BIRTH FROM
THE PAIN OF DEATH
May 10,
1998 PM
MICHAEL
F. BLUME
Gene 2:9 And
out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to
the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden,
and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
Gene 3:22-24
And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good
and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of
life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from
the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove
out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and
a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.
Today is MOTHER'S DAY
- We thank God for our mothers.
- There is such a beautiful
message in all that God created, including Motherhood, that tells us a very
wonderful truth about Salvation.
- Motherhood especially tells
us about salvation.
We will look at this text in
Genesis' story of Adam and Eve where we read of the first mother in order
to understand that special truth of salvation.
The picture of two trees in the
Garden of Eden that were stressed above all others is a very important principle
we are to keep in mind throughout the entire Bible.
- No other trees were mentioned
in this context.
- They were specified amongst
all the trees.
- Each tree was a spiritual
tree that bore fruit that would implant a spiritual element into mankind.
- Man would birth something
as the result of eating either fruit.
Within fruit are seeds.(Gen 1:11).
- Fruit are distinctly known
to bear seeds.
- And seeds impregnate or
bring to conception in order to "birth."
- God desired man to bring
forth LIFE in His walk, so He gave man the blessing of eating the fruit of
Life.
- Satan desired to hinder
that "product" of God from coming forth or from "birthing" into the world,
for he knew it would be a product of God.
- He heard God tell Adam,
"Gene 1:28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and
multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the
fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing
that moveth upon the earth. "
- Satan knew that the world
he was cast into after his own fall would be filled with holiness and God's
will should man eat the fruit of Life and "produce" or "birth" the issues
of Life.
If Satan could not rule in Heaven
and was cast out, then not on his life would he allow himself to be cast out
of the earth to be ruled by man.
- So the devil sought to fill
man with another substitute that would hinder God's Life from filling man.
- (But we know the end of
the story. Satan will be cast out of the earth into a bottomless pit and
then finally into a lake of fire.)
The Tree of Life bore a fruit
that would implant within mankind a specific form of Life.
- Adam was already a living
soul before he ate any fruit of any kind, which makes it obvious that this
"life" in the Fruit was not the natural life that Adam already possessed without
eating it.
- This Life was God's Life.
- This Life was supernatural
Life.
When God formed man into His
own image there was the reason for this shape, and it is found in the goal
that God set for mankind.
- Adam was created in the
precise form or image so that the Spirit of God, after whose Image Adam was
made, would then be able to indwell that man and bring His influence into
a dimension of the physical realm of creation.
- Man was to act as a living
junction point between the spiritual and unseen dimension and the physical,
visible dimension.
- And in order to allow God
to fully manifest through Adam in the manner He chose to do so, He made Adam
in His Image.
- Such imaging would satisfy
God's need to manifest as much and as freely as possible through man.
Even Satan sought out a fit formed
creature to manifest himself through as he sought to tempt the woman.
- He chose a serpent because
of the subtle nature the creature had.
- He would twist the subtlety
of the serpent towards his own use and subtly tempt the woman.
- What better creature to
use to deceive than the most subtle beast of the field?
- Satan "hi-jacked" the serpent
and used it as his vehicle to birth his own form of deception to affect the
people in the world.
This same principle of birthing
is found in John 15.
- Jesus spoke about being
the Vine and our position as the branches.
- We are to bear fruit through
our lives as the result of being attached to the Vine, Jesus Christ.
- This can be none other
than a reference to the need of bearing fruit of the Spirit.
- Since it is fruit of the
Spirit, we must understand that it is not human virtues that are referred
to.
- These are virtues originating
from the Spirit, that flow outward from within our hearts where God's Spirit
abides after we are born again.
- So we know by this that
God did not forget about this original plan.
- Aren't you glad that man
is not forsaken and permanently barred from the original opportunity we had
from God to bear His life?
When we bear fruit of the Spirit
due to being attached to Jesus the vine, we are seen as the junction point
between God's Spirit and the world.
- He flows through us as sap
does through a branch, and manifests through our lives in the form of the
fruit of the Spirit.
- He is the vine and you
could say He is also the fruit.
- And we are in the middle.
- The branch has the unique
function of transforming God's Spiritual will into fruit or activity that
people can see.
Eating the fruit of Life corresponds
to the modern-day blessing of receiving the infilling of the Holy Ghost.
- When a person receives the
baptism of the Holy Ghost, that person receives God's Life -- God, Himself.
- God dwells in a person.
- God "tabernacles" in a
person.
- Paul said we are "temples
of the Holy Ghost."
As the living
Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even
he shall live by me. John
6:57
This indicates that God did not
forget the manner He originally chose to impart His Life to mankind.
- Jesus Christ came to earth
to accomplish the same end that the purpose of the fruit of life was intended
to provide.
- But much more was involved
in giving man this Life since Adam's fall because man had the problem of inherent
sinfulness after Eden's tragedy.
- That problem had to be
dealt with.
God multiplied the woman's pain
and her conception after she sinned.
- She would bring forth children
in pain.
- This tells us a very important
truth.
- God's will was to have
us "birth" His will into this world.
- That is still His will,
but an added complication arose since sin.
- Mankind can still bear
fruit, but a suffering must occur first.
This is the truth behind the
phrase God spoke before He cast Adam from the Garden.
...and now,
lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and
live for ever: Gen 3:22
It was obviously not a good thing at that point in time for Adam to gain
never-ending life.
Adam would never have died before sinning, because death only came by sin
(Roma 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death
by sin)
- God required Adam's death
to free man.
A woman comes to the closest
point of death in her life when she brings forth a child.
- This is God's way of relating
a message to mankind.
- He originally wanted a
vessel through which to Birth His will into the world.
- So He made man in His image,
that would best fit Him.
- His vessel, man, became
filled with sin and something else instead.
It is noteworthy that Satan went
to the WOMAN first because a WOMAN gives birth.
- The woman was later called,
"EVE", THE
MOTHER OF ALL LIVING.
- Adam was to multiply and
fill the earth with other humans.
- They had to be born from
Adam and his wife.
- The wife would be the MEANS
OF ADAM MULTIPLYING.
- The Devil missed the chance
to attack Adam and stop him before God took the rib from Adam and made a WOMAN.
- Adam already multiplied
once.
- One person became TWO.
- Soon two would become four
and so on.
- So the devil acted before
children were born of the MOTHER.
- If he could contaminte
the SOURCE, the MOTHER, then all children would be unfit vessels and contaminated.
- So the devil, having heard
that, sought to hit the means of the birthing for other children, and to cut
off her chances of bearing a brood of holy children whom God could fill with
His life, also, by getting the future MOTHER to sin and contaminate her life.
But the Lord God made the devil
wonder and stand in amazement.
- He told the serpent that
the woman would still bear a child that would turn the tables back around
and bruise the devil's head.
- Satan did not understand
how that could be, since the woman was contaminated and filled with something
other than God's Life from the tree of Life.
- But we can understand it
today, knowing what God did.
- And when we look at Genesis
3:22, where God would not allow man to go to the tree of life and eat and
live forever, we get a clearer hint.
Imagine Satan hearing all this.
- He heard God tell Adam that
should Adam eat of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil that Adam would
die.
- So he wants Adam to die
instead of receive Life.
- He messed the MOTHER up
through whom Adam would multiply himself.
- She would die.
- Then he messed Adam up
through her.
- He would die.
- Then he heard the Lord
tell him that the seed of the woman would turn the tables around and defeat
the devil's power (bruise his head).
- Then we read that God tells
the woman she would suffer in child-bearing.
- And then he hears God say
that He cannot let Adam back into the Garden in case he eats of the tree of
life and lives forever.
- God leaves Adam to die.
"WHAT GIVES?" said the devil.
- What on earth is God up
to?
Satan knew nothing of the plan
of God.
- He could not tie one of
these phrases together to make any sense out of it.
- But it is all there in
beautiful mystery.
THE PLAN:
- Death comes by sin.
- God cursed the woman to
suffer in bearing children.
- She would bear children
before or after sin, but beforehand, she would not have suffered.
- THIS IS NOTABLE!
- IT IS SPIRITUALLY APPLICABLE.
- MANKIND WOULD BE GOD'S
VESSEL BEFORE ADAM SINNED WITHOUT ANY SUFFERING.
- BUT AFTER HAVING SINNED,
GOD CHOSE TO RECONCILE MAN THROUGH SUFFERING IN ORDER TO BRING FORTH HIS LIFE THROUGH
MAN.
- As a woman almost dies
to bear children, there would come a death that would bring forth a SON WITH
POWER TO DEFEAT THE DEVIL, AND MULTIPLY TO MAKE MANY SONS OF GOD.
- Through DEATH and through
a CHILD, or SON, would come the victory over death.
- From the birthing room
of pain and agony and treading on the very edge of death, would come LIFE.
- The tree of LIFE's FRUIT
would return to mankind again through DEATH.
- Jesus DIED that we might
LIVE.
It may sound strange at first
to hear this, but make sure you realize that the following is only possible
by one way, and one way alone.
- For sinful man, death
is a blessing in disguise.
- Death, in the proper light
of understanding, frees man from his sinful body.
- Demons cannot be saved
because they cannot die.
- They are not mortal.
God allowed man to experience
death of the flesh because He preplanned to remove man's sinful flesh from
him and render that flesh sin-free.
- God planned in all his wisdom,
that the penalty of death could actually be taken advantage of, so that sin
could be removed.
- God designed to manifest
Himself in the likeness of sinful flesh and stand in our places to pay the
penalty of death that we owed since a fleshly body will die because of sin.
- And through payment of
the the penalty of death for us, God provided the situation that sin damn
our souls.
- As a man, He died in our
places so it could be said that we died with Him and were separated from our
sinful flesh with Him.
PRESERVING MAN FOR SALVATION
God would save mankind and restore
the opportunity for man to "house" God's LIFE in order to see God manifest
into this world, or to see HIs will BIRTHED into the world.
- In order for Christ to die
for us in our places, to free us from sin, we had to be able to die.
- When God said, "And now,
lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and
live for ever," in those few moments before He drove man from the Garden,
He was actually saying, "If man does not remain susceptible to
death, then I will not be able to save Him in time to come. If he eats of
that tree's fruit and lives forever, then my plan to manifest in flesh and
take man's sins upon my flesh will be thwarted. When I manifest in flesh
and die to remove those sins, man will be free from sin, and able to take
the original benefit from the fruit of life, my Spirit Itself, in him. But
if man eats the fruit prematurely, and renders himself beyond the ability
to die, I will not be able to manifest in flesh and die in man's place. Man
must be able to die in order for me to die in man's place. I cannot take
his place and die if his place is one that cannot die."
God had to remove man from the
Garden in order to preserve mankind for a future salvation from sin.
- This tells us that He planned
from at least the time of Adam to redeem man through death.
- Sin brought death, so God
would turn around and bring salvation through death.
All of this means that God actually
took advantage of the principle of death, which came by sin, to save us from
sin.
- What a paradox!
- Sin brought death, and
we are all born to die.
- But God used death to free
us from sin and cause us to be born again.
- He turned the tables around
on the devil! Praise God!
Forasmuch then
as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise
took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that
had the power of death, that is, the devil; And deliver them
who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. Hebr 2:14-15
And you, that
were sometime alienated and enemies in [your] mind by wicked works, yet now
hath he reconciled In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy
and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight: Colo 1:21-22
JESUS AND ADAM
When Jesus Christ was in the
Garden of Gethsemane, as Adam was in the Garden of Eden, He drank the cup
and took our sins.
- Both Jesus and Adam took
sin into themselves in a Garden.
- Jesus drank whereas Adam
ate, but sin was infested in them both.
- The blessed difference
is that Jesus obeyed the Father in drinking sin, whereas Adam disobeyed the
Father by eating the fruit.
- The Father separated Himself
from Jesus Christ and Jesus was driven from the Garden by the soldiers who
crucified Him, unbeknownst to the soldiers, just as Adam was driven from the
Garden due to his sin.
Jesus felt the brunt of sin and
the forsakenness of the Father while on the cross, when He cried, "My God,
my God, why hast thou forsaken me?!"
- His humanity felt the real
fear of a human having known nothing less than total union with the Father
only to have that union broken for the first time due to containing our sin
in His flesh in order to die in our places.
In order for the great event
of redemption to occur in the future, and to thereby save man from his sins,
God had to drive Adam from the Garden and therethrough preserve the newly
acquired mortality in his flesh.
- This would allow God to
later manifest in flesh as a man and die in man's place.
Adam did not want to leave that
paradise. What loss! He once walked in the paradise of God and had to leave
it all!
- But such a great loss would
lead to such a great find!
- Through the existence of
death amongst mankind, Jesus Christ was able to die in our places in order
to save us.
- In this manner alone can
man be made free from sin and subsequent death so that he might enter the
Garden and receive the Life of God that was originally meant for man to receive
in order to house God's Spirit.
- Until one accepts Christ's
death as one's own death, sin is the only thing in man�s way keeping him from
the Tree of Life!
- GOD SAID, "MAN MUST BE
ABLE TO DIE SO THAT I CAN SAVE HIM BY BECOMING A MAN THAT CAN DIE AND BY
THEN DYING IN HIS PLACE."
- He is God, so He would
raise Himself from the dead.
John 2:19 Jesus
answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will
raise it up.
- YOU CAN SAY YOU DIED BY
REPENTING OF YOUR SINS.
- JESUS DIED FOR YOU AND
AS YOU ONLY IF YOU REPENT AND MAKE A DECISION TO DIE OUT TOTALLY TO THE LIFESTYLE
OF GODLESSNESS AND A WORLD WITHOUT GOD IN YOUR HEART.
- AND THEN YOU ARE BAPTIZED
IN WATER TO SHOW YOU ARE BURYING THAT DEAD LIFESTYLE.
- AND THEN GOD GIVES YOU
HIS SPIRIT.
- THROUGH YOUR DEATH TO SIN
AND THE WORLD BY REPENTANCE, YOU ARE BORN AGAIN.