Debrecen Messages #7 – The New Man: God’s Visible Image and Rule on the Earth

Now, I want to say something a little more here. And I’m not going to get into this too much, but… Have you ever pulled a fish out of water? They die. But what amazes me about a fish is he breathes the same way we do. He lives on oxygen. He lives on oxygen, but he gets it out of salt water. And salt water is always a picture of death. Well, I hope someday we have some fish in the kingdom of God who can absolutely swim and swarm and dart about in death. Oh, that’s high life, brother. And what do you do then? Then you soar. When you can live in death, you soar. I’m telling you that woven into Genesis 1 and 2 is your Lord, his life and his ways. And he is the mighty eagle who soars. And his intention for us to be in us that way. For us to have that way.

Okay, now you must understand that you cannot do this. You cannot live in waters of salt. And you cannot soar like the eagle. And don’t try. And don’t preach to God’s people that they can, they cannot. You can do nothing. Let me tell you something. There’s one thing a Christian can do. Daniel, someday this will break on you. Abel, someday this will break on you. There’s only one thing a Christian can do. One thing, Kalia. He can fail. He can fail. And do you know something else? Until he discovers that he can fail, and failing is the only thing he can do, until he discovers that all he can do is fail, he even fails at failing. Because to not know that you’re failing is to have no revelation at all. But, oh, it is the greatest of all revelations. Forgive me, but I really feel this way. For a Christian to discover, he can’t do anything but fail. Yeah, I can do nothing. And there’s so many who are walking around failing and don’t know they’re failing. They don’t even know their failures at failing. They have not had a revelation.

Brother, I tell you, I just, those of you on the video, I encourage you to fast. Oh, I’m going to get alone and fast. You know, God blesses fast and I’m going to get alone and fast. And I just need God to speak to me. I have never met a Christian who was spoken to while he was fasting. The only thing that I know happens to a Christian when he fasts is he dreams about refrigerators. And fruit markets. And restaurants. And yet, you know something? God honors it. God honors it. I have to tell you this very funny story. Recently, I was in San Diego, California. If one of you who were present hears this, just eat it, buddy. I was having lunch with a very dear Christian friend of mine, and he had sitting there with him three young men who were all built like this. Real, real. And they were telling me what they do. And what they do is they work with Christian young people, and they were telling me that what they’re doing is teaching those young people discipline. Discipline. We have to have discipline in the Christian life. Discipline. Fun. Here they were big. Oh, boy, they were really big. They looked like they had on three or four coats.

And I sat there and I looked at what they were eating. It was junk. Oh, it was awful. The things they were eating were terrible. And so, I just leaned over and looked at their food and I said, do you teach them the discipline of eating? Well, that table got silent as it could get. And then they laughed. I said nothing. We went on. I don’t know where that took them, but this business, discipline in their Christian life, fine, that’s wonderful, but you cannot be disciplined. You can be disciplined in one or two little places, and you know what you can do? You get self-righteous about it. And if you memorize verses of Scripture, I’m going to tell you what’s going to happen to you. You’re going to get so self-righteous, we can’t live with you. Oh, you better get in the Word, know the Word. Oh, can you quote 1 John 1:9?

Sure, I can quote 1 John 1.9, but it doesn’t do me any good to quote 1 John 1:9. It doesn’t work for me. It doesn’t. I am a failure. I can’t do it. I have never figured out one thing in the Christian life I can do and do consistently or do well. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. I cannot. I cannot. And you can’t make me, but I can fail. Thank God I can fail.

Those men had no discipline. All they had was muscles. And they were proud of it. And they were teaching kids to have muscles. But I would ask them to go on a fast and then I would ask them to live for three weeks on raw vegetables and lettuce. Didn’t tell me how disciplined they are. They couldn’t do it. They couldn’t possibly do it. Daniel did it. No, he lived on cooked vegetables. Our guy said Roman, thank you, Daniel. Oh, Daniel is sharp today, I’ll tell you. No dunce cap today for Daniel. He lives in death waters, salt waters, we do not. He soars above all the problems that we do not.

Oh, brothers, if we can get the light of Christ, and one of the lights that we must have is that we cannot do these things, but we can yield to him in our failures. We can even joy in our failure and confess our need of him. I do not ask anybody out there to become a vegetable who stops trying. There are a few Christians who hear this and they say, oh, I can’t do anything. I’m just going to lay here and gain weight and eat chocolate and drink coffee. I can’t do anything. There’s something really wrong with you, my friend. Why don’t you go pursue your Lord? Pursue Him until He catches you. And for those of you who are really great Christians who can fast and pray every day and read your Bible and you never sin, all I can say to you is, hey, that’s not enough. Do some more. Come on. Pray longer. That’s not enough. Read your Bible some more and add two days to your fasting. Come on, fella. You’re not getting anywhere. Try harder. God’s not happy with you. You are still got a guilty conscience because you haven’t satisfied the Lord. And while you’re at it, pursue humility over all those verses you can quote and pursue humility from all that fasting you can do.

All of this is hidden. All of this is hidden in the book of Genesis, chapter 1. Praise his name. Will you folks, excuse me for that. Okay, that’s the fifth day. Yes, sir. I just wanted to read something. All right, read it. It’ll be a great segue back into Genesis. Okay, I’m going to repeat it so the people in the microphone will hear it. For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen being understood through what has been made. Amen. Praise the Lord. Amen. And brother, what’s the verse? Romans 1.20. All right, we have a verse of scripture here that we should probably all memorize. Romans 1.20, that he is hidden in his creation, and he is bugled, declared, and beamed out from his creation. Visible attributes and divine nature are clearly seen. Okay, he is invisible. He is invisible, but still, that which is invisible is seen in his creation. Thank you, brother. We do appreciate that very much. Those of you on video, you might just want to stop here and read that and consider it. And to the Gentiles he said, Therefore you are without excuse. The Jews and the Gentiles are without excuse. You can see him.

Brothers, sisters, your Lord is in Genesis 1, hidden as a mystery, but unfolded to you who are heathen Gentiles. This mystery has been made known. May God make you a steward of the mystery. You know when you become a steward of that mystery? That’s when you’re so utterly in love with him, you don’t care about all these other things that seem to get in the way.

All right. We come now to what day? Sixth. We come to the sixth day. And the Lord really gets busy on the sixth day. Snakes he creates. Beast he creates. Cattle he creates. He lets them go out and eat that grass. And they’re all after their kind. And God said, that’s good. And before I get into man, which is in verse 26, and remember, this is a very short account of man, and it is amplified or made larger in Genesis 2. Just as he says he made female in Genesis 1, later we get a very clear account of her in Genesis 2. There’s much to be learned about man. In both chapters. The cattle. And the creeping things. And the beast of the field. By the way, in the ocean are even the monsters. We left that out. They are the huge animals.  Do you know that a whale is a mammal? And did you know a whale cannot breathe like a trout can… no, I need something besides a trout. A shark breathes with gills. And he gets oxygen out of it. But a whale cannot breathe salt water, it would kill him. He only breathes our air. He’s a mammal, but he can dive deep into the waters. He is one very big creature who can live in both worlds.