From dates beyond our reach, it has been the longing, the yearning and the desire of God to reside and abide with mankind. He created man as a companion, a son to Him; someone to spend time with him.
How marvelous it must of have been, how joyful to the heart it had to have been for both the creator (God) and the creation (Adam), to walk have together in the cool of the day.
Imagine with me the wonders God must of have shared with Adam; the things they must have talked about! The conversation they must of have shared and the great communication that they had with each other. Because you got to see that there is no way that God would be walking with us, and not be talking and communicating with us.
Let’s think about this; how mankind was once holy, consecrated, hallowed, sanctified and sacred, only belonging to God. God was man’s and man was God’s. God belong to
man, and man belong to God.
Things were perfect, it was so perfect that even Adam was created in the image of God, and so were we. It was beautiful. It was perfect. Until, somebody say UNTIL, until sin came into the world.
When sin show up everything changed.
When sin showed up things were altered, things were different, and they were transformed.
When man sinned, the Holy Communion God had shared with man was cut off.
The relationship was now tainted, contaminated, polluted, spoiled, and soiled. I need you all to see how bad this really was. The relationship was infected, dirtied, fouled up, mess-up, corrupted, defiled and blemished. The relationship Adam had with the Holy God had ended. How heartbreaking it must to have been for God to see, His beloved creation fall into the hands of sin, all because man was hard headed.
I need you all not to underestimate the wickedness of sin. Sin is a cursed thing. It is intolerable to the character of God. It is a filthy plague, a disease that ends in death, and it cuts us off from the presence of God.
Do not underestimate the wickedness of sin. Because one solitary sin, one violation of God’s holy command changed the pure, holy, sinless nature of man into something carnal, fleshly, and sinful.
Because before man sinned, things were perfect:
Before man sinned, the bear was lying down with the sheep
The wolf was playing with the cows
Before man sinned Tom was still playing with Jerry
Wiley Coyote was still playing with the Road Runner
But when man sinned everything changed including the relationship between God and man. When man sinned,
the dogs started chasing the cats. When man sinned the foxes started chasing the rabbits, when man sinned, relationships went sour, love turned into hate, patience turned into impatiences, and peace turned into war.
Can I tell you that things changed, even the Prophet Jeremiah said it like this in Jeremiah 17:9. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked:
Paul said in Romans 3:11, As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. Verse 12 They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Verse 13 says, “Their throat is an open sepulcher; a grave, a crypt, a mausoleum. With their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of vipers is under their lips: 14 says Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: 15 Their feet are swift to shed blood: 16 dosen’t get any better it says. Destruction and misery are in their ways”, and 17 says” And the way of peace have they not known”, and finally 18 says “There is no fear of God before their eyes”.
All because of the terrible nature of sin, mankind could no longer dwell in the presence of God, and God could no longer dwell with man. But wait a minute pastor you are talking about all of these people that walked and talk with God, but John said, No man hath seen God at any time. Yet, throughout the Old Testament, men made the claim of having seen God.
Well we know that Adam walked with God. And Abraham sat down to dinner with God. Jacob wrestled with God, and he saw His face. The elders of Israel saw God sitting on His throne. Isaiah saw The Lord, high and lifted up. And yet John said no man has seen God at any time. Jesus said God is a spirit. He also said spirits do not have flesh and blood. So, what’s up with that?
What we have to understand about John is that John didn’t have the material that we have, John didn’t have all of the manual scripts, books, and the records that we have, so John was speaking from his own experiences.
Speaking of Jesus, Col. 1:15 says, Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: 16 For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: 17 And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence, the (supremacy, and the authority). 19 For it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell.
Talking about Jesus John said in St. John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 The same was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made. 14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
Jesus told the Jews in John 8:56, Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad. 57 Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? And Jesus said unto them, yall don’t seem to get it or understand. He says: Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.
And I can hear somebody asking, well if God is spirit and He did not possess a flesh and blood body. But He created man in His own image. Does God have a soul? The answer is yes he does because Hebrews: 10:38 says “Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.”
God said in Leviticus, “And I will set my tabernacle among you: and my soul shall not despise you.”
It was Jesus who knelt down on the ground, and formed a man from lifeless clay. When He walked with Adam, Adam could not see Him as He is. He saw the image of the invisible God manifested as God saw himself to be.
I am telling you, that when Adam looked upon the face of God, it was Jesus. When Abraham looked upon the face of God, he saw Jesus. When Jacob wrestled with God, he saw Jesus. Jesus is the express image of the person of God! He is God!
Colossians 2:9 says, For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. This means that the Son is in Jesus. The Holy Ghost is in Jesus. The Father is in Jesus.
Isaiah 9 and 6 said, “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”
I am so glad that I know who Jesus is!
But because man sinned, mankind was cut off from His holy presence. But God had a plan. As men began to call on God, God began to unveil His plan. He called Abraham to himself, stating that in his seed all the Earth should be blessed. Abraham was a friend of God, but it was not enough. God wanted more. He longed to fellowship with man like He had in the Garden of Eden.
So, God called the descendants of Abraham, the nation of Israel to Him. He gave the law to Moses, teaching him how to construct a tabernacle, where the Spirit of God could dwell among them. He gave them the ordinance of sacrifices.
God dwelt above the Ark of the Covenant in the midst of the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle. They saw Him as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. But, still, this was not enough. God wanted more. God was separated from mankind by a veil in the holy of holies. The gap between Our Holy God and the sinful man was still too wide. There was no one to stand in the gap. The laws couldn’t do nothing to make sinful man holy, because the laws had no redeeming power. But the Holy God knew what He had to do.
He began to speak through His Prophets. And Isaiah declared a virgin would bring forth a son. He said a child would be born, one who would be called wonderful, counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father. And He would come unto His own, but His own would not receive Him. He would be despised and rejected of men, a man of suffering, sorrows and grief. He would be wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, He would bear our sorrows, but even in his beating, by His stripes we would be healed.
Joel declared God would pour out His Spirit upon all flesh, Ezekiel said God would put a new heart within us.
I’m telling you that the Word became flesh. The God who walked with Adam in the Garden. The one who sat down to dinner with Abraham.
The one that parted the Red Sea
The one who delivered the laws to Moses, became flesh and dwelt among us. The one that they said Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and she shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.
So what are you saying I’m saying that suddenly, the God that was separated from us, became God with us! He walked among us. He grew up as one of us. He had to pray like one of us. He had free will like one of us. God was with man. And he wanted to dwell with us. But it was still not enough. It wasn’t enough, because there was still a veil between God and man, because man was still sinful and man was still separated from the Holy God.
And even though man is still sinful God is still standing with his arms wide open. That’s why he gave his body as the ultimate sacrifice for our sins. He stood in the gap that no other could.
That’s why He gave his back to the whip of 39 stripe saved 1 so that we might have fellowship with him, He could’ve called a legion of angels to set Him free. He could have destroyed His tormentors, but He looked into the future, and He saw you and I.
With each stripe of the whip that He suffered, he thought of you and I because he wanted to dwell with us.
When they struck Him with their fists, He thought of you and me. When they spat in His face, he thought of you and I.
When they held Him down and hammered nails into His hands and feet, He was thinking of you and I. As He hung on the cross, in agony, He saw all the sins of the world that we were committing.
He saw the pain and suffering sin would bring into our life. He cried out, yet while they were killing him he cried out “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!”
When, finally, He died for the sins we had committed,
And while he was dying the sun hid its face, to hide His shame.
There came a great earthquake,
And the veil in the Temple, separating man from the Holy of Holies was torn in two, from the top to the bottom!
The separation between God and man was removed.
So the God that was separated from us, who became the God that was with us, and is now God that is in us!
And my question to you all this morning will you allow God: To be in you, To live in you, To dwell within you, Shine through you, To direct you, Be your guide.
Why do you ask Spies, because this is the only way that he will live in you!!!!
