Today, we started a series titled “Israel and the church”, and we embarked on this topic because of the critical time the church is in. We can see that the bridal church of God is patterned just like the nation of Israel, the way God dealt with the children of Israel, is the same way he deals with the church. That is why we need to have our hearts open as we follow this series, so we can see ourselves by the scriptures, picking the right lessons to learn from the children of Israel, lest we also become victims of God’s judgment because of our disobedience.
Text: I Corinthians 10:1-6, Genesis 3:8, Exodus 19:5, Genesis 3:1, Deuteronomy 14:2, Psalm 135:4, Deuteronomy 26:18, I Peter 2:9, Ephesians 1:4, John 15:16
It is a critical time with the church because God is closer to us day by day, the same way he was with the children of Israel. Just as God did not overlook their rebellious acts when he called them out of Egypt, same way God is frowning at our rebellious acts after which he called us out from the world and revealed himself to us. Do we think God did all of that, so we can take him for granted?
The mind of God from the beginning was to have a family he could relate to and commune with here on earth. He wanted a relationship with man, and he started with Adam and Eve with the expectation that they’ll also produce children of God to inherit the earth, but they bent from the principle of God, and we know what ended their actions. They lost their God’s given position and thwarted God’s plan to gather a family unto himself through them.
Now it took God another interesting process to gather unto himself a family from mankind. over the next couple of weeks, we’ll be studying all these processes, highlighting things to learn from, things to abstain from, and things to adopt as we keep pressing to see Christ someday. But before then, let us take a journey down to why God took another turn in this process, what really happened? Why was Eve cursed, what transpired in the Garden of Eden? It’s a pity we have Pentecostals thinking that the sin that took place in the garden of Eden was just eating an apple fruit, oh c’mon, that’s too cheap to swallow as a bible student. There was more to that event, you should know that they bent from an instruction “do not” and were involved in an act, and that’s why we are imploying us not to bend from God’s provided way, because it is a terrible thing to fall into sin; it comes with shame.
The pollution of man’s bloodline happened in the Garden of Eden; I’m sure your question will be how? Pollution came because the serpent had a carnal knowledge of the woman (Eve), and this same sexual act was introduced to Adam by Eve. You cannot tell me that eating literal fruits opened the eyes of the woman- Never!! It has something to do with intimacy and this intimacy brought about the injection of the serpentine nature we all exhibit today.
The moment they were involved in that sin, God had to banish them from his presence (The Garden of Eden), and not just that, he placed on the east side of the garden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way of the tree of life (Genesis 3:23 -24NIV). What should drop into your heart, should be that – why did God restrict them from accessing the tree of life? Is the tree of life a normal tree? Who is the tree of life? Brethren, the tree of life is no other person but our Lord Jesus Christ in symbols; and that is why Christ came to redeem us from the first fall of man and this redemption was by blood.
Redemption plan through Christ was what brought you and me back to God. The reason why we don’t appreciate it is because we don’t know that he has a purpose for you and he’s taking you and me somewhere, and this is because we are seeing it from a worldly perspective. Eve saw it from this same perspective, and she got the reward of such a mindset, she bent from God’s calling and lost her place. God is not ready to bend for us, if you lose the track God has placed you, he has nothing to lose, it is you and I that will suffer from such negligence.
I pray God gives us strength to stay on track. Join us next week as we go further with this series
God bless you.