"ON EAGLES’ WINGS MINISTRIES"
“God speaks, separates, and acts.” September 2014. Part 1
“And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.” Genesis 1:3-5.
The pattern of the Christian life is mirrored and configured well within the story of the creation. We know that in the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. The original creation (going back a million years if you wish) was based upon God’s own blue print.
Over the years we have constantly heard from preachers that the earth was without form and void: on the belief that it was created without form and that it was void. But a little bit of careful study, we quickly see that the Creator did not create a world (the earth) that was without form and void.
The Creator himself offered his own account of what he did in the creation story. Listen to his personal account! “I have made the earth, and created man upon it: I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I commanded. For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth (so it was not without form…rather, it became without form) and made it; he hath established it, he created it to be inhabited: I am the Lord; and there is none else.” Isaiah 45: 12, 18.
We notice that first of all, God spoke, saying: Let there be light and there was light. If we apply this principle to human life we can characterize the introduction of light in the creation, to a mind being awakened and inspired to recognize something more honorable, and more defining to our wellbeing. The prodigal son, down by the pig pen, came to himself. His mind became illuminated when the divine light shone in: and immediately he decided to arise and make his way back home. When the light of elevated understanding shed its beams over our souls, we quickly have a desire to rise above our current circumstances. Paul offered a generous supply of elevated thoughts in his letter to the Ephesian church.
Paul’s prayer was: “That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit and revelation in the knowledge of him: the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints.” Ephesians 1:17,18. If there was total prolonged darkness, there would have been no need to initiate a separation. The same scenario holds true if there was prolonged total light. But when God called for the light to shine, he had to divide the light from the darkness.
Much the same way life and death cannot mix—cannot co-exist, so light and darkness cannot co-exist. But the entire account of creation chronicled in the book of Genesis, is more than a man and a woman dressing a garden and tending to animals galore. In fact, God’s creative purpose did not end with Adam, Eve, and Seth. The truth is that God continues to work, in so much, when Jesus healed on the Sabbath Day, and was accused by the Jews of breaking the Sabbath, Jesus replied: “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.” John 5: 17
In fact, Jesus offered a larger picture of how he goes about his earthly ministry. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these things also doeth the Son.” Verse 19. So Jesus himself said that his Father continues to work. It is safe to say that God ceased from the work of creation and rested on the seventh day. But adding a larger prospective that is of more spiritual value and reality, we offer this scenario. If you are planning a road trip to California from Washington DC, in your itinerary, you would no doubt mark where you will spend the first night, the second night, and so on.
Looking at the map, in drafting your itinerary, you would list the first night as sleeping over in Memphis, Tennessee: the second night you’d no doubt be stopping over in Midland Texas: the third night would have you finding a motel in El Paso, Texas or over the state line to Las Cruses, New Mexico. But all the time, you are still in Washington DC. Your itinerary simply reflects what you have planned to do in your upcoming cross country road trip.
Listen to the way Paul framed this message! “(As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.” Romans 4:17. Let us put another bit of biblical narrative into that which is now open for a closer look. This will take us back to the Garden and the appearance of man upon this terrestrial plane. We will bolster the idea that the creation story simply pointed to something more profound that continues to unfold in this our day. “Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses (and the laws and the prophets prophesied until John; so death reigned from Adam to John) even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who was a figure of him that was to come.” Romans 5: 14.
Adam was a son of God (Luke 3: 38) but overall he was only a type. Since the scripture plainly states that Adam was only a figure (a type—a shadow) of him that was to come; we must conclude that the person called Adam was not the finished and complete creation that God had in mind to begin with. And if Adam was only a figure, a type of a bigger and more realistic person and purpose, so also was the entire Genesis story. God brought his creative skills forward from Adam to Jesus Christ.
The true Son of God was in God’s master plan away back in the garden: and that plan was for God to have multitudes of sons upon the earth in due time. With this prospect pending in his blue print, God himself preached the first sermon about the gospel of grace and the gathering together of all peoples back unto himself. In not so many words God preached saying: “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” Genesis 3: 15.
Jesus Christ the true Son of God came upon the scene and changed the dynamics to the extent that: “As many as received him, to them gave he power to become sons of God. So God’s family that started in the Garden was only a type, a shadow of His family that would proceed from the true Son of God. The same reasoning applies to the separation of light from darkness. It meant more than the sequence of events that occurred in the Garden of Eden. The truth resonates down through time to where we are today.
It is safe to conclude that the day and night referred to in Genesis 1 carries a much deeper and more profound truth than the literal day and night that we live through all our lives. I think it speaks of two separate kingdoms that we as children of God today understand in our religious teachings and individual experience. There is a kingdom of darkness, and a kingdom of light.
Paul wrote saying: “Who hath delivered us from the power (kingdom) of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins.” Col. 1:13, 14. Let us consider the case of Abram living a well-structured and affluent life in Ur of the Chaldees, in Mesopotamia (Modern Day Iraq.)
Abram was a minister to the king, and his father traded in idols and other relics. The bible describes him as a wealthy man and a citizen of notable pedigree. But God came by one day (just because he wanted to) and called upon this man to get out of his country, and from his kindred, and from his father’s house, unto a land that he’d be shown later on. Genesis 12. Here, God speaks and calls for separation all in one voice. The conditions of this separation was a total loosing away of all family ties, and a total abandonment of the life he knew and enjoyed—a life that made him a prominent and highly respected, wealthy citizen.
To his credit, and pleasing to God, Abram packed up and headed out of town. But, alas! He made a big mistake in bringing along his father Terah, his nephew Lot along with hand maids, cattle, herds, and great wealth. In fact there was so much wealth between both Lot and Abram, that the land could not bear them both. Conflicts and strife broke out among them that resulted in a forced separation. (Genesis 13:5-9) Here Abram actually called upon Lot to separate himself.
However, God originally told Abram to leave all of his former family connections behind when he left town. The call of God was not to old Terah, not to Lot, and all the man-servants and maid-servants that was a part of their entourage. Abram got a little relief when his father died, but the Divine purpose promised at the beginning did not include Lot: so another separation was inevitable.
Let me add this thought, from experience! When God places a call upon your life, and accompanies that call with certain obligations and visions for the future, be careful in thinking that others can easily fit into that heavenly call. In other words when God calls you, it does not necessarily mean that you are free to include others based upon your own discretion.
God called Abram, but he included a bunch of people, and in turn, he suffered turmoil and conflicts along the way. Watch this carefully to see the effects of true separation. “And the Lord said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward: For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed forever.” Genesis 13: 14,15. It is of paramount importance that we do not allow the truth contained in this lesson to slip by unnoticed. Before God began to deal with Abram in a more positive way, what was the nature of the separation between Abram and Lot? The young man scanned the horizons, and given the option of making the first choice, he set his sights on the plains of Jordan that included the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
He envisioned grass land and constant streams of water for his cattle and other life stock. He saw what looked like the ideal place for him to put down stakes and put in place pillars that would support a luxurious life through ensuing years. I think it is safe and appropriate to infer that all along, Abram journeyed over paths unknown guided only by the contents of his believing heart..
By the same token, we can infer that Lot journeyed on the vision of his uncle, and what his eyes could perceive. Let me add this little nugget of truth. You simply cannot live by, and succeed, on another person’s vision. We will do well to notice that in the records of people who excelled by faith when tested and tried, Lot’s name was not mentioned. We read: “By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out (to separate himself) into a place which he should afterward receive for an inheritance, obeyed.” Hebrews 11:8. He had no concept of heaven because, as we said before, he left town with great wealth.
But what was his mindset during these life-transforming events? “For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” So the bottom line for this man was to inherit a heavenly city. Lot on the other hand began his sojourn only as a “follower.” God’s call was not meant for him and he traveled by the sight of his eyes. He made his choice to put down stakes in the plains of Sodom, based upon what his eyes saw and his mind understood. But Abram was left on the sides of a barren mountainside: and there, the heat emanated from the sunbaked rocks, and the entire scene was nothing but a barren landscape. It was from this rocky place where life seemed impossible to exist that God began to deal with Abram in a meaningful way. This man possessed a single quality that made him an ideal vessel that God could use.
“And not being weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah’s womb: Here is the clincher! And being FULLY PERSUADED that, what he hath promised, he was able also to perform.” Romans 4: 19, 21. That takes the cake!!
Let us understand that acquiring this monumental, unwavering faith was not aided by books, DVDs, and tapes by Dr. Frederick Price in his series on “Ever Increasing Faith.” It is like looking at one child out of seven: or one person out of a crowd of 20 who dares to break out of the mold and be different. Every once in a while someone appears over the horizon, and slowly begins to make a difference. Out of the inhabitants of the Sumerian City of Ur in Mesopotamia, God found only one man with whom he could do business. This man had a quality that perhaps no other person in town had, and it was like a window opened heavenward to the throne room of the most High God.
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