “If any man will follow in my footsteps, here is what I will require of him. He must forsake the right to save his own being by denying himself, and then taking up his CROSS let him follow me, recognising he has no more right to life than Jesus did. As we all came out of Jesus Christ in creation he marked out the pathway for us that would fulfil our divine destiny. We were destined to be the Saviours of the world, by laying down out natural life that has caused the Soul to defile our true being, having been deceived concerning our true identity, and creating an alien world that is slowly destroying man on this earth. Until we exchange our natural life for the life of the spirit we cannot bring the Life of God to this earth. The earth is not waiting for better preachers or better leaders, but for those who will see Abraham as the beginning of a new people being raised up in God, who sees that the true pathway leads to the CROSS FOR ALL OF US.
For only then can we be the Saviours of this world. Isaac took on a new role after the mountain experience. Matt 1:1 tells us that Abraham birthed the CHRIST who from that moment became his heir, living on past Abraham and all the prophets and through David, until Christ was birthed through a virgin who surrendered her life to God for the fulfilment of the divine purpose, which is that Christ be born in the year 2007 in a people.
Back to Hannah whose cry was for the Lord to give her a child that she could then give to the Lord to serve him. How amazing, that this woman was expressing the very heart of God to fulfil the great need for a priest to function in the temple. It is recorded that the doors of the Temple were closing, and the Lamp in the Temple representing the presence and Light of God was going out, so things were at a very critical stage. But the spirit of the Lord laid the burden of God upon this woman, who was needed to supply the answer to Israel’s need in that hour.
Where are the people of God who cry unto the Lord to give them a child to be raised up to fulfil the will and purpose of God on the earth today, or is it OK to desire children for our own personal benefit? Is God happy with the situation that exists in this world, with people being killed every day in the wars and so many young people committing suicide? Girls as young as 12 are getting pregnant and thousands of children are living on the streets, with drugs and alcohol destroying lives while pornography and crime of every kind is polluting society worldwide. Is this the will of God for the world for which Jesus Christ died in an act of unconditional love, to save man from himself? The religious world is deluding itself by building beautiful buildings and seeking to make their people happy in meetings, while ignoring the plight of the millions who will die of hunger and have no shelter from the elements. The rich are building bigger and better homes while the poor are getting poorer, and mankind seems to live only for their own pleasure. We need to be reminded that Jesus said,
“If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take, up his cross and follow me to Calvary, for whoever shall save his natural life that animates his body, shall lose it or render it useless. But whosoever shall voluntarily lay down his natural life FOR MY SAKE shall discover his true life, that is ordained of God designed to fulfil the will and purpose of God on this earth.” (Paraphrased)
It seems that in this world very few people have any understanding of what God is doing on the earth in this our day. Israel’s need was indeed urgent at that time, but it was met as Hannah gave birth to a son who replaced the aging Eli and became a leader for the people. As I look at the world we live in today, I see a tremendous need for spiritual leadership, and for those who would yield themselves to the spirit, who could fit them as vessels that could liberate those who have been drawn away from the truth by false doctrines that have ensnared them, and brought them into spiritual bondage. A person in ministry cannot have a personal agenda apart from God’s will and purpose to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom to the whole world. Although the Internet has been a wonderful tool to spread the Gospel of the Kingdom, it has also given voice to a myriad of voices that appeal to the natural mind, using mysticism and an endless pursuit of knowledge.
This world needs those who can hear clearly the voice of God and then communicate what Father is saying to his people in this our day. There are Pastors and preachers who are travelling to foreign countries, but so often the word they deliver lacks in power to bring change to the nations, who today are being destroyed by governments and political leaders who have no real love for the people. Religion, in many cases becomes a tool to isolate people one from the other, just as it has done for 2000 years all over the world. After 2000 years the Church has failed to unite the people on the earth, rather continuing to create the divisions that often divide families and nations. False concepts of God introduced by religion have made God to be what ever the people consider him to be, and not the God of all creation and the owner of the whole earth.
Are we to consider that it is futile to think that we could make a difference and close our minds to hearing the voice of God in this hour? Joseph dreamed a dream that carried him through a life that seemed to be filled with hopeless frustrations, but when the time was right, he was where he needed to be and equipped to answer the divine need for a man to save his own nation, as well as many others. A young shepherd boy called David, with no more education than minding a bunch of sheep, was touched by the Holy anointing oil, and was spiritually fitted to bring release to the whole Nation of Israel, as he destroyed Goliath. At a time when Israel had gone into apostasy having been drawn away following a false God Baal, God raised up a man called Elisha to challenge the priests of Baal and restore Israel. He was able to demonstrate the power of God that destroyed the religion of the priests of Baal, and convinced Israel that their God is the ONLY GOD.
My own heart is deeply exercised as I yield myself to the spirit of the Lord joining those with like minds, to be fitted as the vessel in Father’s hands to set all creation free. The Apostle Paul says in Romans 8:22 “For we know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together (as a woman in child-birth) until now. and not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body” Romans 8:15 “For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, (which means) Father.” Sickness is increasing all over the world causing pain and suffering resulting ultimately in death. With all the increase in knowledge and science, mankind has not even found a remedy for the common cold. New diseases not yet given a name are breaking out on the earth-affecting people both rich and poor. In spite of this, Paul reminds us that the whole of creation is looking to see the manifestation of our true identity as the Sons of God.
We know intuitively that God never gets sick neither does he have some “Gene Pool” in his ancestry with defects that could continue to find expression through him. Jesus declared who we really are when he taught his disciples to pray saying, “OUR FATHER (meaning origin) which art in heaven.” The “Seed” of the father remains in the child in the natural world as well as in the spiritual world. Marriage today in the natural sense perpetuates the HUMAN species for it is that natural seed that reproduces itself in the child born. But mankind has forgotten that his true origin is not “Of the earth” but out of God in creation in the beginning. This means that we were created as spirit, because God is spirit and whatever the Father or the parents are that is what the offspring will be. Jesus was born of a virgin on the earth, as no human seed was required. According to the Apostle Paul the “Seed of God” is CHRIST (Gal 3:16) and that SEED is in every man waiting for its conception, to be birthed just as it was in Jesus 2000 years ago.
John explains this spiritual experience in his Gospel saying, “In the beginning (creation) was the Word and the word was WITH GOD, and the Word WAS GOD. Then we are told that the same WORD, BECAME FLESH and lived among mankind.
It is most important to realize that what Jesus Christ was in the beginning did not change when he became FLESH. This is most important because it is exactly the same for us except we do not believe it.
God’s original man only had ONE FATHER and that was God, and that same seed of LIFE has been planted in every living person on the earth ever since. The tragedy is that so few understand their true identity is “Out of God” believing rather that we are simply of human origin, and our life is only mortal. However, it is this body of flesh and blood that is subject to every sickness in the world and finally is overcome by DEATH. Our true identity is SPIRIT, which is that invisible part of our being from which our life flows, and that spirit is GOD. That God of our true identity is the creator of all things, and holds everything together in its atomic form by the word of his power. Imagine for a moment, that all the wisdom of God and all the knowledge of God are in every one of us, but for most it has little or no impact upon what we are on this earth. Down through the years it has been the so-called Christian countries that produced almost all the inventions and scientific developments of science, and not the pagan or heathen peoples of the world.
Each successive generation should learn from the preceding one but this is not the case. Looking back on the days of my childhood it now seems like it was another world. Children stayed with their parents until they were married. Having children outside marriage was rare, and families generally were united and children honored their parents. There were very few “Retirement Villages,” as the children took care of their parents. In just 70 years this world is not a better place, but continues to get worse as God is deleted from our understanding and superior knowledge has replaced him. The only part of us that gets sick is our body, for it is subject to all kinds of diseases that eventually weaken the body to the point that is can sustain life no longer, and death is the result. But Jesus never became sick and could not have died for his said, “I have power to lay down my human life and power to take my true spirit life again which I have always had.” This is what he did at Calvary expressly for our benefit. He took us into death in himself so that his death became our death, to put an end to our human Adamic consciousness. This release of that true life of the Spirit within us allows us to assume control of our body breaking the power of sickness through a New Consciousness generated not by the natural mind, but by the CHRIST of our true identity.
It would seem important at this point to share a few things about sickness and how Jesus taught us to deal with it. There are two worlds with which we have to deal with as we live on this earth. One it the INVISIBLE WORLD of spirit in which God dwells, which is the original creation of Gen 1. This is hidden from our view and understanding, to the point that we are not really convinced that there is such a world, or that even God has any true existence. The other is a physical, material world which is the ONLY world of reality that we are convinced exists, according to our awareness. For many people and even some Christians, God does not really exist in their consciousness, but only through knowledge that is a product of their mind. Real access to either world can only be achieved by what we call “CONSCIOUSNESS,” which could be explained by a simpler word, “AWARENESS.” What you are AWARE OF becomes your consciousness. As mortal human beings we determine our consciousness through our 5 Natural senses, which are, sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste. It is only through these five senses that we create, what is for us our consciousness. You will notice that not one of those 5 senses can access God or the whole invisible world of SPIRIT.
However, there are faculties that God has built into us, that correspond to our natural senses that have the ability to create a New Consciousness that includes God and the whole world of spirit. In Creation we were all created SPIRIT, and continue as such until our birth when we became flesh just as Jesus Christ did when he was birthed through Mary his mother. From creation to the time of our birth into this world we were in the Father, according to Psalm 90:1. It is God’s will for us to be born into this world to be co-laborers together with God to build his Kingdom on this earth. But here is what Jesus Christ had to say about man on this earth. Matthew 13:15 For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, (or come back into divine relationship with God as a SON to a Father) and I should heal them.
When we function under our human consciousness that we ourselves create through our 5 natural senses, we discover that so much of what we consider is our reality today, is only make believe, but we have convinced ourselves that it is reality. To unravel this question of consciousness we need to define what is Reality, and what is not a Reality, from the divine point of view. For something to be a reality it must have always existed and can never change or be destroyed. Everything else has no true reality if it has a beginning and also has an end. We need to know that everything in the spirit world is eternal and can never change or be destroyed. God’s original creation is spirit and so can never change or be destroyed. However, consider from the divine viewpoint things like Cancer and diabetes or any sickness you can name, and we realize that no sickness has in fact any true reality. First of all, God never created sickness so it has no true reality, for it has a beginning and an end. Jesus knew this, so he never tried to heal anyone, but spoke a word into the heart of the people who came to him.
If we look at the second miracle that Jesus did we see the principle behind what we call a miracle. In John 4:46 a man came to Jesus asking him to heal his son who was sick at Capernaum. Jesus did not have to travel to where the boy was lying but in verse 50 Jesus said to the man, “Go thy way, your son lives.” The man responded by BELIEVING the word that Jesus spoke to him, so he was convinced that his son was healed. He begins to go back home but on the way he meets his servants who were coming to meet him with the news that his son was no longer sick. The man responded saying, “I knew he was healed before you told me, because Jesus said that he was healed.” But being interested he asked the servants when he actually recovered, and when they told him, he said, “Yes that was exactly the time when Jesus told me my son was healed, even though he was in another place.” How are we to interpret this miracle? First of all we call such things “Miracles,” because from our point of view they are impossible, because our human consciousness says such things do not happen.
Two issues come into focus here, one is the power of the word that Jesus Spoke, for it is said that his words are Spirit and Life, the other was the response that it produced in the man, that he could believe something that was not a part of his natural consciousness. Every person who really heard the words that Jesus spoke was changed in some way. In John 5:24 Jesus says, “Verily I say unto you, he that hears my word (from within) and believes on him that sent me has everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation but has passed from DEATH unto LIFE. The hour is come when those who are spiritually dead shall HEAR the voice of the SON OF GOD and all those that HEAR shall LIVE in that same spiritual consciousness in which he dwells. These are the true issues of life for us today. We need to hear a voice from that higher dimension of spirit, not through our natural ears but through the ears of our spirit within us, which will energize the same spirit that dwells in everyone of us. Once we hear the voice of the Son of God Jesus Christ, who dwells within us, the spiritual dimension of our being is activated, changing us from what the Bible calls DEATH, that is living out of our human consciousness into LIFE, which is living out of our spiritual consciousness as a Son of God.
This changes our consciousness, which we ourselves created out of our 5 natural senses, none of which allows us to know God. In 1Cor 2:14 we read what Paul says about this natural consciousness, “The natural man has no capacity to receive the things of the spirit of God, for they are considered to be foolishness to that one, because he cannot know or understand them for they are only spiritually discerned.” There are only two groups of people in this world, those who live out of a natural consciousness who cannot know God in reality but only by knowledge. Then there are those who have heard the VOICE OF GOD within, that has activated the spirit of their true being opening up for them a higher dimension of consciousness in which miracles are as common as our daily bread, and sickness and disease have no true reality. The world that we created through our 5 natural senses is the world we see around us today. In that world Animals kill each other and people kill each other and crime and wickedness fill the headlines of our daily papers. This cannot be GOD’S WORLD, which he created, for he looked at all that he created and said, “It is very good.” Gen 1:31. The world we have created through our 5 natural senses has become our reality, and it is for this reason that so many people embrace death as a happy release from this world of pain and suffering. Religion has provided another reason to want to leave this world offering a paradise called heaven in another world on certain conditions.
It comes as a shock to discover that Jesus never suggested that we should embrace death as our friend, stating rather that it is the last enemy to be destroyed. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus told the people that the MEEK WOULD INHERIT THE EARTH and not heaven. Psalm 115:16 says, “The Heavens even the heavens belong to the Lord, BUT the EARTH has been given to the children of men.” However, Jesus was not saying that we would inherit the world that we have created out of our 5 natural senses consisting of what we see, touch taste feel and smell. The world that we will inherit will be God’s Kingdom. It is very interesting that for some people this world appears as a terrible world filled with adverse circumstances and with hate and everything seems to be against them. Then we meet others who are always smiling and are happy and generous in their spirit to all. What is the difference between such opposites? The answer is that one created a hostile world because of what they saw with their eyes etc, while the other saw the sunrise each day and the flowers that blossomed for our benefit and not just for their own. They looked upon their children as saw them as a gift from God and every blessing they enjoyed, they saw as a token of God’s blessing to them.
To understand this duality we need to find the cause in the Garden of Eden which has been perpetuated by mankind ever since. After man was created (Gen 1:26) and given a body (Gen 2:7) God prepared a place for him to live. It was a beautiful garden that provided absolutely everything that man needed, without any toil or sweat on the part of man. The fruit of the trees provided the food and a spring provided the water, then, company and fellowship was a daily experience as the man walked and talked with God his Father who created all things. In that garden there was no death and no sickness, and nothing that could break the tranquility that Adam experienced. However, Adam’s Father told him one thing that he needed to understand, and that was everything in the Garden was available to him, except for one thing, and that was the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil. The Father said to Adam, “Son do not eat the fruit of that tree, because the day you do YOU WILL DIE.” Now the Bible is a spiritual book written by men who were Inspired (God breathing into them) the words God wanted written. Therefore for any man to pick up the Bible and consider that they can understand with their natural intelligence exactly what God is saying is both arrogant and ignorant.
First of all the forbidden tree was not planted by God for it was not included in creation so it has no true reality. In the scriptures it says that the TREE OF LIFE was in the middle of the Garden (Gen 2:9) and also the TREE OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL, so both trees were in the same position in the middle of the garden. Here is where we need divine help to decipher what God is telling us here. The MIDDLE of the Garden is a specific point and only one tree can exist in that position, for whatever is planted there is the centerpiece of the view from any position in that garden. The truth is that from a spiritual point of view, we are all living in that Garden today and our view of the world will differ according to which TREE is planted in the MIDDLE of your garden! The TREE OF LIFE represents Jesus Christ who said, “I am the WAY the TRUTH and the LIFE.” The tree of the knowledge of good and evil represents the serpent that debated with Eve in the Garden after she was separated from Adam. But again the serpent also represents the NATURAL MIND of the woman that functions being separated from Adam, who is Christ, the Son of God. Remember the woman was never created by God as a separate entity, but the man is SPIRIT, which is MALE and FEMALE functioning together in unity.
Eve was never recognized by God as a separate entity, so in Gen 5:2 it says, “And God called their name ADAM.” The term used for the world population is MANKIND not man and womankind. Even in the Old English language the woman was called the WOMB-MAN or the MAN with the womb. This duality has created many problems today as we have defined the role of the man and the woman specifically, which has affected the woman in business and relegated her to the weaker vessel etc etc. Reproduction was the role given to the MAN in Gen 1:28, when he was told to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. That task was not given to ADAM and EVE as separate entities, but today the man has in many cases ruled over the woman as God told her this would be the result of her functioning on her own, and eating of the wrong tree. But have you noticed that today the woman is asserting herself and has climbed the ladder of success in the corporate world, to compete with the Man. Even in Politics the woman is now assuming equality and we will see more leadership of the feminine kind in the days ahead. In God, MAN and WOMAN were united as one and from his viewpoint have never been separated.
Now we understand by the spirit that Adam the MAN represents the spirit and EVE the feminine, or the soul of MAN. However the account in Gen 2 of the separation of the Female from the Male cannot be literal because the Male and the female, the soul and the spirit are both spirit, which cannot be separated. You cannot have half a spirit, because it is indivisible. Spirit has NO GENDER; therefore there is no such thing as a MALE SPIRIT or a FEMALE SPIRIT. God is SPIRIT and he also is MALE and FEMALE so that he had no problem bringing forth a son without any help from anyone else. God is the only source of life in this universe including the life that each of us has today. Life is of such a character that if it is separated from its source, it cannot exist or function. The fetus in the womb will die if the Umbilical Cord that connects it to its life source is severed before it is ready to be birthed. Life cannot be transmitted by proxy, so it is for mankind. The spirit within us is Christ, but when the spirit leaves the body the person is DEAD. The truth is, if God ever left anyone of us for one minute we would be DEAD. Our body does not possess any life of its own, for the life that energizes our body is the spirit of our true being, which is CHRIST.
The taking of the Female from the man, although it is only an allegory in Gen 2, represents the sense of separation from God that we feel within us today. But it is reinforced by the fact that Adam found himself outside the Garden of Eden, which we consider to be God’s judgment upon Adam for eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and then passed upon all of mankind who has also sinned. This is the fundamental fault in man’s theology, to believe that God has banished everyone from his presence because of what Adam did in the Garden of Eden that is called S-I-N. To unravel this whole question as to what actually happened in this drama recorded for us in Genesis 3, let us seek the knowledge and wisdom of God for the true answer as our relationship with God is at stake here.
We have already discovered that Man was created spirit and not as flesh and blood, because the law of bio-genetics declares that whatever the parents are that is what the offspring will be. God is spirit so his offspring must also be spirit, but today most people have no idea that they are spirit that lives in a body of flesh and blood. In Gen 2:7 the Lord God forms a manifestation of himself out of the dust of the earth. Then into that form he breathed the breath (spirit), and it says that the man BECAME a LIVING SOUL. This occurred when he ate the fruit of the tree of the Knowledge of good and evil. We do not know how long Adam enjoyed such fellowship with God but it continued until that day when Adam was put to sleep and the female part of his being was taken out of him and this became a woman and was brought to the man who said, “You are bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh, so I will call you woman (Heb. Ishaw) because you were taken out of me (Ish). Man had now become a duality in the allegory and no longer functioned as a single entity.
The allegory now shows the woman going out on her own, and immediately she begins a debate with what the Bible calls a serpent. This “Serpent” was said to be more subtle (shrewd, crafty, sly, sensible) than all the beasts of the field. Remember the serpent was the ancient symbol of wisdom and even to this day the Medical Doctors still use it as their symbol set on a pole, which was portrayed as the healer in Israel when they were in the wilderness and turned against the Lord. God told Moses that he was to make a copy of the seraphs, that were biting the people out of brass, and put it on a pole in the midst of Israel and as they looked at the brazen Seraph on the pole, they would be healed. The Bible is written with signs and symbols, and if we do not understand these things, it will be unintelligible to us. The serpent here in the Garden of Eden represents the MIND of Man that God says is more subtle than all the beasts of the field. As God created man, the spirit, which is Christ within him, contained all the wisdom and knowledge of God but now the female part is functioning as a separate entity, which we know as the SOUL. This new entity is called a LIVING SOUL as opposed to a LIVING SPIRIT as Adam was created in the beginning.
The soul consists of three parts, the MIND the EMOTIONS and the WILL which together form the government of our whole being. Now there is an important change, for when the soul and the spirit functioned together all the wisdom and knowledge of God were at his disposal. Now the MIND has assumed its authority over the body and in fact over the whole man, without any input from the Spirit hence the man has now become a LIVING SOUL, without any input from the spirit, which is CHRIST, who is God. Jn 10:30. Every person on the earth has become that WOMAN that is governed by the natural mind, having no input from God and therefore cannot know God, so they are limited to human knowledge and human wisdom. The serpent in “Our Garden” continues to practice deception, bringing all the people on the earth under its power. It comes as quite a shock when we begin to realize that we have actually been hypnotized into believing that this is God’s world, but in fact it is not God’s world at all. In God’s world there is no good and evil, for after creation was finished he said everything was very good.
It was Eve the woman taken out of Adam that brought us into this world of illusion having been deceived by the snake in the Garden, which was actually her natural mind. Now Eve had no input from the spirit having separated herself from Adam, feeling capable of making her own decisions without him, which meant living apart from God. The subtlety of the natural mind (Snake) is so great that it convinced Eve that what God said about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, was wrong. In fact the snake went further by suggesting that God was cheating her out of a wonderful experience, in which her eyes would be opened to a wonderful new world of which at that moment she had not become aware. Eve’s world up to that time was functioning exactly as God intended with no sickness, no pain, no suffering, no death and no evil at all. Such a world she forfeited to embrace the world in which we presently exist, with the proliferation of every known evil. We may read these words and wonder how Eve could make such a stupid decision to eat the fruit of the tree when God had said, “I do not want you to eat of that tree because I know that the day you do, you will die.” Would anyone in his or her right mind make such a choice?
The answer is NO, so why did Eve decide to eat the fruit of the forbidden tree? The answer is simple because her carnal or natural mind has the power to deceive her, and also all of mankind. Let us consider the two trees in the Garden. The tree of life has the power to sustain life forever with absolutely nothing that could affect it in any way. That “Tree of Life” represents JESUS CHRIST who said, John 3:15 “That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. I AM THE LIFE…….If you eat of me you will live forever.” (John 6) Of course Jesus Christ is not a literal tree but as we assimilate him into our lives we have embraced the life that Adam knew when he was put into the Garden of Eden. But there was another tree called the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Again this is not a literal tree but represents a KNOWLEDGE outside the bounds of all that is called God. Both “Good and Evil” have nothing to do with God for they are comparative terms. If I say that meal was good, I am saying that it is good compared with other meals that I have had. If I call something evil then I am saying that comparing it with other things it appears to me to be evil.
All wisdom and knowledge is found in God, so the Apostle John told the people of his day, “You have an anointing from God and YOU KNOW ALL THINGS.” 1John 2:20. Then in verse 27, he said, “The anointing which you have received of him abides or remains in you, and you do not need any MAN to teach you, but as the same anointing teaches you of all things, and is truth and contains no lie, being your teacher you need to walk in the truth he has taught you. The anointing (Greek Charisma) is actually CHRIST from which the word is derived. God has not left mankind without a sense of direction because he has put the Holy Spirit, which is Christ within every man, and all the knowledge of God is in him. BUT like Eve we have fallen under the spell of the carnal mind that has convinced us we do not need God in our lives, as we are quite capable of finding our way through life without his help. However, when we face problems like sickness and disasters we then reach out to God and expect him to respond immediately or we consider him to be uncaring and ignoring our need.
As God Created us we should never make a bad decision, but some people go from one disaster to another. Take marriage for an example and see how many people choose a partner for life only to find they have chosen the wrong person. Could such situations be avoided? O course but for some reason we are convinced that God does not love us, but seems to want to deny us Peace, Joy and happiness. So we are more comfortable ignoring God and avoiding having much to do with him. How could such a concept of God be so established in the heart of man? Let us look at what happened when Adam had eaten of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The first thing he said is, “I AM NAKED.” A new consciousness changed his thinking even about himself, as well as everything else. We do not know how long Adam lived in the Garden of Eden, but he had never felt NAKED before, and if we had been looking at him we would have said, ”I cannot see any difference in you from what you have always been.” But a new consciousness had changed his perception about everything. Instead of walking and talking with God as he had always done, this day he went among the trees and HID HIMSELF from God. But God went looking for him asking Adam a question, not just where are you, but, “What are you doing hiding from me?” Adam replied, “I am naked and that is why I am hiding from you.”
I want you to notice how God responded to him with a simple question. God said to Adam, “WHO TOLD YOU!” The implications of this question are very clear, for God was really saying to Adam, “I NEVER TOLD YOU that you are naked, but WHO DID TELL YOU, because you have been listening to another voice. To understand what happened to Adam let us look at the Life of Jesus Christ on the earth and what he did. First of all you will notice that the term “devil” does not appear in the Bible until we come to the New Testament in Matthew 4:1, and the first person that becomes involved with this “devil” is Jesus Christ before he begins his ministry. “Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.” It was the Christ within Jesus who directed the following procedure and not the devil. Why was this experience essential to his life and ministry? Because it was the FIRST ADAM in the Garden of Eden who was infected by the serpent and so with that first victory, the serpent (devil) had infected every man and woman who has ever been born on the earth since then. However, a Son of God had just been born of a virgin and slipped through the serpent’s net. So before he could be the Savior of the world there must be an open contest with the devil, because unless he can defeat this enemy of mankind there can be no redemption.
The first issue Jesus Christ had to face was to “Fast” or eat no food for 40 days, which would have drained his natural energy and created a craving in his natural body for food. Now the Tempter comes to test this man to check on his integrity. Knowing his physical condition after having no food, he says, “If you are the Son of God, inferring a doubt about his true identity, command these stones be made bread.” The tempter is not foolish enough to tell him to do some wicked thing, but this is quite legitimate because he was very hungry and it does not affect anyone else. But that is not the issue for a Son of God, for a true son only DOES what he sees his Father do, and only says what he hears his Father say. To simply do what others may want you to do is not legitimate for a SON OF GOD, even if it seems like a good thing to do. So Jesus responds to the tempter by quoting a statement God made to Israel concerning the reason for their wilderness journey so long ago. This is what he said, “Deuteronomy 8:3 And he humbled you, and suffered you to hunger, and fed you with manna, which you had no knowledge of, neither did your fathers know; that he might make you to know that man does not live just by eating natural bread only, but LIFE flows to you through every word that IS PROCEEDING out of the mouth of the LORD.
The life of a Son of God is not sustained by physical bread but flows from its source, which is Christ within us. The next test required Jesus to be taken into the sacred precincts of the Temple in the Holy city of Jerusalem. Seated upon a pinnacle of the Temple He is again instructed, “If you are the Son of God, cast yourself down because, it is also written that he shall give the angels charge over you and in their hands they will bear you up lest at any time you dash your foot against a stone.” Jesus of course did not do what the tempter told him to do, quoting again from the Old Testament, “It is written you shall not tempt the Lord thy God.” Presumption is not a suitable response for any action in the life of a Son of God. To act that way is like we are demanding that God has to respond in a certain way regardless of our motivation. The scriptures say, “The lord searches the Heart.” The only true motivation for a Son of God is true obedience to the word and will of God.
The third test saw him on a high mountain surveying the Kingdoms of the world and the glory of them. Then the tempter said, “All these will I give you, if you will only bow down and worship me.” But Jesus was not moved in any way but replied quoting the scriptures again saying, “Matthew 4:10 Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.” So the test was over and Jesus was victorious and declared to be the Son of God with power over all his enemies. Jesus Christ was the LAST ADAM, which means that he was the last of a whole generation of people, all of whom were the seed of the woman who had been seduced by the serpent. God had told the serpent that he would put enmity between the woman and the serpent. However, there would come a SEED OF THE WOMAN that would crush the head of the serpent and the seed of the serpent would bruise his heel. We must remember that the woman was an integral part of the Man ADAM who was the Son of God created out of God.
Jesus was born of a woman but she was a virgin, which means that she had never received the SEED OF MAN for if she had, she would not have been able to birth the Son of God. The seed of God according to Gal 3:16 is CHRIST, and Christ is spirit and not a man. Christ is the spirit dwelling in all of mankind, and he is the SEED OF GOD. Every seed contains within itself the very life of the one from whom it came; therefore if you plant an orange seed you would only get an orange tree. But the VIRGIN did not need the seed of MAN to bring forth a child, because she already had the SEED OF GOD which is CHRIST, and that seed caused her to conceive by the Holy Spirit who told her that the child she would bring forth would be the SON OF GOD. Now we have just seen how the head of the serpent was bruised by the SEED of the woman and Jesus Christ came away having the victory, which he won not just for himself, but also for all mankind. Jesus said, “In this world you will have tribulation but be of good cheer for I HAVE (already) OVERCOME THE WORLD (for you).”
We need to understand how Eve’s disobedience changed everything for mankind. Remember that Adam did not sin as Paul told Timothy, but it was EVE who was in the transgression. 1Tim 2:14. Because God never recognized the woman as a separate entity, the disobedience is attributed to ADAM. Many Christians have never understood what was involved with the eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Religion suggests that Adam simply ate an apple, without any spiritual understanding at all. We understand that the Tree of Life represents Christ who declared himself to be the “Way the Truth and the Life.” But what does the tree of the knowledge of good and evil stand for? It is obvious that it represents a certain kind of knowledge that is so profound that it changes the whole world in which we live. We understand that all the Wisdom and Knowledge of the universe is to be found in God, but there is knowledge of a different character that is called the Knowledge of GOOD and EVIL that has the power to transform our personalities and us completely. Until the time when Eve took the fruit of that tree and ate it Adam walked and talked with God in perfect union. If you had asked Adam what is “Evil,” he would have looked at you and said, “I have no idea.” In the entire world that God had created there was absolutely nothing that was evil, for he declared after he had finished everything that it is very GOOD. That word “GOOD” means that everything functioned as it was intended, and fulfilled the will and purpose for which it was created without exception, and this included the MAN.
When Adam ate the fruit of that tree nothing in creation changed, for it was perfect and on the seventh day God rested from all his work because it was FINISHED. This is the divine creation with no beginning and no end; this is actually the only true creation that there is. Because we have not seen nor are able to comprehend that creation, most people do not believe that it exists. The reason for this is we have embraced a knowledge that is not related to God nor is it compatible with what God declares as being truth. Both Good and Evil are comparable terms and are used to compare different things. But there is nothing that we can use to compare with God, nor to compare with what God created for it was all VERY GOOD, and there was nothing else. God is above and beyond everything we know, but we in our ignorance have embraced a knowledge in which good and evil represent reality, and we declare the right to determine what everything is.
The Prophet said in Isaiah 25:7 “And he will destroy in this mountain (of our raised consciousness) the face of the covering (of ignorance and blindness) cast over all people, and the veil (restriction of vision) that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears (of frustration) from off all faces; and the “Rebuke” of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the LORD hath spoken it.”
The word “Rebuke” used here refers back to the highest rank of the Priesthood, which is the High Priest. In Israel’s history the High priest had to belong to the family of Aaron and was appointed for life only changing upon his death. He was the only member of the Priesthood allowed into the Most Holy Place, behind the veil, and in sacred issues he was the final authority in Israel. However, during the one hundred and seven years between King Herod the Great and the destruction of the holy city, twenty-eight persons held the High Priest’s position. The Roman Authorities of the day had assumed the right to appoint whomever they considered fit to hold that high and holy position and power over the people. This was indeed a terrible “Rebuke” to the people of Israel, degrading the highest divine authority established by God to rule over his people Israel. Remember the High Priest was vitally involved in the crucifixion of Christ during his trial.
However a new priestly system had been established in the time of the New Testament with every believer forming part of Royal Priesthood and a Holy Nation under the sovereign direction of CHRIST our High Priest. This New Priesthood made Christ our High Priest, being developed under the New Order of Melchisedec who is both a KING and a PRIEST, uniting the two roles, which formerly had been kept separate. The prophet Isaiah makes it clear that in these days of revelation there will be a clear elevation of the house of the Lord, lifting truth above and beyond the realm of intellect and human knowledge. This demands that we should recognize that Truth will not be advertised on Billboards or simply available in books and writings, but it will only be available by the spirit of the Lord. Jesus said, “But the comforter which is the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name, HE will guide you into all TRUTH and bring to your remembrance the things I have said to you.” In these words Jesus Christ is telling us that true spiritual intelligence will not be available, in the multitude of human voices that fill the airwaves today. But will be transmitted only through ONE VOICE and that is the voice of the Holy Spirit who dwells within you.
In a strange way it seems that Father is taking us back to the Garden of Eden living under the same conditions under which Adam functioned back in the beginning. In that Garden, GOD and MAN lived and functioned together in beautiful harmony and peace, as spirit to spirit. Adam did not need to go anywhere or to fulfill any kind of Ritual, in order to be intimate with God, because he and God were O-N-E. Flesh and blood and spirit involve two different orders that have no relevance to each other functioning in two different realms. Jesus corrected the woman at the well, telling her that the transition in worship was already set so that neither in “This Mountain or in Jerusalem,” would be a requirement in order to worship God. True Worship will be emancipated from both TIME and PLACE, representing both the religious world (This Mountain) and Jerusalem (The people of God). The rivalries between these two will disappear when true spirituality is fully realized. Jesus told the disciples in Matt 24, that the Temple in Jerusalem was destined for destruction, which took place in AD. 70, ending the connection between Worship and a place or building.
Jesus told the Woman of Samaria a very important truth that God is SPIRIT, and those who would worship him must also be spirit and living in the power of an endless life. Man was created spirit in creation to be ONE WITH GOD. Spirit has its own language, which does not need words to communicate. Spirit has its own activity that does not require actions to facilitate its function. Worship today for God’s people, requires many words and actions following the function of religion and heathenism, both of which know nothing of true worship. Worship cannot be organized or controlled and must be completely spontaneous in each person.
This is not the general consensus among Christians, for Worship is not spontaneous so does not often take place in the home or workplace, but only under human leadership when they are in a meeting. The reason for this is that it seems few Christians see themselves as SPIRIT, so CHRIST is our true identity, and as he said in John 10:30 that he was ONE WITH GOD. We tend to Worship God who is UP THERE or OUT THERE somewhere, instead of going inward and finding CHRIST IN YOU the hope of Glory. There is no such thing as God and I as separate entities, nor that mortality and spirit can walk together in harmony. Creation was a spiritual exercise including man, for God did not begin with dust as a material substance and actually make a man. There was no formal activity required nor was they’re any material necessary, for GOD SPOKE a WORD and that WORD became the MAN. When God needed LIGHT he did not have to destroy darkness first, only to SPEAK THE WORD, “LIGHT BE,” and light was. These are the principles of spirit function that most Christians have not yet discovered, because they still believe the lie of the serpent that they would become AS GODS through knowledge.
This whole question has come up so many times over the years that I want to discus it more fully here. The difference between the two Trees in the Garden has not really been understood. The tree of life represents God or Christ as the absolute source of LIFE itself for all living creatures. To “EAT” of that tree simply means to embrace that life of God as being the same life that functions in me today which is both spiritual and eternal, and there is no other. However life is not static so scripture says, to EAT the bread of LIFE, To drink the water of life as from a living stream, to breathe in the air is to breathe in Christ, so it suggests a continual partaking of that eternal life. A child does not have one feed and then needs no more but they must continue to eat, replenishing the life within. Our LIFE flows in a constant stream from its source and is available at all times. But to appropriate that life requires no manual effort of any kind nor any external help, but is as simple as breathing.
But the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is different. It requires an activity of a part of our humanity called the MIND to seek out knowledge that is constantly expanding in the world in this 21st century. This now includes a myriad of books that we must read. Man’s view of everything that we may feel is important of us to know. Then we have the Internet where millions of words are available right at our fingertips on every conceivable subject. The Bible for most people is difficult to understand because it is a spiritual book and can only be spiritually understood. It holds a most important place in a Christian’s life being considered to be our inerrant guide to truth. If that is true then please tell me how people in the New Testament times could know truth because no one had a Bible? There were scrolls in the Synagogue which contained the first 5 books of the Old Testament but that was all. In fact for 1600 years no one had a BIBLE, as we know it today, as the printing press was not available, so how could all those people know the truth?
The place given to the Bible today by Christians has replaced the Tree of LIFE with the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil. Such a statement will be challenged by many but let me explain a little more. The Psalmist said, Thy WORD have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee. Most Christians consider the “Word” refers to Verses in the Bible but this is not true. We also read, “Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light to my path,” and this also is thought to refer to the Bible, but this is untrue also. John begins his Gospel saying, “In the beginning was THE WORD,” but he was not saying that the Bible was there in the Beginning with God and that the BIBLE WAS GOD. That would not make any sense, because the WORD was a “Person” who exists because GOD SPOKE a WORD in the beginning and that WORD was his son Jesus Christ. When God said, “LIGHT BE,” then from that moment light existed.
If we look carefully through the scriptures we discover the key to spiritual knowledge is not by what has been written, but by what God is saying to us now. You will notice that everything that God desired to do was done by speaking a word. What God says to us has the power in itself to accomplish his will so as we HEAR the word he speaks to us and act upon it; the power of God is released to accomplish whatever he desires to do. 2 Peter 1:18 “And this voice which came from heaven (another world) we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount.” We have also a more sure WORD of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shines in a dark place, illuminating our understanding, until the new day dawns, and CHRIST arises as LORD in your hearts. Isa 55:10. For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater. So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me until it shall have accomplished that which I purposed, and it shall accomplish the thing that I sent it to do.
Every miracle Jesus did was accomplished by Jesus Christ speaking a word. To the man with the withered arm he said, “Stretch forth your arm,” and the man’s arm responded accordingly. No healing was necessary in terms of dealing with sickness or disease, for Jesus knew that such had no true reality for it is not part of creation. His direction to the disciples was to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom and heal the sick, because there is no sickness in the Kingdom of God. Sickness is escalating on the earth in these days with more and more diseases being discovered, and science will never stem the tide but there is an anointing Jesus received which was promised hundreds of years before he came to the earth by the Prophet Isaiah. Isaiah 61:1 The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. To proclaim the time of our acceptance of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God against the “Seed of the serpent” and to comfort all that mourn.
This is our calling beloved and our equipment to accomplish the will and purpose of God, to see every knee bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ IS LORD to the glory of God. The word of the Lord spoken in Creation is still just as powerful today as it was then, to see everything that would oppose us or seek to limit us in our expression of Christ defeated and put under our feet. He took us into death in himself to destroy its power forever, rising again on the third day triumphant over sin, death and the grave taking us with him. He did this so that we could in turn declare to the world that we are now part of that one who walked out of the tomb saying, “I am he that liveth and was dead, and now I am alive for evermore and I hold in my hand the keys of the grave and death.” This is not something we must hope for sometime in the future but is NOW OUR PRESENT REALITY IF WE CAN BELIEVE.
In Israel’s history, there was a time when the nation was in great need because the High Priest was old, and his two sons did not walk in righteousness, there was no one to represent the nation before God. The only person who seemed to be available to meet the desperate need of the hour was a barren woman, who was the wife of Elkana. As she was crying unto the Lord in the Temple one day, the High Priest Eli who was almost blind, thought she was drunk with wine and rebuked her. She told him she was not drunk but in great distress because she had nothing to give to God. There are not many people in the world today that carry such a burden to give unto the Lord. Her husband gave her the temple offering in money but this did not satisfy her heart cry. The truth is that we can only give to the Lord what he has first given to us. Her hearts cry was for her to birth the Christ for her generation, and to answer the desperate need of the hour, for the doors into God’s presence were closing and the Light of God was going out. Surely this is a picture of this very day in which we live.
The greatest need in this world today is for the Christ to be birthed in a people enabling them to fulfil the will and purpose of God. The need is not for more Bible Schools or Theological Colleges, nor is it the need for more Bible teaching, but it is for the birthing of the Christ IN A PEOPLE. The moment came in Israel’s history when Rome was in possession of their land and they were paying tribute to Cesar. God’s people were hurting under the Roman rod of King Herod who served Rome without thought for the people. Unknown to the people a messenger appeared to a woman whose name was Mary, delivering to her an amazing message. She was a virgin who was espoused to a man named Joseph. She was told that she would become pregnant and bear a child and his name would be JESUS. But this was not just a simple pregnancy for no human sperm would be involved. Mary’s response to the messenger was one of fear, knowing that her pregnancy would cancel the arrangements for her marriage. In fact it would appear to everyone that she had committed fornication and would suffer the consequences of the Law in Israel.
Beloved we are living in a time when the same situation applies, for there are forces functioning on the earth today that are destined to destroy people financially, and making it difficult to get medical attention, with crime increasing and generally causing unrest among the people. Our country is not overrun by another nation but is being exposed to forces in every walk of life that bring fear and distrust even of Governments. No statesman can resolve the issues facing the world today, and no Government has the answers either. New words are being used to describe our dilemma, like Recession and Meltdown, Financial Crash of Banks and Lending Institutions and the Stock Exchange. Even Christians are being caught up in this “Crash,” but how few even consider that there is a spiritual answer for the world. Two thousand years ago a child was born in Bethlehem who was designated as a KING who was over every other King or authority on the earth.
The Prophet Isaiah says of him, “Who hath directed the Spirit of the LORD, or being his counselor hath taught him? With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and showed to him the way of understanding? Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he takes up the isles as a very little thing. All nations before him are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity.” In this one lays the hope and the desire of the nations. There is only one problem and that is to find a virgin who will birth the Christ for this generation. Most Christians are not even looking for a virgin today for they have followed the fables of religious men who teach the people that there is no need for a virgin today. They teach that Jesus Christ is up in the sky somewhere and that his plan is to return one day and call up the Christians who have followed their teachings, into the clouds in the sky and take them away to a place called heaven. The rest of the story is that then with all the Christians have gone, all hell will break loose on the earth creating the great tribulation in which the wicked will be punished. So there is no need for a virgin today to bring forth the Christ on the earth today according to this teaching.
Not long before Jesus went away this is what he said, John 14:19, “Yet a little while and the world sees me no more; but you see me, and because I live, you shall live also. At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. He that HATH my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world? Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.
Jesus told the disciples that very soon the people who did not have a relationship with him, would no longer be able to see him, for they are limited to natural sight. By contrast the people who knew him by the spirit would continue to see him, and to see him living after the cross, provided the grounds for us to live also, because he IS OUR LIFE.
This is the principle in worship, that we must have an offering to give to the Lord if we desire to worship God. Abraham was directed to the top of the mountain with Isaac to worship the Lord but he needed an offering. Most Christians would have caught a Lamb or Goat and used that as an offering, but not Abraham who was directed to offer his only son that God had given to him after 100 years. Sarah had never produced a child in all her years, and now even when she was past her time to even think of birthing a child, she brings forth by the spirit her only son Isaac. Now Abraham is facing the test of true worship when God demands that his offering must be one, which he could never, produce himself. Can we grasp what this meant for Abraham to bind his only son on the altar as an offering to God? This is true worship and most Christians know very little of such dealings of God in their lives. True worship involves the offering of ourselves on the altar of sacrifice according to Rom 12: 1-2. This involves the sacrifice being consumed (death) and the emergence of a NEW LIFE that rises out of that death, bringing with it a transformation from mortal to immortality.
People bring an offering to the Lord on Sunday morning in the form of MONEY that cost them so little, and so their worship has almost no impact upon their lives. Right through the Old Testament every offering was DEAD at the point of sacrifice and so had no impact upon the people. The worship of God’s people today has no more impact on them than the offering of a bullock or lamb on the brazen altar of the Temple. But when we come to the New Covenant this must be ratified not by some animal sacrifice, but we see Jesus Christ in the Garden of, Gethsemane facing the cross and he is sweating great drops of blood as the Father’s will is made clear to him. GOD only has ONE SON and not two or a hundred, and Father required HIS LIFE be offered for the redemption of the world, so that he tasted death for every man. God’s only begotten son there in that “Olive Press” willingly laid down his life for the salvation of the world. This was no great ceremony nor any witnesses, bowing down together in honour of this great sacrifice, not even the disciples, for they were asleep. Jesus is the TRUE LAMB OF GOD that takes away the sins of the world. Today the world sleeps on ignorant of this momentous occasion, and every other lamb or beast offered on the altars of Israel pointed to this very event that was to come.
The one who KNEW NO SIN was made to be the MAN OF SIN so that we, the offspring of God, might be made the righteousness of God IN HIM. Down through the ages this offering has been distorted as we glibly claim that he died INSTEAD OF US so that we might not have to die. HE suffered, the JUST for the UNJUST that he might bring us to God. Jesus Christ said, “If any man will follow in my footsteps, here is what I will require of him. He must forsake the right to save his own being by denying himself, and then taking up his CROSS let him follow me, recognising he has no more right to life than Jesus did. As we all came out of Jesus Christ in creation he marked out the pathway for us that would fulfil our divine destiny. We were destined to be the Saviours of the world, by laying down out natural life that has caused the Soul to defile our true being, having been deceived concerning our true identity, and creating an alien world that is slowly destroying man on this earth. Until we exchange our natural life for the life of the spirit we cannot bring the Life of God to this earth. The earth is not waiting for better preachers or better leaders, but for those who will see Abraham as the beginning of a new people being raised up in God, who sees that the true pathway leads to the CROSS FOR ALL OF US.
For only then can we be the Saviours of this world. Isaac took on a new role after the mountain experience. Matt 1:1 tells us that Abraham birthed the CHRIST who from that moment became his heir, living on past Abraham and all the prophets and through David, until Christ was birthed through a virgin who surrendered her life to God for the fulfilment of the divine purpose, which is that Christ be born in the year 2007 in a people.
Back to Hannah whose cry was for the Lord to give her a child that she could then give to the Lord to serve him. How amazing, that this woman was expressing the very heart of God to fulfil the great need for a priest to function in the temple. It is recorded that the doors of the Temple were closing, and the Lamp in the Temple representing the presence and Light of God was going out, so things were at a very critical stage. But the spirit of the Lord laid the burden of God upon this woman, who was needed to supply the answer to Israel’s need in that hour.
Where are the people of God who cry unto the Lord to give them a child to be raised up to fulfil the will and purpose of God on the earth today, or is it OK to desire children for our own personal benefit? Is God happy with the situation that exists in this world, with people being killed every day in the wars and so many young people committing suicide? Girls as young as 12 are getting pregnant and thousands of children are living on the streets, with drugs and alcohol destroying lives while pornography and crime of every kind is polluting society worldwide. Is this the will of God for the world for which Jesus Christ died in an act of unconditional love, to save man from himself? The religious world is deluding itself by building beautiful buildings and seeking to make their people happy in meetings, while ignoring the plight of the millions who will die of hunger and have no shelter from the elements. The rich are building bigger and better homes while the poor are getting poorer, and mankind seems to live only for their own pleasure. We need to be reminded that Jesus said,
“If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take, up his cross and follow me to Calvary, for whoever shall save his natural life that animates his body, shall lose it or render it useless. But whosoever shall voluntarily lay down his natural life FOR MY SAKE shall discover his true life, that is ordained of God designed to fulfil the will and purpose of God on this earth.” (Paraphrased)
It seems that in this world very few people have any understanding of what God is doing on the earth in this our day. Israel’s need was indeed urgent at that time, but it was met as Hannah gave birth to a son who replaced the aging Eli and became a leader for the people. As I look at the world we live in today, I see a tremendous need for spiritual leadership, and for those who would yield themselves to the spirit, who could fit them as vessels that could liberate those who have been drawn away from the truth by false doctrines that have ensnared them, and brought them into spiritual bondage. A person in ministry cannot have a personal agenda apart from God’s will and purpose to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom to the whole world. Although the Internet has been a wonderful tool to spread the Gospel of the Kingdom, it has also given voice to a myriad of voices that appeal to the natural mind, using mysticism and an endless pursuit of knowledge.
This world needs those who can hear clearly the voice of God and then communicate what Father is saying to his people in this our day. There are Pastors and preachers who are travelling to foreign countries, but so often the word they deliver lacks in power to bring change to the nations, who today are being destroyed by governments and political leaders who have no real love for the people. Religion, in many cases becomes a tool to isolate people one from the other, just as it has done for 2000 years all over the world. After 2000 years the Church has failed to unite the people on the earth, rather continuing to create the divisions that often divide families and nations. False concepts of God introduced by religion have made God to be what ever the people consider him to be, and not the God of all creation and the owner of the whole earth.
Are we to consider that it is futile to think that we could make a difference and close our minds to hearing the voice of God in this hour? Joseph dreamed a dream that carried him through a life that seemed to be filled with hopeless frustrations, but when the time was right, he was where he needed to be and equipped to answer the divine need for a man to save his own nation, as well as many others. A young shepherd boy called David, with no more education than minding a bunch of sheep, was touched by the Holy anointing oil, and was spiritually fitted to bring release to the whole Nation of Israel, as he destroyed Goliath. At a time when Israel had gone into apostasy having been drawn away following a false God Baal, God raised up a man called Elisha to challenge the priests of Baal and restore Israel. He was able to demonstrate the power of God that destroyed the religion of the priests of Baal, and convinced Israel that their God is the ONLY GOD.
My own heart is deeply exercised as I yield myself to the spirit of the Lord joining those with like minds, to be fitted as the vessel in Father’s hands to set all creation free. The Apostle Paul says in Romans 8:22 “For we know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together (as a woman in child-birth) until now. and not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body” Romans 8:15 “For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, (which means) Father.” Sickness is increasing all over the world causing pain and suffering resulting ultimately in death. With all the increase in knowledge and science, mankind has not even found a remedy for the common cold. New diseases not yet given a name are breaking out on the earth-affecting people both rich and poor. In spite of this, Paul reminds us that the whole of creation is looking to see the manifestation of our true identity as the Sons of God.
We know intuitively that God never gets sick neither does he have some “Gene Pool” in his ancestry with defects that could continue to find expression through him. Jesus declared who we really are when he taught his disciples to pray saying, “OUR FATHER (meaning origin) which art in heaven.” The “Seed” of the father remains in the child in the natural world as well as in the spiritual world. Marriage today in the natural sense perpetuates the HUMAN species for it is that natural seed that reproduces itself in the child born. But mankind has forgotten that his true origin is not “Of the earth” but out of God in creation in the beginning. This means that we were created as spirit, because God is spirit and whatever the Father or the parents are that is what the offspring will be. Jesus was born of a virgin on the earth, as no human seed was required. According to the Apostle Paul the “Seed of God” is CHRIST (Gal 3:16) and that SEED is in every man waiting for its conception, to be birthed just as it was in Jesus 2000 years ago.
John explains this spiritual experience in his Gospel saying, “In the beginning (creation) was the Word and the word was WITH GOD, and the Word WAS GOD. Then we are told that the same WORD, BECAME FLESH and lived among mankind.
It is most important to realize that what Jesus Christ was in the beginning did not change when he became FLESH. This is most important because it is exactly the same for us except we do not believe it.
God’s original man only had ONE FATHER and that was God, and that same seed of LIFE has been planted in every living person on the earth ever since. The tragedy is that so few understand their true identity is “Out of God” believing rather that we are simply of human origin, and our life is only mortal. However, it is this body of flesh and blood that is subject to every sickness in the world and finally is overcome by DEATH. Our true identity is SPIRIT, which is that invisible part of our being from which our life flows, and that spirit is GOD. That God of our true identity is the creator of all things, and holds everything together in its atomic form by the word of his power. Imagine for a moment, that all the wisdom of God and all the knowledge of God are in every one of us, but for most it has little or no impact upon what we are on this earth. Down through the years it has been the so-called Christian countries that produced almost all the inventions and scientific developments of science, and not the pagan or heathen peoples of the world.
Each successive generation should learn from the preceding one but this is not the case. Looking back on the days of my childhood it now seems like it was another world. Children stayed with their parents until they were married. Having children outside marriage was rare, and families generally were united and children honored their parents. There were very few “Retirement Villages,” as the children took care of their parents. In just 70 years this world is not a better place, but continues to get worse as God is deleted from our understanding and superior knowledge has replaced him. The only part of us that gets sick is our body, for it is subject to all kinds of diseases that eventually weaken the body to the point that is can sustain life no longer, and death is the result. But Jesus never became sick and could not have died for his said, “I have power to lay down my human life and power to take my true spirit life again which I have always had.” This is what he did at Calvary expressly for our benefit. He took us into death in himself so that his death became our death, to put an end to our human Adamic consciousness. This release of that true life of the Spirit within us allows us to assume control of our body breaking the power of sickness through a New Consciousness generated not by the natural mind, but by the CHRIST of our true identity.
It would seem important at this point to share a few things about sickness and how Jesus taught us to deal with it. There are two worlds with which we have to deal with as we live on this earth. One it the INVISIBLE WORLD of spirit in which God dwells, which is the original creation of Gen 1. This is hidden from our view and understanding, to the point that we are not really convinced that there is such a world, or that even God has any true existence. The other is a physical, material world which is the ONLY world of reality that we are convinced exists, according to our awareness. For many people and even some Christians, God does not really exist in their consciousness, but only through knowledge that is a product of their mind. Real access to either world can only be achieved by what we call “CONSCIOUSNESS,” which could be explained by a simpler word, “AWARENESS.” What you are AWARE OF becomes your consciousness. As mortal human beings we determine our consciousness through our 5 Natural senses, which are, sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste. It is only through these five senses that we create, what is for us our consciousness. You will notice that not one of those 5 senses can access God or the whole invisible world of SPIRIT.
However, there are faculties that God has built into us, that correspond to our natural senses that have the ability to create a New Consciousness that includes God and the whole world of spirit. In Creation we were all created SPIRIT, and continue as such until our birth when we became flesh just as Jesus Christ did when he was birthed through Mary his mother. From creation to the time of our birth into this world we were in the Father, according to Psalm 90:1. It is God’s will for us to be born into this world to be co-laborers together with God to build his Kingdom on this earth. But here is what Jesus Christ had to say about man on this earth. Matthew 13:15 For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, (or come back into divine relationship with God as a SON to a Father) and I should heal them.
When we function under our human consciousness that we ourselves create through our 5 natural senses, we discover that so much of what we consider is our reality today, is only make believe, but we have convinced ourselves that it is reality. To unravel this question of consciousness we need to define what is Reality, and what is not a Reality, from the divine point of view. For something to be a reality it must have always existed and can never change or be destroyed. Everything else has no true reality if it has a beginning and also has an end. We need to know that everything in the spirit world is eternal and can never change or be destroyed. God’s original creation is spirit and so can never change or be destroyed. However, consider from the divine viewpoint things like Cancer and diabetes or any sickness you can name, and we realize that no sickness has in fact any true reality. First of all, God never created sickness so it has no true reality, for it has a beginning and an end. Jesus knew this, so he never tried to heal anyone, but spoke a word into the heart of the people who came to him.
If we look at the second miracle that Jesus did we see the principle behind what we call a miracle. In John 4:46 a man came to Jesus asking him to heal his son who was sick at Capernaum. Jesus did not have to travel to where the boy was lying but in verse 50 Jesus said to the man, “Go thy way, your son lives.” The man responded by BELIEVING the word that Jesus spoke to him, so he was convinced that his son was healed. He begins to go back home but on the way he meets his servants who were coming to meet him with the news that his son was no longer sick. The man responded saying, “I knew he was healed before you told me, because Jesus said that he was healed.” But being interested he asked the servants when he actually recovered, and when they told him, he said, “Yes that was exactly the time when Jesus told me my son was healed, even though he was in another place.” How are we to interpret this miracle? First of all we call such things “Miracles,” because from our point of view they are impossible, because our human consciousness says such things do not happen.
Two issues come into focus here, one is the power of the word that Jesus Spoke, for it is said that his words are Spirit and Life, the other was the response that it produced in the man, that he could believe something that was not a part of his natural consciousness. Every person who really heard the words that Jesus spoke was changed in some way. In John 5:24 Jesus says, “Verily I say unto you, he that hears my word (from within) and believes on him that sent me has everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation but has passed from DEATH unto LIFE. The hour is come when those who are spiritually dead shall HEAR the voice of the SON OF GOD and all those that HEAR shall LIVE in that same spiritual consciousness in which he dwells. These are the true issues of life for us today. We need to hear a voice from that higher dimension of spirit, not through our natural ears but through the ears of our spirit within us, which will energize the same spirit that dwells in everyone of us. Once we hear the voice of the Son of God Jesus Christ, who dwells within us, the spiritual dimension of our being is activated, changing us from what the Bible calls DEATH, that is living out of our human consciousness into LIFE, which is living out of our spiritual consciousness as a Son of God.
This changes our consciousness, which we ourselves created out of our 5 natural senses, none of which allows us to know God. In 1Cor 2:14 we read what Paul says about this natural consciousness, “The natural man has no capacity to receive the things of the spirit of God, for they are considered to be foolishness to that one, because he cannot know or understand them for they are only spiritually discerned.” There are only two groups of people in this world, those who live out of a natural consciousness who cannot know God in reality but only by knowledge. Then there are those who have heard the VOICE OF GOD within, that has activated the spirit of their true being opening up for them a higher dimension of consciousness in which miracles are as common as our daily bread, and sickness and disease have no true reality. The world that we created through our 5 natural senses is the world we see around us today. In that world Animals kill each other and people kill each other and crime and wickedness fill the headlines of our daily papers. This cannot be GOD’S WORLD, which he created, for he looked at all that he created and said, “It is very good.” Gen 1:31. The world we have created through our 5 natural senses has become our reality, and it is for this reason that so many people embrace death as a happy release from this world of pain and suffering. Religion has provided another reason to want to leave this world offering a paradise called heaven in another world on certain conditions.
It comes as a shock to discover that Jesus never suggested that we should embrace death as our friend, stating rather that it is the last enemy to be destroyed. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus told the people that the MEEK WOULD INHERIT THE EARTH and not heaven. Psalm 115:16 says, “The Heavens even the heavens belong to the Lord, BUT the EARTH has been given to the children of men.” However, Jesus was not saying that we would inherit the world that we have created out of our 5 natural senses consisting of what we see, touch taste feel and smell. The world that we will inherit will be God’s Kingdom. It is very interesting that for some people this world appears as a terrible world filled with adverse circumstances and with hate and everything seems to be against them. Then we meet others who are always smiling and are happy and generous in their spirit to all. What is the difference between such opposites? The answer is that one created a hostile world because of what they saw with their eyes etc, while the other saw the sunrise each day and the flowers that blossomed for our benefit and not just for their own. They looked upon their children as saw them as a gift from God and every blessing they enjoyed, they saw as a token of God’s blessing to them.
To understand this duality we need to find the cause in the Garden of Eden which has been perpetuated by mankind ever since. After man was created (Gen 1:26) and given a body (Gen 2:7) God prepared a place for him to live. It was a beautiful garden that provided absolutely everything that man needed, without any toil or sweat on the part of man. The fruit of the trees provided the food and a spring provided the water, then, company and fellowship was a daily experience as the man walked and talked with God his Father who created all things. In that garden there was no death and no sickness, and nothing that could break the tranquility that Adam experienced. However, Adam’s Father told him one thing that he needed to understand, and that was everything in the Garden was available to him, except for one thing, and that was the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil. The Father said to Adam, “Son do not eat the fruit of that tree, because the day you do YOU WILL DIE.” Now the Bible is a spiritual book written by men who were Inspired (God breathing into them) the words God wanted written. Therefore for any man to pick up the Bible and consider that they can understand with their natural intelligence exactly what God is saying is both arrogant and ignorant.
First of all the forbidden tree was not planted by God for it was not included in creation so it has no true reality. In the scriptures it says that the TREE OF LIFE was in the middle of the Garden (Gen 2:9) and also the TREE OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL, so both trees were in the same position in the middle of the garden. Here is where we need divine help to decipher what God is telling us here. The MIDDLE of the Garden is a specific point and only one tree can exist in that position, for whatever is planted there is the centerpiece of the view from any position in that garden. The truth is that from a spiritual point of view, we are all living in that Garden today and our view of the world will differ according to which TREE is planted in the MIDDLE of your garden! The TREE OF LIFE represents Jesus Christ who said, “I am the WAY the TRUTH and the LIFE.” The tree of the knowledge of good and evil represents the serpent that debated with Eve in the Garden after she was separated from Adam. But again the serpent also represents the NATURAL MIND of the woman that functions being separated from Adam, who is Christ, the Son of God. Remember the woman was never created by God as a separate entity, but the man is SPIRIT, which is MALE and FEMALE functioning together in unity.
Eve was never recognized by God as a separate entity, so in Gen 5:2 it says, “And God called their name ADAM.” The term used for the world population is MANKIND not man and womankind. Even in the Old English language the woman was called the WOMB-MAN or the MAN with the womb. This duality has created many problems today as we have defined the role of the man and the woman specifically, which has affected the woman in business and relegated her to the weaker vessel etc etc. Reproduction was the role given to the MAN in Gen 1:28, when he was told to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. That task was not given to ADAM and EVE as separate entities, but today the man has in many cases ruled over the woman as God told her this would be the result of her functioning on her own, and eating of the wrong tree. But have you noticed that today the woman is asserting herself and has climbed the ladder of success in the corporate world, to compete with the Man. Even in Politics the woman is now assuming equality and we will see more leadership of the feminine kind in the days ahead. In God, MAN and WOMAN were united as one and from his viewpoint have never been separated.
Now we understand by the spirit that Adam the MAN represents the spirit and EVE the feminine, or the soul of MAN. However the account in Gen 2 of the separation of the Female from the Male cannot be literal because the Male and the female, the soul and the spirit are both spirit, which cannot be separated. You cannot have half a spirit, because it is indivisible. Spirit has NO GENDER; therefore there is no such thing as a MALE SPIRIT or a FEMALE SPIRIT. God is SPIRIT and he also is MALE and FEMALE so that he had no problem bringing forth a son without any help from anyone else. God is the only source of life in this universe including the life that each of us has today. Life is of such a character that if it is separated from its source, it cannot exist or function. The fetus in the womb will die if the Umbilical Cord that connects it to its life source is severed before it is ready to be birthed. Life cannot be transmitted by proxy, so it is for mankind. The spirit within us is Christ, but when the spirit leaves the body the person is DEAD. The truth is, if God ever left anyone of us for one minute we would be DEAD. Our body does not possess any life of its own, for the life that energizes our body is the spirit of our true being, which is CHRIST.
The taking of the Female from the man, although it is only an allegory in Gen 2, represents the sense of separation from God that we feel within us today. But it is reinforced by the fact that Adam found himself outside the Garden of Eden, which we consider to be God’s judgment upon Adam for eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and then passed upon all of mankind who has also sinned. This is the fundamental fault in man’s theology, to believe that God has banished everyone from his presence because of what Adam did in the Garden of Eden that is called S-I-N. To unravel this whole question as to what actually happened in this drama recorded for us in Genesis 3, let us seek the knowledge and wisdom of God for the true answer as our relationship with God is at stake here.
We have already discovered that Man was created spirit and not as flesh and blood, because the law of bio-genetics declares that whatever the parents are that is what the offspring will be. God is spirit so his offspring must also be spirit, but today most people have no idea that they are spirit that lives in a body of flesh and blood. In Gen 2:7 the Lord God forms a manifestation of himself out of the dust of the earth. Then into that form he breathed the breath (spirit), and it says that the man BECAME a LIVING SOUL. This occurred when he ate the fruit of the tree of the Knowledge of good and evil. We do not know how long Adam enjoyed such fellowship with God but it continued until that day when Adam was put to sleep and the female part of his being was taken out of him and this became a woman and was brought to the man who said, “You are bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh, so I will call you woman (Heb. Ishaw) because you were taken out of me (Ish). Man had now become a duality in the allegory and no longer functioned as a single entity.
The allegory now shows the woman going out on her own, and immediately she begins a debate with what the Bible calls a serpent. This “Serpent” was said to be more subtle (shrewd, crafty, sly, sensible) than all the beasts of the field. Remember the serpent was the ancient symbol of wisdom and even to this day the Medical Doctors still use it as their symbol set on a pole, which was portrayed as the healer in Israel when they were in the wilderness and turned against the Lord. God told Moses that he was to make a copy of the seraphs, that were biting the people out of brass, and put it on a pole in the midst of Israel and as they looked at the brazen Seraph on the pole, they would be healed. The Bible is written with signs and symbols, and if we do not understand these things, it will be unintelligible to us. The serpent here in the Garden of Eden represents the MIND of Man that God says is more subtle than all the beasts of the field. As God created man, the spirit, which is Christ within him, contained all the wisdom and knowledge of God but now the female part is functioning as a separate entity, which we know as the SOUL. This new entity is called a LIVING SOUL as opposed to a LIVING SPIRIT as Adam was created in the beginning.
The soul consists of three parts, the MIND the EMOTIONS and the WILL which together form the government of our whole being. Now there is an important change, for when the soul and the spirit functioned together all the wisdom and knowledge of God were at his disposal. Now the MIND has assumed its authority over the body and in fact over the whole man, without any input from the Spirit hence the man has now become a LIVING SOUL, without any input from the spirit, which is CHRIST, who is God. Jn 10:30. Every person on the earth has become that WOMAN that is governed by the natural mind, having no input from God and therefore cannot know God, so they are limited to human knowledge and human wisdom. The serpent in “Our Garden” continues to practice deception, bringing all the people on the earth under its power. It comes as quite a shock when we begin to realize that we have actually been hypnotized into believing that this is God’s world, but in fact it is not God’s world at all. In God’s world there is no good and evil, for after creation was finished he said everything was very good.
It was Eve the woman taken out of Adam that brought us into this world of illusion having been deceived by the snake in the Garden, which was actually her natural mind. Now Eve had no input from the spirit having separated herself from Adam, feeling capable of making her own decisions without him, which meant living apart from God. The subtlety of the natural mind (Snake) is so great that it convinced Eve that what God said about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, was wrong. In fact the snake went further by suggesting that God was cheating her out of a wonderful experience, in which her eyes would be opened to a wonderful new world of which at that moment she had not become aware. Eve’s world up to that time was functioning exactly as God intended with no sickness, no pain, no suffering, no death and no evil at all. Such a world she forfeited to embrace the world in which we presently exist, with the proliferation of every known evil. We may read these words and wonder how Eve could make such a stupid decision to eat the fruit of the tree when God had said, “I do not want you to eat of that tree because I know that the day you do, you will die.” Would anyone in his or her right mind make such a choice?
The answer is NO, so why did Eve decide to eat the fruit of the forbidden tree? The answer is simple because her carnal or natural mind has the power to deceive her, and also all of mankind. Let us consider the two trees in the Garden. The tree of life has the power to sustain life forever with absolutely nothing that could affect it in any way. That “Tree of Life” represents JESUS CHRIST who said, John 3:15 “That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. I AM THE LIFE…….If you eat of me you will live forever.” (John 6) Of course Jesus Christ is not a literal tree but as we assimilate him into our lives we have embraced the life that Adam knew when he was put into the Garden of Eden. But there was another tree called the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Again this is not a literal tree but represents a KNOWLEDGE outside the bounds of all that is called God. Both “Good and Evil” have nothing to do with God for they are comparative terms. If I say that meal was good, I am saying that it is good compared with other meals that I have had. If I call something evil then I am saying that comparing it with other things it appears to me to be evil.
All wisdom and knowledge is found in God, so the Apostle John told the people of his day, “You have an anointing from God and YOU KNOW ALL THINGS.” 1John 2:20. Then in verse 27, he said, “The anointing which you have received of him abides or remains in you, and you do not need any MAN to teach you, but as the same anointing teaches you of all things, and is truth and contains no lie, being your teacher you need to walk in the truth he has taught you. The anointing (Greek Charisma) is actually CHRIST from which the word is derived. God has not left mankind without a sense of direction because he has put the Holy Spirit, which is Christ within every man, and all the knowledge of God is in him. BUT like Eve we have fallen under the spell of the carnal mind that has convinced us we do not need God in our lives, as we are quite capable of finding our way through life without his help. However, when we face problems like sickness and disasters we then reach out to God and expect him to respond immediately or we consider him to be uncaring and ignoring our need.
As God Created us we should never make a bad decision, but some people go from one disaster to another. Take marriage for an example and see how many people choose a partner for life only to find they have chosen the wrong person. Could such situations be avoided? O course but for some reason we are convinced that God does not love us, but seems to want to deny us Peace, Joy and happiness. So we are more comfortable ignoring God and avoiding having much to do with him. How could such a concept of God be so established in the heart of man? Let us look at what happened when Adam had eaten of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The first thing he said is, “I AM NAKED.” A new consciousness changed his thinking even about himself, as well as everything else. We do not know how long Adam lived in the Garden of Eden, but he had never felt NAKED before, and if we had been looking at him we would have said, ”I cannot see any difference in you from what you have always been.” But a new consciousness had changed his perception about everything. Instead of walking and talking with God as he had always done, this day he went among the trees and HID HIMSELF from God. But God went looking for him asking Adam a question, not just where are you, but, “What are you doing hiding from me?” Adam replied, “I am naked and that is why I am hiding from you.”
I want you to notice how God responded to him with a simple question. God said to Adam, “WHO TOLD YOU!” The implications of this question are very clear, for God was really saying to Adam, “I NEVER TOLD YOU that you are naked, but WHO DID TELL YOU, because you have been listening to another voice. To understand what happened to Adam let us look at the Life of Jesus Christ on the earth and what he did. First of all you will notice that the term “devil” does not appear in the Bible until we come to the New Testament in Matthew 4:1, and the first person that becomes involved with this “devil” is Jesus Christ before he begins his ministry. “Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.” It was the Christ within Jesus who directed the following procedure and not the devil. Why was this experience essential to his life and ministry? Because it was the FIRST ADAM in the Garden of Eden who was infected by the serpent and so with that first victory, the serpent (devil) had infected every man and woman who has ever been born on the earth since then. However, a Son of God had just been born of a virgin and slipped through the serpent’s net. So before he could be the Savior of the world there must be an open contest with the devil, because unless he can defeat this enemy of mankind there can be no redemption.
The first issue Jesus Christ had to face was to “Fast” or eat no food for 40 days, which would have drained his natural energy and created a craving in his natural body for food. Now the Tempter comes to test this man to check on his integrity. Knowing his physical condition after having no food, he says, “If you are the Son of God, inferring a doubt about his true identity, command these stones be made bread.” The tempter is not foolish enough to tell him to do some wicked thing, but this is quite legitimate because he was very hungry and it does not affect anyone else. But that is not the issue for a Son of God, for a true son only DOES what he sees his Father do, and only says what he hears his Father say. To simply do what others may want you to do is not legitimate for a SON OF GOD, even if it seems like a good thing to do. So Jesus responds to the tempter by quoting a statement God made to Israel concerning the reason for their wilderness journey so long ago. This is what he said, “Deuteronomy 8:3 And he humbled you, and suffered you to hunger, and fed you with manna, which you had no knowledge of, neither did your fathers know; that he might make you to know that man does not live just by eating natural bread only, but LIFE flows to you through every word that IS PROCEEDING out of the mouth of the LORD.
The life of a Son of God is not sustained by physical bread but flows from its source, which is Christ within us. The next test required Jesus to be taken into the sacred precincts of the Temple in the Holy city of Jerusalem. Seated upon a pinnacle of the Temple He is again instructed, “If you are the Son of God, cast yourself down because, it is also written that he shall give the angels charge over you and in their hands they will bear you up lest at any time you dash your foot against a stone.” Jesus of course did not do what the tempter told him to do, quoting again from the Old Testament, “It is written you shall not tempt the Lord thy God.” Presumption is not a suitable response for any action in the life of a Son of God. To act that way is like we are demanding that God has to respond in a certain way regardless of our motivation. The scriptures say, “The lord searches the Heart.” The only true motivation for a Son of God is true obedience to the word and will of God.
The third test saw him on a high mountain surveying the Kingdoms of the world and the glory of them. Then the tempter said, “All these will I give you, if you will only bow down and worship me.” But Jesus was not moved in any way but replied quoting the scriptures again saying, “Matthew 4:10 Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.” So the test was over and Jesus was victorious and declared to be the Son of God with power over all his enemies. Jesus Christ was the LAST ADAM, which means that he was the last of a whole generation of people, all of whom were the seed of the woman who had been seduced by the serpent. God had told the serpent that he would put enmity between the woman and the serpent. However, there would come a SEED OF THE WOMAN that would crush the head of the serpent and the seed of the serpent would bruise his heel. We must remember that the woman was an integral part of the Man ADAM who was the Son of God created out of God.
Jesus was born of a woman but she was a virgin, which means that she had never received the SEED OF MAN for if she had, she would not have been able to birth the Son of God. The seed of God according to Gal 3:16 is CHRIST, and Christ is spirit and not a man. Christ is the spirit dwelling in all of mankind, and he is the SEED OF GOD. Every seed contains within itself the very life of the one from whom it came; therefore if you plant an orange seed you would only get an orange tree. But the VIRGIN did not need the seed of MAN to bring forth a child, because she already had the SEED OF GOD which is CHRIST, and that seed caused her to conceive by the Holy Spirit who told her that the child she would bring forth would be the SON OF GOD. Now we have just seen how the head of the serpent was bruised by the SEED of the woman and Jesus Christ came away having the victory, which he won not just for himself, but also for all mankind. Jesus said, “In this world you will have tribulation but be of good cheer for I HAVE (already) OVERCOME THE WORLD (for you).”
We need to understand how Eve’s disobedience changed everything for mankind. Remember that Adam did not sin as Paul told Timothy, but it was EVE who was in the transgression. 1Tim 2:14. Because God never recognized the woman as a separate entity, the disobedience is attributed to ADAM. Many Christians have never understood what was involved with the eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Religion suggests that Adam simply ate an apple, without any spiritual understanding at all. We understand that the Tree of Life represents Christ who declared himself to be the “Way the Truth and the Life.” But what does the tree of the knowledge of good and evil stand for? It is obvious that it represents a certain kind of knowledge that is so profound that it changes the whole world in which we live. We understand that all the Wisdom and Knowledge of the universe is to be found in God, but there is knowledge of a different character that is called the Knowledge of GOOD and EVIL that has the power to transform our personalities and us completely. Until the time when Eve took the fruit of that tree and ate it Adam walked and talked with God in perfect union. If you had asked Adam what is “Evil,” he would have looked at you and said, “I have no idea.” In the entire world that God had created there was absolutely nothing that was evil, for he declared after he had finished everything that it is very GOOD. That word “GOOD” means that everything functioned as it was intended, and fulfilled the will and purpose for which it was created without exception, and this included the MAN.
When Adam ate the fruit of that tree nothing in creation changed, for it was perfect and on the seventh day God rested from all his work because it was FINISHED. This is the divine creation with no beginning and no end; this is actually the only true creation that there is. Because we have not seen nor are able to comprehend that creation, most people do not believe that it exists. The reason for this is we have embraced a knowledge that is not related to God nor is it compatible with what God declares as being truth. Both Good and Evil are comparable terms and are used to compare different things. But there is nothing that we can use to compare with God, nor to compare with what God created for it was all VERY GOOD, and there was nothing else. God is above and beyond everything we know, but we in our ignorance have embraced a knowledge in which good and evil represent reality, and we declare the right to determine what everything is.
The Prophet said in Isaiah 25:7 “And he will destroy in this mountain (of our raised consciousness) the face of the covering (of ignorance and blindness) cast over all people, and the veil (restriction of vision) that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears (of frustration) from off all faces; and the “Rebuke” of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the LORD hath spoken it.”
The word “Rebuke” used here refers back to the highest rank of the Priesthood, which is the High Priest. In Israel’s history the High priest had to belong to the family of Aaron and was appointed for life only changing upon his death. He was the only member of the Priesthood allowed into the Most Holy Place, behind the veil, and in sacred issues he was the final authority in Israel. However, during the one hundred and seven years between King Herod the Great and the destruction of the holy city, twenty-eight persons held the High Priest’s position. The Roman Authorities of the day had assumed the right to appoint whomever they considered fit to hold that high and holy position and power over the people. This was indeed a terrible “Rebuke” to the people of Israel, degrading the highest divine authority established by God to rule over his people Israel. Remember the High Priest was vitally involved in the crucifixion of Christ during his trial.
However a new priestly system had been established in the time of the New Testament with every believer forming part of Royal Priesthood and a Holy Nation under the sovereign direction of CHRIST our High Priest. This New Priesthood made Christ our High Priest, being developed under the New Order of Melchisedec who is both a KING and a PRIEST, uniting the two roles, which formerly had been kept separate. The prophet Isaiah makes it clear that in these days of revelation there will be a clear elevation of the house of the Lord, lifting truth above and beyond the realm of intellect and human knowledge. This demands that we should recognize that Truth will not be advertised on Billboards or simply available in books and writings, but it will only be available by the spirit of the Lord. Jesus said, “But the comforter which is the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name, HE will guide you into all TRUTH and bring to your remembrance the things I have said to you.” In these words Jesus Christ is telling us that true spiritual intelligence will not be available, in the multitude of human voices that fill the airwaves today. But will be transmitted only through ONE VOICE and that is the voice of the Holy Spirit who dwells within you.
In a strange way it seems that Father is taking us back to the Garden of Eden living under the same conditions under which Adam functioned back in the beginning. In that Garden, GOD and MAN lived and functioned together in beautiful harmony and peace, as spirit to spirit. Adam did not need to go anywhere or to fulfill any kind of Ritual, in order to be intimate with God, because he and God were O-N-E. Flesh and blood and spirit involve two different orders that have no relevance to each other functioning in two different realms. Jesus corrected the woman at the well, telling her that the transition in worship was already set so that neither in “This Mountain or in Jerusalem,” would be a requirement in order to worship God. True Worship will be emancipated from both TIME and PLACE, representing both the religious world (This Mountain) and Jerusalem (The people of God). The rivalries between these two will disappear when true spirituality is fully realized. Jesus told the disciples in Matt 24, that the Temple in Jerusalem was destined for destruction, which took place in AD. 70, ending the connection between Worship and a place or building.
Jesus told the Woman of Samaria a very important truth that God is SPIRIT, and those who would worship him must also be spirit and living in the power of an endless life. Man was created spirit in creation to be ONE WITH GOD. Spirit has its own language, which does not need words to communicate. Spirit has its own activity that does not require actions to facilitate its function. Worship today for God’s people, requires many words and actions following the function of religion and heathenism, both of which know nothing of true worship. Worship cannot be organized or controlled and must be completely spontaneous in each person.
This is not the general consensus among Christians, for Worship is not spontaneous so does not often take place in the home or workplace, but only under human leadership when they are in a meeting. The reason for this is that it seems few Christians see themselves as SPIRIT, so CHRIST is our true identity, and as he said in John 10:30 that he was ONE WITH GOD. We tend to Worship God who is UP THERE or OUT THERE somewhere, instead of going inward and finding CHRIST IN YOU the hope of Glory. There is no such thing as God and I as separate entities, nor that mortality and spirit can walk together in harmony. Creation was a spiritual exercise including man, for God did not begin with dust as a material substance and actually make a man. There was no formal activity required nor was they’re any material necessary, for GOD SPOKE a WORD and that WORD became the MAN. When God needed LIGHT he did not have to destroy darkness first, only to SPEAK THE WORD, “LIGHT BE,” and light was. These are the principles of spirit function that most Christians have not yet discovered, because they still believe the lie of the serpent that they would become AS GODS through knowledge.
This whole question has come up so many times over the years that I want to discus it more fully here. The difference between the two Trees in the Garden has not really been understood. The tree of life represents God or Christ as the absolute source of LIFE itself for all living creatures. To “EAT” of that tree simply means to embrace that life of God as being the same life that functions in me today which is both spiritual and eternal, and there is no other. However life is not static so scripture says, to EAT the bread of LIFE, To drink the water of life as from a living stream, to breathe in the air is to breathe in Christ, so it suggests a continual partaking of that eternal life. A child does not have one feed and then needs no more but they must continue to eat, replenishing the life within. Our LIFE flows in a constant stream from its source and is available at all times. But to appropriate that life requires no manual effort of any kind nor any external help, but is as simple as breathing.
But the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is different. It requires an activity of a part of our humanity called the MIND to seek out knowledge that is constantly expanding in the world in this 21st century. This now includes a myriad of books that we must read. Man’s view of everything that we may feel is important of us to know. Then we have the Internet where millions of words are available right at our fingertips on every conceivable subject. The Bible for most people is difficult to understand because it is a spiritual book and can only be spiritually understood. It holds a most important place in a Christian’s life being considered to be our inerrant guide to truth. If that is true then please tell me how people in the New Testament times could know truth because no one had a Bible? There were scrolls in the Synagogue which contained the first 5 books of the Old Testament but that was all. In fact for 1600 years no one had a BIBLE, as we know it today, as the printing press was not available, so how could all those people know the truth?
The place given to the Bible today by Christians has replaced the Tree of LIFE with the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil. Such a statement will be challenged by many but let me explain a little more. The Psalmist said, Thy WORD have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee. Most Christians consider the “Word” refers to Verses in the Bible but this is not true. We also read, “Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light to my path,” and this also is thought to refer to the Bible, but this is untrue also. John begins his Gospel saying, “In the beginning was THE WORD,” but he was not saying that the Bible was there in the Beginning with God and that the BIBLE WAS GOD. That would not make any sense, because the WORD was a “Person” who exists because GOD SPOKE a WORD in the beginning and that WORD was his son Jesus Christ. When God said, “LIGHT BE,” then from that moment light existed.
If we look carefully through the scriptures we discover the key to spiritual knowledge is not by what has been written, but by what God is saying to us now. You will notice that everything that God desired to do was done by speaking a word. What God says to us has the power in itself to accomplish his will so as we HEAR the word he speaks to us and act upon it; the power of God is released to accomplish whatever he desires to do. 2 Peter 1:18 “And this voice which came from heaven (another world) we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount.” We have also a more sure WORD of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shines in a dark place, illuminating our understanding, until the new day dawns, and CHRIST arises as LORD in your hearts. Isa 55:10. For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater. So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me until it shall have accomplished that which I purposed, and it shall accomplish the thing that I sent it to do.
Every miracle Jesus did was accomplished by Jesus Christ speaking a word. To the man with the withered arm he said, “Stretch forth your arm,” and the man’s arm responded accordingly. No healing was necessary in terms of dealing with sickness or disease, for Jesus knew that such had no true reality for it is not part of creation. His direction to the disciples was to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom and heal the sick, because there is no sickness in the Kingdom of God. Sickness is escalating on the earth in these days with more and more diseases being discovered, and science will never stem the tide but there is an anointing Jesus received which was promised hundreds of years before he came to the earth by the Prophet Isaiah. Isaiah 61:1 The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. To proclaim the time of our acceptance of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God against the “Seed of the serpent” and to comfort all that mourn.
This is our calling beloved and our equipment to accomplish the will and purpose of God, to see every knee bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ IS LORD to the glory of God. The word of the Lord spoken in Creation is still just as powerful today as it was then, to see everything that would oppose us or seek to limit us in our expression of Christ defeated and put under our feet. He took us into death in himself to destroy its power forever, rising again on the third day triumphant over sin, death and the grave taking us with him. He did this so that we could in turn declare to the world that we are now part of that one who walked out of the tomb saying, “I am he that liveth and was dead, and now I am alive for evermore and I hold in my hand the keys of the grave and death.” This is not something we must hope for sometime in the future but is NOW OUR PRESENT REALITY IF WE CAN BELIEVE.
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