And Adam gave names to all cattle,
and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam
there was not found a help meet for him. And the LORD God caused a deep sleep
to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up
the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from
man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is
now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because
she was taken out of Man.
(Gen 2:20-23)
Husbands, love your
wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That
he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,
That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot,
or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.
So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his
wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth
and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: For we are members of his
body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his
father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall
be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and
the church.
(Eph 5:25-32)
And I say also unto
thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and
the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
(Mat 16:18)
The miracle of BIRTH is a fascinating and awesome reality when you stop
and think about it a little bit.
And this all came about in Genesis after two former miracles had to occur.
- But when they occurred, the miracle
of child birth took precedence, and although God stopped direct creation
6000 years ago, child birth continues on until today and is a miracle we
have to put in its proper perspective.
The Hebrew term for MADE in the phrase, "And the rib, which the LORD God
had taken from man, made he a woman" is literally "builded" as some bible
margins indicate.
- Jesus said He'd BUILD His church.
- Just as God builded the woman.
- And the same terms God used to describe
the woman's relationship to man are used to describe the church's relationship
to Christ.
- The Church is the Bride of Christ.
People have all sorts of ideas of what the "church" is.
- Many think of a denomination.
- Others think of a building with a
steeple on top.
- Jesus was a carpenter as a young man,
but that is not to say that the building of His church was building with
hammers and nails and wood.
- The Greek word used to translate CHURCH
actually means CALLED OUT PEOPLE.
- The Church is God's People today.
God created Adam by His own power from the dust of the ground.
- He breathed into Adam the breath of
life and Adam became alive.
- Adam was alone while all the others
creatures had mates.
- When God paraded the animals before
him to see if Adam could find the help he required, he found none.
- So Adam volunteered to have his life
laid down and for God to build a woman for him from his rib.
This has very deep meaning.
- God did nothing without a very good
purpose behind it.
- He did not create the animals with
mates and create Adam without a mate for no reason.
- Man was God's image.
- He was God expressed in physical terms,
so to speak.
- Man was not God, but a reflection
of God.
- And so when we watch how God worked
with man and what God did with man, we see a picture of some things that
involve God.
Let's look at the picture further.
God built a woman from Adam's rib.
- And this woman was thereby a multiplication
of Adam.
- This fits the bill because God did
tell Adam to multiply.
- One became two.
- Not a new handful of dust to make
another human, but this time a female human.
- But rather a multiplication of Adam.
And this was the end of direct working with humanity to see them multiply.
- Man would continue to multiply.
- But there would be no taking dust
to do so .
- There would be no laying a man down
to a deep sleep to extract a rib and build another.
- One wife was enough for him!
- But a new entity called a child would
come by a means that God was not solely responsible for.
- He was solely responsible for creating
the man and the woman.
- He was directly involved.
- However, to man and woman were given
the miracle of child birth and procreation.
There was the miracle of Adam's creation from dust.
There was the miracle of the woman's creation from Adam's rib.
But there was another miracle altogether.
- The miracle of child birth.
- And in this miracle, it was not just
God working the wonder.
- It was man and woman through God's
gift.
Just to think of the awesome ability human beings have.
- To actually bring into this world
a soul.
- To choose to do so or not to do so.
- It's awesome.
- A soul that will spend eternity somewhere!
- A living soul that will either come
to know their God or never know the Creator.
- While we see parents cast away their
very own offspring who did not choose to be born, who did not choose to
exist at all, they take the lives they brought into this world so lightly
and carelessly.
- Children are awesome miracles wrought
in part by our own choices and abilities God gave us.
Stop and think about that for a moment or two.
God gave man and woman the ability to bring living souls into the world.
- God would not have to grab dust again.
- He would not even have to take ribs
and build them.
- He put the ability within the lives
of man and woman.
- And with such awesome ability, we
need to appreciate the awesome responsibility that is upon our shoulders.
- While some women will take that awesome
gift and miracle of child birth to allow themselves to become impregnated
in order to force some man who obviously doesn't really love them anyway,
to marry them, this world is absolutely sick and in need of a real wake-up
call to reality!
- They're bringing SOULS into existence!
- Under such circumstances, it will
be a miracle for that child to ever make it to glory and heaven one day,
with such sinful examples for parents.
- But miracles are God's business, and
it has happened with some.
Woman was very special in creation.
- She was apart from all the former
creation.
- She was the sole element of a following
creation, so to speak, all for the purpose of Adam multiplying.
- But God's exclusive work of creation
ended there.
- Miracles would occur, and God supplied
the life, but they would be at the hands of man and woman from then on.
We will be judged with how we handle this miracle working power of child
birth.
- God grants life to every soul we bring
into this world.
- And He steps in and grants an infant
life when situations that should never have taken place, take place.
- A woman is raped and bears a child
and God has to step in and grant that child life.
- You can tell His concern is for the
child -- a unique soul -- and His love is real for that soul.
- However, the father is going to pay
for his absolutely disgusting carelessness and degradation of the precious
miracle of procreation.
With woman's great position in this wonder, its no wonder Satan aimed
his targets upon her in Genesis chapter 3.
- She was Adam's means of multiplication.
- Without her there could be no miracle
at Adam's hand.
I propose that homosexuality was never intended to exist in God's creation
by reason of the fact that no life and no miracle occurs through it.
- True love brings life, both spiritually
and physically.
- And two people of the same sex cannot
engender life, and the Word of God calls their love a vile affection.
- Its forbidden in God's word, but the
very witness of the fact that life cannot be generated from it is enough
to prove it is not of God.
- That which is of God is life.
- Jesus came to give life.
- This is a principle of God's works.
So Satan tempted the woman.
- The other half of the miracle working
power of procreation.
- Through her Adam would multiply.
Well, we read how Christ and the church are spoken of in terms of a husband
and his wife.
- The deep meaning behind the manner
of Adam's and the woman's creation show forth God's will in Jesus.
- Although Jesus is not a creature,
but is God incarnate, manifest in flesh, He came miraculously as did Adam.
- A virgin gave birth to Him.
And as Adam laid down his life and Adam's side was opened, from which
the material to build the woman, Christ laid down His life in the death
of the cross.
- No man took His life.
- He gave it, willingly I might add,
to have a church.
Looking unto Jesus
the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before
him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand
of the throne of God.
(Heb 12:2)
The joy set before Him was similar to Adam's joy upon contemplating what
God would do through his deep sleep experience.
And Christ's side was pierced to prove His death.
- Since water and blood came forth,
the soldier knew He was dead.
- The sack around his heart burst.
- So the pierced side speaks of death.
- The death of Jesus was as necessary
for Christ to have a church as much as the sleep of Adam was necessary to
build a woman for Adam.
- Like a grand sacrifice to take
away sins upon the altars of Old Testament temples, Jesus was our sacrifice
for our sins, once and for all time, and not just a year as those sacrifices
were carried out.
- Because He was a perfect sacrifice.
- He was human like us.
And as miraculous as it was for God to make and build woman as it was
to make Adam from dust, the creation of the church was as directly the work
of God's hands as Jesus' incarnation of GOd and birth of a virgin.
But as much as the woman and man were given the gift of miracle working
procreation, to have a hand in the supernatural, so to speak, so the church
and Christ have been given the gift of PROCREATION.
Sons and daughters of God are BORN A SECOND TIME because there is a church
and there is a Saviour.
To be born of the water and of the spirit refers to water baptism and
Spirit baptism.
Jesus answered, Verily,
verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit,
he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
(John 3:5)
Look which part Jesus has to play in these two elements.
And I knew him not:
but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom
thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is
he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost.
(John 1:33)
I indeed baptize you
with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than
I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy
Ghost, and with fire:
(Mat 3:11)
Jesus baptizes us with the SPIRIT.
- That is the LIFE that issues from
the male.
As a human man John the Baptist baptized with water, it was the people
of God who comprised the church who baptized candidates who desired salvation
in water in the name of Jesus Christ!
New Birth of SPIRIT AND WATER shows us the MAN and the WOMAN in God's
Kingdom -- Christ and the Church -- procreating the lives of sons and daughters
of God.
And if there is one thing in this world that Satan has aimed his targets
upon, it is this woman called the church.
- Not just any church.
- The Jesus' Name church.
You just won't get the nourishment you need from some other nanny or woman
who never birthed you in Jesus name baptism where God's Spirit filled you.
Its union between Man and Wife.... Spirit baptism and water baptism coming
together in one experience of salvation... that brings life, just as man
and woman unite in intimacy and together work the miracle of birth.
You claim you have God, but don't need the church.
- Don't fool yourself.
- You need the mother.
STICK WITH THE REAL CHURCH.
Don't settle for compromises and shortcoming so-called churches.
She is Christ's means of procreating sons and daughters of God.
- His Spirit moves in His church's meetings
as the word is preached.
- And together, Christ and the church
perform the miracle of NEW BIRTH, and souls are saved.
It was the church, with spokesperson and preacher, Peter who told people
how to come to God.
Now when they heard
this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest
of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said unto
them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ
for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
(Act 2:37-38)
Which Church is Which?
- Find the little lady that tells sinners
what Peter told sinners when the church was born in Acts 2.
You don't think you need the church?
- Let me tell you that God needs the
church as much as a man needs a woman to multiply himself and have a child.
- And Jesus Himself said that people
would believe upon Him purely as the result of the preachers and the church
that God gave to Him as His corporate bride.
I have manifested
thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they
were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word.
(John 17:6)
I have given them
thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world,
even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest take them
out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They
are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through
thy truth: thy word is truth. As thou hast sent me into the world, even
so have I also sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify
myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth. Neither pray
I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their
word;
(John 17:14-20)
He said he prayed for those who would be his church.
- And he prayed for those souls who
would believe upon Jesus through the word of the people who would be HIs
church.
- Jesus, Himself, said that people would
believe upon Him through the preachers' word.
- Not some traditional word.
- The WORD the apostles preached.
- Jesus spoke of the apostles when He
prayed for the people to whom He gave the word.
He needs His little lady!
He needs them to baptize in water as He baptizes in Spirit.
And Satan hates this lady called the church.