Good Morning to all!
I'm so glad you're all here with us this morning!
And I'll do my best not to take as long with today's message...
Amen?
Last time we were together, we were discussing how most people only acknowledge the physical realm, they cannot comprehend anything that is beyond their sight..
But just like the only saying goes..
You don't need eyes to see, you need vision!
Can I get a witness?
Amen!
So..
After man was told these things, in Genesis 2, God caused him to use his dominion and name all the creatures.
And God makes woman from man's rib.
And then chapter 3 comes along...
The Temptation and Fall of Man
"Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?
It's important to notice the serpent asks the woman if God actually said this!
Why is that?
If you paid close attention, you noticed that the woman was not created when we read God told this to Adam!
The serpent attacked the woman's faith.
What is faith?
Faith is trust in something that has proven to you by your five senses.
You only have a WORD about it.
God's WORD!
Amen?
So the INVISIBLE truly comes to the FOREFRONT in all of this...
The serpent was all concerned with dealing with the woman about something she never could see.
If God's word was true, and we know it was, and He did actually say it, and we know He did, then disobedience to it would bring destruction.
But if we were to for a minute, suppose it was not true there would be no damage accomplished if she neglected the thought of what He said..
So let me pause briefly and let you know who the serpent was:
"So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him."
Revelation 12:9
The serpent is the devil or Satan.
Now, let's just take a moment and think about the whole picture...
Satan's whole strategy, his entire deceptive scheme was built upon something the woman, Eve, could not naturally prove was real or true...
God's Word!
And let's also keep in mind, that she wasn't yet created when God gave Adam this Word!
Had God spoken His Word to her, she would have no problem!
The only faith she would require was faith in whether or not His words were true..
But she would know God did indeed say them!
So the serpent attacked all possible aspects of faith in this encounter!
Did God even say this?
And IF He did, was it true!
Are you seeing this?
The initial question began with an attack on the authorship of the statement!
"And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ”
Genesis 3:2-3
And then, we read...
"Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Genesis 3:4-5
He said she would not die, but become as God!
Now think of this...
The bible relates to us that the devil himself wanted to be like God..
The Fall of Lucifer
“How you are fallen from heaven,
O Lucifer, son of the morning!
How you are cut down to the ground,
You who weakened the nations!"
"For you have said in your heart:
‘I will ascend into heaven,
I will exalt my throne above the stars of God;
I will also sit on the mount of the congregation
On the farthest sides of the north;
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds,
I will be like the Most High.’"
Isaiah 14:12-14
And it is as though he was so angry, so bitter with the fact he could not be like God, that he slanders God to the woman and says God does not want anyone else to be like god.
Was the devil so concerned about a physical or spiritual issue?
Why not simply try to kill the woman physically?
Why deal with something so intangible?
Why talk about eating a fruit that related to something God said about life and death, that the woman never even actually heard God speak about?
Moreover, we find she did eat and gave it to Adam who also ate, but they did not physically die the day they ate.
God said:
"but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
Genesis 2:17
But the Bible teaches there is not just a physical death!
So it was clearly a different sort of death the serpent was interested in these two people experiencing.
And the nature of this death, was spiritual!
And this spiritual death has to do with the reason mankind today is so dead spiritually.
Something in man's capabilities of spiritual awareness DIED.
And He was separated from God.
If his body died, then we would know it was a physical death that God was speaking about!
But God said the day he would eat of this fruit, he would die, and he did not die physically.
It was spiritual death!
The devil was not as concerned over a physical death as much as this spiritual one...
It is very hard for spiritually negligent people to relate to this concept..
The serpent was only interested in the very thing people are so IGNORANT about today.
THE SPIRITUAL.
He was interested in the very opposite element that man is so fully aware of now.
The physical later did suffer a death due to this spiritual death.
And Adam and Eve were physically removed from the Garden where God first put them.
So we find that the serpent was interested in the spiritual, which made God's command to be a spiritual concern as well, since He did NOT want man to die this spiritual death.
God and the devil both were far more interested in the spiritual issues while man today is so materialistically minded.
And the Bible hereby shows how all of the wickedness and sin in the world today was birthed from Adam's disobedience so long ago.
For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous.
All mankind has been born away from God, and has inherited Adam's sinfulness.
Unless we each follow God's advice, we will physically die and spiritually be destroyed in our souls as well, and forfeit the eternal Life God has arranged for us to obtain once again since Adam.
God made man to exist for eternity!
Death only came due to sin!
Death in Adam, Life in Christ
"Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned."Romans 5:12
Life's sins will catch up with everyone one day, bring ultimate destruction in your future.
God has not swept these things beneath the carpet.
And as far as this day and age is concerned, there are so many spiritual blessings and wonders to experience, that will be missed as well.
THE CROSS' SPIRITUAL EFFECTS.
So the spiritual was the important issue in Adam's day.
His sin opened the door of death and evil to come into our world.
And so God made plans for the cross to counteract all of this damage in each of your lives.
"All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world."
Revelation 13:8
The cross hones in and concentrates upon the invisible and the spiritual, so the physical can be rectified and reconciled as well in our futures, and so we can also live today in the fullest spiritual blessedness.
The spiritual death that occurred with Adam, that led to a physical death later, was God's concern.
And that is why the Bible says Jesus came to bring LIFE.
"The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly."
John 10:10
Jesus came to restore to mankind what mankind lost when Adam sinned and died the day he sinned.
As much as Adam's spiritual death affected him, and us, to later physically die, the life from God through Jesus will also remove the future destruction of spiritual and physical both and bring life and that we may have it more abundantly!
Hallelujah to the Lamb of God!
Can we give God a hand clap of praise?
“Behold, all souls are Mine;
The soul of the father
As well as the soul of the son is Mine;
The soul who sins shall die."
Ezekiel 18:4
Destruction is the result of sin!
Say that with me,
Destruction is the result of SIN!
God cannot and will not violate that rule of death.
In order for man to be saved, from this destruction, God has to somehow resolve this problem of destruction, that each of us simply must pay, and also provide us with restored spiritual and physical life.
SACRIFICE!
The death of the sinless and innocent Christ, would stand in the place of our death to the one offering the sacrifice...
"Then he shall put his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it will be accepted on his behalf to make atonement for him."
Leviticus 1:4
And that death was counted for the required death of you and me!
Death had to occur for every sinner, but nobody said the death of another innocent could not count for the sinner's death.
One man, though, cannot take the place of another man, and die his required death, since the first man has to have his own death dealt with as well!
But SACRIFICE shows us that if there could be a man without sin, then that man's death could stand in place for another man's death.
AND THAT IS WHY JESUS DIED!
I have had some ask "Why Jesus did not have sin, if everyone else does?"
"For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin."
Hebrews 4:15
Why was He without sin?
"And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness:
God was manifested in the flesh,
Justified in the Spirit,
Seen by angels,
Preached among the Gentiles,
Believed on in the world,
Received up in glory."
Justified in the Spirit,
Seen by angels,
Preached among the Gentiles,
Believed on in the world,
Received up in glory."
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it."
"And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth."
The only way a man could exist who had no sin was for God to manifest Himself in flesh in the image of a man... Jesus.
SIN is sort of a legal issue.
The very fact that Adam was heads of the human race and sinned, because of the fact that God said ADAM brought sin into the world, when the woman was the first one who actually sinned, tells us that sin is something "legal" and also involves inheritance.
SINCE A MAN is head of the issue, and we find that Jesus had no SINFUL FATHER, but that God was the Father, Jesus did not inherit sin.
So, sin was not legally passed down to Jesus, since he had no human flesh, and earthly sinful father.
"And the angel answered and said to her, “The
Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will
overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be
called the Son of God."
The verse clearly states that the Holy Spirit was the Father..
And Jesus Christ was the SACRIFICE of them all!
The rest before Him, only represented the SACRIFICE that was to come..
They prepared the minds of people to understand why He would die.
They taught man the concept.
And just as much as the INVISIBLE things that occurred in Adam's day
were the most important, the INVISIBLE things of Christ's death were
most important!
"For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. "
1 Corinthians 15:21-22"Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin."
Romans 6:2-7In closing...
What you would not have seen the day Adam sinned, was that EVERY PERSON who would descend from him were carried into sin when he went into it.
Likewise, Jesus Christ died and affected everyone of us IF WE WILL ONLY ACCEPT THIS!
THOSE WHO GET BAPTIZED THE WAY THE BIBLE EXPLAINS IT ARE AS IT WERE BURIED WITH JESUS, AS HE WAS BURIED, INTO HIS DEATH EXPERIENCE.
That means HIS DEATH counts as OUR REQUIRED DEATHS.
What did not appear visibly that day was YOUR DEATH WITH JESUS!
When Jesus was lifted up to die on the cross, He said HE WOULD DRAW ALL MEN TO HIMSELF.
That means HIS DEATH WOULD COUNT AS EVERYONE'S DEATH, so they could say they paid the price of sin, and died with Him!!
"Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out. And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself.” This He said, signifying by what death He would die."
"I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me."
If You would have been there that day, you would ONLY have SEEN one man die on a cross!
Just as in Adam's day you would have seen ONE MAN AND WOMAN sin.
But in the spiritual realm, every person not yet born was inside Adam and Eve and DIED spiritually when they died.
And
Jesus counteracted that and offered Himself to die as our deaths, and
thereby take away the death penalty we required, and free us from sin.
We are to actually look at ourselves as having died and resurrected with Jesus after we get baptized into that death.
"For he who has died has been freed from sin."
"Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also,]reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord."
We are to actually consider ourselves as resurrected from the dead.
"And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God."
"The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church."
Ephesians 1:18-22
Ephesians 1:18-22
We are a new creation.
Old things are passed away.
That means we are NOT to continue in our Sin
We die to our old life as well as to sin.
Old things are passed away.
That means we are NOT to continue in our Sin
We die to our old life as well as to sin.
For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.
Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation."
2 Corinthians 5:14-18
"For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.”
Hebrews 8:12
Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation."
2 Corinthians 5:14-18
"For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.”
Hebrews 8:12
"But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us."
1 John 1:7-10
And THAT is the INVISIBLE of what happened that day on the CROSS AND OUR SALVATION IS A BIG DEAL!
And now ...
May the the Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.
Now and forever, in Jesus' name
Amen
And THAT is the INVISIBLE of what happened that day on the CROSS AND OUR SALVATION IS A BIG DEAL!
And now ...
May the the Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.
Now and forever, in Jesus' name
Amen
Brian Monzon Ministries