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

See, I, a little boy—I got saved, little boy, 17 years old. I wanted to do greater works than Jesus Christ did. If that wasn’t the most stupid, asinine, idiotic, gross thought, but so did every other Baptist preacher I knew. Is that not true? “You shall do greater works” was an address to the body of Christ, not to the individual. That will never be yours. Forget such thinking. And it will be humble, because it will be corporate. No man can possibly stand and survive bearing the image and power of God. It couldn’t be done. It would always destroy.

Okay, now come back and say there’s sonship here, and we need to find all the glories of sonship. Now there’s one other thing left. I want to make sure I didn’t leave anything out. By the way, there’s this carpet-ness all over this place. There’s one other thing. Would you like to make a guess as to what it is? There’s one other thing here. What is it? The bride. But we already said there was a woman. That’s good. Denise, I’m impressed. Yes, brother. Who said that? Oneness. The chapter ends: “And man and woman, the two shall become one flesh.” And the chapter ends with oneness, but it’s oneness of flesh, not oneness of spirit. Brothers and sisters, just forget the spirit and forget the flesh, and just know that there is, before the fall, the concept of oneness. Now, where do you figure that came from? Where do you think that idea first originated? It had to originate in the Godhead. Praise the Lord. Now then, when you have oneness, you don’t have a man, you don’t have a woman. You have an individual made out of two people. You’ve got an individual made out of two people.

Alright, I think that we’re coming now toward the end of a look at the eternal purpose as we can see it on this earth before the fall. We’re going to go now and see if we can find all these glorious things in Genesis 1 and 2 and in Revelation 21 and 22. And Denise, do you really believe that something written 15 or 1600 years later, by someone—this is Moses writing way back here in a desert somewhere—and then all the prophets and teachers, and then Jesus, and then Paul, and then finally the last book in the New Testament, the last two chapters—could possibly, possibly look anything like the first? It’s not a reasonable thought, is it? Like the first two chapters? Or do you think that we’re going to find in the last two chapters of Revelation what we find in the first two chapters of Genesis? Huh? You do. Yeah, I believe you do too—but is it a reasonable thought to have? Of course, it’s not a reasonable thought to have. That’d be like trying to put Shakespeare and Confucius together and some others and find that they all came up with the same conclusion.

Oh well, brothers and sisters, I have not known how to end, how to do this, and I’ve never in my life done it this way, but this is what I’m going to do. I’m not going to try. I’m just going to read it. I’m just going to read it. Let’s see if we can find them. When you find one, if you find one before me, you’d better let me know. Alright, oh, I left out two points. Did I say there’s an earth? I’ve got to go back and say there’s an earth. There’s earth and land; land, earth, and you find out in Genesis, there’s a battle over it. Who’s going to win it? You see, the dominion is over this earth. The exercise of dominion is over this earth. There is something in God’s eternal purpose that has to do with this planet – with a piece of earth.

Within the Godhead, there is an earth. Who is the ruler? Huh? The Father is the ruler. Does He want to be the ruler? It would appear that He doesn’t wish to be the ruler, does it? That He wishes His Son to rule. But there’s deference between them both. The deference is there—they give to the other. There is something of God’s desire to increase the size of His kingdom rule for Himself, but actually not for Himself, but for His Son—for His Son to rule. And He created a planet where He expected to have His dominion, and He would rule through a man. He would have been happy to rule through Adam. If Adam had eaten of the tree of life, Adam would have also had deference—do you understand what I mean? Adam would have deferred back to the Godhead, to the Father.

Well, Adam didn’t make it. God still wanted the earth to be ruled by a man. Did Jesus Christ rule on this earth when He was here? Yes, He did. He made the demons obey Him. He had total rule over them. He had total power over taxes—I thought that would get a chuckle—over the seas, the waters, nature. The only time and the only place He didn’t was when He chose not to. He came to the very end and said, “I could call down legions of angels right now and end all of this.” Satan offered Him the kingdoms of this world. He said, “Keep your kingdoms.” The Lord was master wherever He chose to be while He was on this earth.

This planet will yet be ruled. This planet will yet be ruled by the proper One. In the meantime, it is for the church to take a stand on this earth. See, I don’t want to get off on this too much right now, but some of you have heard me talk about a colony. You set up a colony in another country, and everything in that little colony looks like the country you came from. Talk about the American colony in Paris. The American colony in Rome. We talked about the English colony in Philadelphia. The Roman colony in Antioch, Pisidia. You go into a Nepalese restaurant in Switzerland—that’s where Prem would go if he were in Switzerland. He’d go to a Nepalese restaurant. He’d go in there, and he’d hear his music, and he’d feel at home. I bet he goes to Indian restaurants all the time when he is in this country. Do you go to Indian restaurants? No, really? Would you go to a Nepalese restaurant if there were one around? Where? Here in Atlanta. In Atlanta, yes. Okay. I would always go to an American restaurant in Europe—get a hamburger, a malt—to keep from going crazy.

Brothers and sisters, we are here to have a colony that says this planet belongs to Him. What’s the name of that colony? What’s the name of the colony? The church. And there, within that civilization, you bear His image. You walk into the American embassy in Paris, and there’ll be a picture of President Bush. Brothers and sisters, when the church assembles, it stands here and says, “We’re a colony of heaven. We’re waiting for the King to come back and take the piece of land that’s His—to take the earth that’s His, and here, here is His picture. And here, here is His image. Here is His image.” Amen. Well, black folks know how to praise the Lord; white folks can’t. Why don’t y’all make as much noise as she does? Why don’t you clap your hands? Why don’t you say, Praise the Lord”? Oh, listen to that pitiful…(laughter).

“And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no more sea. And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a” – what? “A bride.” There is in Genesis a woman and a man, a husband and a wife. Look at here—we got them again. Made ready as a bride adorned for her—what? Her husband.

“And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He shall dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be among them.”

Somebody has come back to fellowship in the cool of the day.

“And He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there shall no longer be any death, and there shall no longer be any mourning or crying, and the first things have passed away. And He who sits on the throne said, Behold, I make a whole new planet, a whole new heaven, a whole new race. Write, for these words are faithful and true, and he said unto me, ‘It is done. I am the beginning. In the beginning—I am the beginning and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to the one who thirsts from the springs of the water of life without cost.’” The river’s back. Praise the Lord! Everybody in this room, get your mouth open. This is no time to be quiet. You wouldn’t be quiet at the second coming, would you? Get your mouth open.