What a blessing to have all of you here today..
Father in Heaven,
Creator of heaven and earth, You alone are worthy of our praises. We have gathered together to lift up our voices in praise to You. We thank You for the wonders that You have worked in our lives. Accept our prayers of thanksgiving in Jesus’ name. You are the only true, living God. Manifest Yourself within our midst today. We know that without You, we can do nothing. Empower us to do great things today and every day in Jesus’ name.
Amen
"Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning."
James 1:17
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters."
Genesis 1:1-2
It has been said that between verse 1 and verse 2 a war took place in heaven. This war was between Lucifer and God himself. We find the story in Isaiah of how this battle took place. In reality it was a battle to Satan but no battle to God.
The Fall of Lucifer
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.’
Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol,
To the lowest depths of the Pit.
And consider you, saying:
‘Is this the man who made the earth tremble,
Who shook kingdoms"
Isaiah 14:12-16
Just because we find this story in Isaiah does not mean that this is when it took place.
How then could the serpent tempt Eve in the Garden?
You just can’t win against God and His army of angels!
So here we have a created heaven and earth.
I don’t know the difference between the original earth and this re-created earth we read about between the 1st and 2nd verse of Genesis...
Because of the fall of Lucifer the world became a mess.
And because of the mess the earth was without form and void. The darkness of sin was upon the face of the earth. We could see this as the Face of Lucifer himself. Because Lucifer is sin.
But here is the good news, in verse 2 it says, “And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." God got in the Devils face, He started getting in the Devils business!
"Hey Devil you have been hanging out to long on my created world causing havoc and sin. It is time for you to move on!"
Some of you may be sitting under the sound of my voice today, saying to yourselves, “Pastor your reading too much into these Scriptures.” Maybe so but answer me this, why did God ask Adam to replenish the earth in Genesis 1:28?
That word replenish means to make full again.
"Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
And in sin my mother conceived me."
Psalms 51:5
We had no form, no purpose
We all have a void from the very beginning that we try and fill with careers, relationships, money, drugs, alcohol, pleasures of the world, education and on and on. You see the father of lies likes to tells us that all these things brings us pleasure and temporary happiness.
He likes to take us back to the same tree he took Adam and Eve to in Genesis 3.
Look at this…only 3 chapters later after God cleaned up the mess, Satan finds something new that God created and messes it up again!
"And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; 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 2:16-17
God said you can have liberty in the 90%. But do not touch the 10% period!
So it amazes me how people say, “well I can’t live my life for God because there are just too many rules and restrictions.” When the fact of the matter is God gave the 1st man ONE rule and he could not even keep the one!
So the Father of Light has spoken and now we go to Genesis chapter 3..
The Temptation and Fall of Man
Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die."
Lucifer had us in darkness. He controlled our lives from the very beginning.
It
was a creative combination that saved us. When the Spirit of God moved
upon us as He did so upon this dark, shapeless, void of the earth and then
spoke in our lives, thus being the creative combination, then and only
then was there light.
Having God inside of you by way of the Holy Spirit is like being a flashlight in a darkness.
God then saw the light and saw that it was good. He then saw the change in us and saw that it was good.
He then begins to separate us from the thing of the world as He did in the beginning.
He then divided the waters which is like a kind of us being baptized. We are the firmament in the mist of the waters.
He then said let the earth bring forth fruit as He wants us to bring forth fruit of the Spirit.
He
then said he wants the earth to multiply as He wants us to go and teach
and preach and witness to others about this great Gospel so the church
can multiply.
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
John 1
Where have we heard that before?
In Genesis!
John's first words sound like Genesis 1..
John is kind of like the Moses of the New Testament.
He wrote as if he were opening the beginning of thought and words as Moses wrote of the beginning of time in Genesis.
The Book of John is sort of like the Book of Genesis of the New Testament.
"(as it is written, “I have made you a father of many nations”) in the presence of Him whom he believed—God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did."
Romans 4:17
The
very thought of using words to express ideas and to communicate was
God’s idea; thus John wrote 1:1.
Words separate man from animals.
That
is why it is not surprising that God chose the speaking with words of a
language, in tongues, other than our own to be the initial evidence of receiving His
Holy Spirit, which is essential to salvation found in Acts 2:4.
...and the Word was with God,
God
looked ahead in time and by the power of His Word He constructed this
world according to His divine will and purpose.
Now, let's look at this...
This
is the inference that results from comparing Genesis 1:1 and John 1:1. God
command light to appear and thereby gave the ultimate knowledge of God
to humans through Jesus Christ. Truly the Word was with God.
…and the Word was God.
Not only was the Word with God in the beginning, the Word was God.
We see that one is the same as His thoughts.
Someone
has said that we are what we think. In other words, our words flow out
of what we are and they reinforce both what we are and what we will
become.
That is why the father of lies comes by the house of your
mind and tells you things like…
you become what he lies to you because
you dwell on and think on these things.
God first spoke
light into existences, which is an aspect of His character.
Because God is
light!
Moreover in heaven the sun will cease to shine and Jesus Christ
will be the light source.
"The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light. "
Revelation 21:23
"For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."
"But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed— always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So then death is working in us, but life in you."
2 Corinthians 4:7-12
"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. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it."
John’s Witness: The True Light
"There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world.He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."
John 1:1-13
"Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”
John 8:12
"whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them."
2 Corinthians 4:4
"No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon."
Matthew 6:24
In closing...
Please do not raise your hands...
But is there anyone here today whose life is in a mess?
Are you living in confusion, dissatisfied with the life that has been dealt to you?
Is your life not as fruitful as you want it to be are as you once were?
Having you been listening to the father of lies or living for the Father of Light?
Well, I've got some GREAT NEWS for you!
I personally know of someone today who is in the business of transforming messes into successes!
Mistakes into Masterpieces!
Broken hearts into mended lives!
Painful pasts into Purposeful and Promising Futures!
Trading lies for truths through the Light of Jesus Christ.
But the choice is YOURS!
As powerful as God is, He doesn't force Himself on anyone..
He gives us the free will to choose...
I remember some years ago, I was flying to Central America.
But I ended up getting there only 45 minutes before my flight was to leave. By the time I was all checked in, the flight was already preparing to take off. There were only two flights leaving each day, and having missed the earlier one would have caused a great inconvenience in my international schedule!
It was very, very, close call..
But thankfully, God made a way for me to board my flight and arrive at the Embassy on time.
But there’s no such thing as being half on and half off an international flight. You’re either all the way on the plane and heading for your destination, or you’re standing in the airport with your hands dangling at your side with dumbfounded look on your face, helpless to change your circumstances.
This is the difference between children of light and children of lies.
There is no in between.
You are a child of light, or you are a child of darkness!
You either believe or persist in unbelief!
You are either heaven bound, or you are destined to Hell, an eternity without God.
You are either saved or you are lost.
The only way you’re going to get on that plane; the only way you can ever hope to be made a child of light, is to go to the Light Himself, Jesus Christ and on His terms.
Believe me, He will meet you right where you are!
He'll accept you as you are..
But He won't leave you as He found you!
You don't have to be perfect to come to Him..
You just have to come to Him!
He will do the work to transform your life!
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new."
2 Corinthians 5:17
If you have not yet accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior,
there's a heavy burden on my heart to invite you to do so.. Today!
Won't you consider doing so now?
And now..
May the Lord bless you and keep you;
The Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you
The Lord life up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.
Now and forever, in Jesus' name
Amen
Brian Monzon Ministries