A Built-Up Corporate New Man: God’s Plan From Genesis to Revelation

Brothers and sisters, we are dealing with the very beginning, the first thing of the church. The first things of the church. Just the first things; that’s all. And then, we’ve got to go on, but brethren, we cannot go on unless you go on. So this week is a real test for all of us. Now, brothers, I know where you’ve been up until right now. We’ve been this way before ourselves. We know what you’ve been through. We know what you’re going to go through, too. We know a lot better than you do what you’re going to go through, but the very fact that we’re standing here saying, brethren, come on, let go. It must be something worth it, brethren. And, brothers, it’s worth it. It’s really worth it.

Alright, I believe it’s Genesis 1:26. And God said, Let us make man in our image after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So, God created man in his own image. In the image of God created he him. Male and female created he them. And God blessed them and said unto them…let’s just read this together…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.

Now then, in chapter 2, verse 7. Chapter 2 is sort of a rerun of Chapter 1. It’s not like God was continuing the story. He goes back, and He leaves out the heavens, and He leaves out the lesser created life, and He comes back, and He just kind of amplifies on the created life of man, okay? And God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. And the Lord planted a garden, eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made 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 the knowledge of good and evil. And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted and became into four heads. The name of the first is Pison; that which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; and the gold of that land is good; there is bdellium, and there is onyx stone. And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia. The name of the third river was Hiddekel, which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. And the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest eat it freely, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it, for the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.

Brothers and sisters, we have been over these passages so much, but we have not even touched them. We have lived with them for weeks now, about 16 days altogether, but we have only touched them. Now, in the past, we have said, God’s eternal purpose was that man…God’s eternal purpose is that man might live by another life form, by the Life of God. God created man to have that Life, and by having that Life and living by it, man would have the image of God to express God, and he would also, by having that Life, also have the authority of God.

Now, when I was born to my father, I got his life. I got his eccentricity. I even have moles in my body in places where my father has moles. I got his life, and when I got his life, my father’s life, I just naturally bore his image. There are certain things about my face and my hair; if you meet him and you don’t see any hair, you’ll understand. There are many things about him…I’m like that. I bear his image. Now then, if my father, and my father was very poor and he was an illiterate, semiliterate roughneck in these Texas oil fields, had he had dominion, the authority over that dominion would have been mine. Unfortunately, or praise the Lord, really fortunately, my father has absolutely nothing. Absolutely nothing, but if my father were wealthy, he would pass on to me the authority over what he had.

Alright, I have the Life of God, but I don’t have it because I deserve it. I have it because it is God’s purpose. He created man, that man, of all the creatures in the universe, might have the Life of God. And from having the Life and more of the Life, man would be able to express Him, the Father, and have His authority to rule over what rightly belongs to God. It is God’s purpose that you rule over His dominion. It is for you to have what is God’s, and for you to rule it, with authority. And not only that you might rule it, but that you might, in ruling it, bear the image of God.

Now, when God created the earth, here’s the story. First, He created the heavens, and then He took the darkness and separated it from the light. And then he took the bottom part and separated it from the top part. You can almost see God cutting through the negative, the negative power, to create something for a purpose. He took the darkness and separated from the light. He took the above and separated from the beneath, and then He came to the earth. He took the water, separated it from the land, then made the little bitty animals, and then made the big animals. He made the vegetable life. He made the beast life, and then, praise the Lord, He made the third to the highest life in the universe. He made the life of man. And just to where did he put man? Alright, praise the Lord. He put man in the Garden of Eden. And where was the Garden of Eden? The garden is on the earth. Man is in the garden, and the garden is on the earth.

Now, then God put man here for a purpose. When he put him in the garden, he put him beside a tree. What is it called? The Tree of Life. Now, from this point on, I’m going to say to you what I have said to you so many times. Brothers and sisters, before we finish this week, there will be nothing that I say to you…Sometimes you have to go all the way to the New Testament to understand the Old.  Sometimes you have to go to the Old to understand the New. There is nothing here, but what the word of God clearly rises up and declares, throughout the Word…it’s just because of our sick, little backgrounds that we have not seen what this is. All the Word of God declares God’s purpose in creation and God’s purpose and activity on the earth.

Brethren, you know, it’s getting more and more difficult for me tell where the New Testament starts, and the Old Testament ends, and where the Old Testament begins, where the New Testament begins; it’s just all one book, and it just melts in together, and we shall see this more this week than we’ve ever seen it before. It’s all one, and its purpose is one, and the direction of God is one. God put man beside a tree, and by the tree there was a river. He’s in a garden, and God is creating. Those are the first three chapters of the book. Now, you all know that I have written some books, and I’ve asked you not to read them, and it’s getting easier all the time because one of them is out of print. When I wrote one of these books, I wrote the first two pages; I did it just like everybody else who ever wrote a book. I told what I was going to talk about. This is what I believe. This is the challenge, and here were some of the verses; you know, I was, where was my burden? There was a forward in the first couple of pages of the introduction. Then, when I got to the very end, I summed it all up and repeated it, but I showed it in its fullness and final purpose.

Now, brethren, this is the Alpha, and this is Omega. God did exactly the same thing when he wrote the Word of God. He’s got two pages at the beginning and two pages at the end, and brethren, those two pages, those four pages, are for you, and they are purposed for you. You are part of them, and brothers and sisters, for you to be in the inner matter of what God has planned for and will do, is doing, and going to do on the earth, you’ve got to be in the work of those four pages. The work of God in those four pages. Now, what is it? When the book ends, at the end, you read it and there it is. It’s just like you started with a blueprint.

Have any of you ever seen your mother and daddy build a home? Have you? Think you’ve been old enough to remember? Do some of you remember your folks building a home? They came in, and they pulled out the blueprint, and they talked, they could dream, and they planned. Living room here, the kids out there. A blueprint. Alright, chapter one and chapter two. You know what it is? It’s a building list. You see, have you ever gone to the grocery store and bought all the ingredients? You had a list of the ingredients, and then you went back, and you worked and worked and worked, and what was the final outcome? A big, beautiful, tasty cake. And the blueprint is unrolled, and you see it, and the final finished product is a home for you to live in.