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

God started out with the Word of God, explaining to you so clearly what He had in mind, what He was going to do, and what He wants to do with you, and His activity on this earth. He explained it so clearly. Then, in the end, in disguise, it’s there, and He shows it to you, once more, only this time there’s no garden. The garden has been changed, and now, a garden that is something created…and the word of God begins with what? A Tree. It ends not with a garden and Adam under a tree with a Tree of Life and a River there, but it ends with a city that has been built up. And right in the middle of the city, where the garden used to be, is a Tree, and there is a river, and nothing has changed except one thing. God has built a building on this earth. He lives in that building…and you, brothers and sisters, are the building.

This is God’s purpose, not only in time, but in eternity. Not only in eternity, but in time. Praise the Lord. Genesis 1 and 2 give us the blueprint. Revelation 21 and 22, and the two chapters are virtually identical; the four chapters are virtually identical. Once you have seen this, there’s hardly any difference at all.  I think you’ll be very surprised. This is God’s work, but I have to go back in there for more. Very fascinating.

God has a plan. He created the earth. He put a man on it, and He said, ” Live by My Life, not by yours, but by mine. Live by the highest life in the universe.” Then He said, “Express Me and have dominion over the land.” Now, this is beautiful to God. He actually created you as a vessel that you might contain Him, to express him, represent him, have His power, and have His authority. The work of God upon this earth is to have man represent him, to express him on this earth, and to rule this earth. Brothers, in chapters 1 and 2, there is no sin, and there is no fall. And in Revelation 21 and in Revelation 22, there is no sin, and there is no fall. If you read chapter 3, Satan starts in chapter 3. He gets his introduction there…and then, he gets his dismissal. In Revelation 20, at the very end of chapter 19 and the beginning of chapter 20, that was the absolute end of all negative things.

But brothers and sisters, he (Satan) works here also. He had a purpose. It is his purpose to keep God from having His plan on this earth. Brothers, I cannot tell you…I cannot express to you…how important a piece of real estate is to God. This ball of dirt is so important to the Lord that you wouldn’t believe it, and before this night is over, we’re going to get a little bitty grasp of why this little planet, sailing out in the universe, is so important to God and so important to Satan. Satan wants to stop the building work of God. He will do anything he can to stop God’s building. He will do everything he can to stop the building work of God.

Unfortunately, somebody in the old man, the line of the old man, got on the ark (Noah’s). You don’t know that. The old man, the line of the old man, got on the ark. God destroyed everything. Now, remember, Noah had…how many boys that got on the ark with him? What were their names? Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Which one was the line of the new man? Shem and Japheth are the line of the new man, and Noah didn’t know it at first, but the old man got on. When he saw his son do something that the pagans had done before the deluge, and you can read this in Leviticus if you wish, it is something condemned as being something of the pre-Diluvian sinfulness. He realized that one of his sons still had the old in him.

There was the building of Enoch by Cain to have man dependent on man and independent of God. Satan came in Genesis 3 and took the earth from God. God took it back through Noah and the ark, and the ark is a building of God. And then, Satan got us back through the building of Nimrod. And what was it? Babylon. And God called out a man for another building. There was a building with a man, God’s building. What was that man’s name? Abraham.

Abraham, alright. Then there was the building of God upon the earth. There was. You didn’t see it, but it was there. Then God’s people were taken out of the Lord’s land and were in Egypt. As soon as the descendants of Abraham, well, they got in there first…they got into, and what is Egypt? It’s another building of the old man to distract from the building of God.
God came down and delivered them. Do you remember? It was a treasure city. They were building with mud, brick, and slime. And what is slime? To hold it together. (Organization) The bricks are rough, and the only thing you can do with them is put some slime in between them to hold them together. If you don’t have rule, if you do not have a chain of command with a man on top giving rules and keeping people in line, it will not stand. And this is one of the things that God’s building doesn’t have. Praise the Lord, God shall build again.

When God delivered them out of Egypt, what was the first thing he told them to do when they left? This is lesson number two. He told them that He brought them out of there to build. The first thing He gave them after they left Egypt was a pattern. It was a pattern let down out of heaven, and God said, ” Build a tabernacle according to the pattern.” It was not like God saying, “Oh, I thought up a pattern and let’s build.” No, here is a pattern you have never seen. It waits for you. There’s a copy of it.  Build a copy of it. God took a blueprint of something that already existed and handed it down to Moses, saying, “Build a copy of it. Build after the pattern,” and God had a building for the children of Israel.

Then, they marched into the promised land, and they took it. In Joshua, right after the Battle of Jericho, it says that after they walked in and defeated the enemy, they subdued them. God had said to man in Genesis chapter 1, ” Take the earth and subdue it.” We cannot subdue something that’s not in rebellion. How can I subdue a dead cat? I can’t. It’s not in rebellion. How can I subdue my little daughter when she’s asleep? She’s not in rebellion. The earth was in rebellion, and God put man upon it, for God has a very, very, very, very special purpose for the earth, and that purpose is to be fulfilled through a man who will live by the Life of God and express God.

The earth is taken. They got into the land and built the temple, and the enemy came in once more. The line of the old man of Babylon came back into existence. What is the line of the old man in Babylon? It is religion. It is even good religion. Nimrod was a religious man who built to reach God and make a name for himself. Do you sense that man builds for God with one hand to make a name for himself? This has got to go to the altar. This is the only reputation we can have. It is in the warfare of God.

Babylon came and burned the temple to the ground and took the people of God into captivity. When they got back, they built the temple. They started with the walls, and they built the temple. They were back in the building business, and when they got back to the land, the word says, “God was called the God of heaven and earth.”

Now, then came the real building. Then came the Lord Jesus upon the earth, and He is the building. In John 1, He is the tabernacle; in John 2, He is the temple. They said, “Isn’t that a beautiful temple? It took 39 years to build it. And the Lord said, “Tear down the temple, and it will be built up in three days.” He was saying to them, “This is the picture; here is the real thing. When you have seen Me, you have seen the temple.” The Lord also spoke in that same chapter of the enlargement of it. God starts off with a garden, then He has, and we’ll get to this later, a tent, and from the tent He gets something a little bit bigger, a tabernacle, and after the tabernacle is what? The temple. And the measurements of the temple are given.