Present at the Birth (Part 4): God’s Eternal Purpose – Why God Created Man (Genesis to Revelation)

Alright, now then, I just want you to know and be impressed with this. That there is supposed to be a man on this earth doing what God created man for. There’s supposed to be a man on this earth doing that which God created man for. Now, what did God create man for? And this gets very important. Now, you won’t understand Gene Edwards and what makes him tick; you’re about to hear it. This is my passion.

God said to Adam, I have put you here that you might bear before angels, before the animals, and before Me, that you would bear My image. That you would bear about on this earth My image. You cannot get closer to God’s eternal purpose than coming to the point of realizing that God wanted a human on this earth who would make God visibly seen. That animals and angels could look and see the image of God being born visibly on the earth. Now, who’s going to do that? Who will take up that task? Who takes that torch? What man and what manner of man comes forth and says, God, we are here to fulfill the purpose for which You created man; we are here to bear Your image. Who is this person?

Let Us make man and let them; it’s a them. A them. Brother, could you stand here for just a moment, and I’ll ask Brother Prem also to come up here, if he will. Can Prem Pradhan possibly carry forth all by himself on this earth and show forth the image of God visibly? No. Can you? Well, come here. Can these two together? No, no. You’re at least one or two short here. It takes a them. There is no way one human being can show forth the Lord. You show forth this. Somebody else shows forth this. Somebody else shows forth this. I mean, somebody else shows forth this. And someone else shows forth this. And someone else shows forth this. And this. And this. And that. And this. And that, as far as you can go there. And it takes a group of people to show. It takes a them to show forth the image of God. And then it even takes a more of them to show forth the body of that image of Him. It takes a bunch of people. You cannot do that, Prem. When you go back home, you know this. Brother Prem Pradhan, what does it take? Tell them what it takes. What does it take to show forth the image of God? The body. The body. Alright. Amen, thank you, brother.

It takes…why are you sitting there like this? How could you dare sit here like this? Do you know how to say amen? No, I want to hear you just say it. Well, say it again. Say it again. Say it again. Say it again. Say it here. Amen. Amen. It’s a chorus. Now get your mouth open. You need it. You don’t want to stand in the presence of God’s glory nor His purpose and keep your mouth shut. Amen. Amen. He had a purpose of a them to show forth His very visibility on this earth. God would have remained invisible. Man would have eaten of God’s nature. Man would have shown forth to the principalities, to God Himself, and to everything else created, the very visible image of God. Say amen. Amen.

Now, that’s one half, or maybe one third, or maybe one fourth of His purpose—the practical purpose of man on this earth. And how dare we go to church? Does that sentence make any sense? How dare we go to church? We don’t go to church. That’s a fourth-century concept. It’s not a first-century concept. How dare we go to church? We are not only the ecclesia; we are the bearers of the image. Alright, the other one was, let Us make man and let them have dominion. And I will tell you, it has been years since I have mentioned dominion, and the reason is because some Baptist twit got it in his head eight or ten years ago that we Christians are to have dominion; therefore, we’re supposed to take over America’s political system, and that we’re supposed to run the country. God have mercy. That’s about the same as when Satan offered the Lord the kingdoms of this world to rule, as long as He bowed before the knee of Satan. And, brothers and sisters, this world system and this political system don’t belong to us, even if we run it. You can run it from the bottom to the top. There’s one position in it you can’t have, and that’s the top top. And that belongs to Lucifer.

I am not here to save America’s political system. I started this conference off by saying we’re not here to save Israel. We’re also not here to turn America into a political Christian nation. Brothers and sisters, God gave man to have dominion over the earth. That is a spiritual exercise, and that spiritual dominion does not belong to physical rule of this earth. It has got to do with a battle between us and the enemy. Between us and the enemy for the Lord, we exercise dominion.

Now, I want to go back to these two simple thoughts, and I want to take them back to the Godhead. I need to be really careful here. Somewhere in the Godhead, there’s something glorious going on. And God wants to be seen. So, He says, I’ll create a man who will show My image; show forth the Godhead. Show forth the greatness. There is also going on in the Godhead; there’s a kingdom up there, and there’s rule, and there’s dominion, and there’s authority. And He wants that to be seen in the visible realm, and He wants it to be brought out of the invisible realm into the visible realm. Therefore, He created man, that man show forth the image of this eternal fellowship in God and this glorious, majestic sovereignty of God. And we’re going to finish out God’s purpose as seen, kind of hidden but a little visible, in Genesis 1 and 2.

We’re in the middle of finding out why God created man. Now, brothers and sisters, understand, come back to the Godhead. Why would God want to create man? Somewhere in this, He has His own feelings about this. They are unto Him. They are not unto you. The arrow points in His direction. And what is it? That He can be manifest on the earth. That He can be revealed physically to a visible creation. That He can be seen. Also, in this, we see that there is some sort of something going on in the Godhead that ultimately you and I would start off by calling it the sovereignty of God, His rulership in all things. And I’ve always found it fascinating that there’s something to me that is missing in Genesis 1 and 2. It should be there. And it’s in Revelation. And it’s not in the garden. Why is it not in the garden? There’s no throne mentioned here, but there’s no eating of the tree of life either. There’s no eating of the tree of life.

You and I cannot handle authority outside of life. We cannot handle dominion, exercise of authority, outside of life. Saul had outward power. David had inward life. Saul ended up being a man exercising the authority of God in the midst of madness. As you grow older, you’ll watch this happen in the lives of men who have power, and they have power with God, but they have so little internal life of God that their outward exercise of authority becomes a kind of madness. And without the life, Adam has no authority. The image begins with the life, and the authority begins with the life. There must come the partaking of the tree of life before there can be any of the showing forth of His image or any exercising dominion. Can you follow that?

Adam never got to be the one who bore His image. We speak of Adam being made in the image of God, but he was not fully in the image of God, for he lacked the nature of God. It was all for him. He lacked the life of God. Therefore, the fullness of the image could not be born, and the full exercise, of course, there was none. There was total failure in exercising dominion because he was told to guard the garden, and he didn’t guard it very well, did he? And he ended up being not the one who ruled, but the one who was ruled—ruled by another. It was because there was no life in him.

Watchman Nee said he started out being a living soul, but because he never ate of the tree of life, he also not only became a living soul, he ended up living by his soul. It’s one thing to be a living soul; it’s another thing to have to end up living by your soul. And the enemy gained dominion. Now, do you realize what that means? There’s dominion to be exercised that has nothing to do with the fall. But the fall enhanced the matter, the issue of dominion.

You’re looking at me like you don’t have the foggiest idea of what I’m talking about, so let me take a little bit longer, and let me get real practical. To the brothers and sisters who now meet in this town, I have something to say to you. And probably what I’m saying right now is…I’ve thought more about saying it to you than everything else I’ve spoken this week. And you’re going to forget, and I’m going to bring you back to it. And you’re going to fail at it. And frankly, I’m going to get irritated at you. This is one of those things that irritates me. But I’ll be very patient. Get irritated, but I’ll be patient.