Scripture Reference: Genesis 1:26-27 (NLT); 1 John 3:8 (AMPC); Mark 14:23-26 (AMPC)
Pastor John:
Hello everybody. Glad to be with you, Pastor Sharon and I, ministering the Word to you today. It’s always our joy to bring the Word of God to you. It’s always our great honour that God has chosen us as vessels, messengers of the Most High God, to bring messages in the most relevant times. And the moments that He wants us to speak, that we speak words that are not wasted words, but they are words that are powerful and they are mighty in God. Hallelujah.
We have prayed before we even came on air, Pastor Sharon, that this message and these words will have purpose and destiny and not one of them will return to the Father void, but they will accomplish and do what they are supposed to do; be fruitful in your heart and in your life.
We come to you at a very special time in the Christian calendar, a very special season. We want to minister specifically to you today about the crucifixion of Jesus, but we are going to bring it with something that the Lord has placed on our hearts. We want to talk for a few moments about the Divine and the human. So, we’re going to just begin by creating some context for you.
If you’ve been around Christian churches or heard any Bible School teaching or any form of teaching whatsoever, very often people will go back to the book of Genesis because, of course, it’s the book of beginnings. The book of beginnings is the pattern of where it all first began and so it’s a significant place for us to see a pattern that is to follow. In this case, the pattern is in Genesis 1 verse 26 and I’m reading the New Living Translation that says 26Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.” 27So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them (Genesis 1:26-27 NLT).
So, this gives us a very clear and direct understanding, that there is nothing that happens in the natural world that doesn’t first start in the spiritual world. Hey, Pastor Sharon?
I mean, we tend to live in this natural world all the time and so we think this is the beginning and the end of all of our experience. But actually, based on this scripture, nothing happens in the natural world, except it first comes from the spiritual world and it comes from God.
Everything that’s been created has been created by God and the enemy of God has no ability to create. He can only manipulate and deceive and try and counteract what God’s already put in motion. God is the One that creates all things.
Pastor Sharon:
He’s the Creator of all things, yes.
Pastor John:
He’s the Creator of all things. That’s a wonderful thing that gives us joy and peace and it gives us hope if we understand that everything is first established in the spirit world and then it comes into the natural world.
So, in this case, God, the Divine Being, Who has a body or an appearance that is like no other. In fact, people that have tried to describe God’s appearance, they talk about a radiant light, even in the scriptures they talk about a radiant light, they talk a bright light, they talk about glory, they talk about… it’s just all about brightness. They can’t actually describe His face. Well, because God Himself said, “No one can look upon My face, as a human, and live.” So, people have tried to describe what God looks like and of course, you can’t because He’s the Author of all things, He’s Light, He’s Bright, it’s white, it’s brilliance, it’s what’s so amazing in everything, you know.
So whatever He’s being and His form looks like, we know that if He said, “Let’s make man in Our image,” we are close to what that is, broadly speaking.
So, God decided He was going to make man in His image, so what He did was; He put man into a clay container and He said, “Here’s the clay container that man’s going to live in and I’m going to breathe Myself – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – I’m going to breathe Myself into man. And all of who I am is going to go into man.” This is how the Divine Being became alive as both Divine and human at the same time, in Adam. At that moment he was a single being. God created the male and the female component of the single being. All of Who God was, He created in Adam. Then later He separated them so that they could be partners in life together, both representing the full image of God.
Pastor Sharon:
Yes.
Pastor John:
What a wonderful picture. God always knew that if He put man, Himself into a clay being, the only way to differentiate between him and all the other living creatures on the earth, was to give man an understanding of eternity and therefore; a choice. The choice is what makes us different from everything else; that we can choose our eternity. That’s the difference. We can choose our destiny and our eternity. He gave the choice to these two human clay vessels, Adam and Eve, He gave them the choice. “You can eat of the Tree of Life, but you may not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”
Of course, the enemy of God comes to them in the Garden of Eden, and I don’t want to read all of that, but he comes to them and he deceives them into eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil with the very desire that they had; they desired to be like God. They were already like God, but somehow he made them believe there was more of God to know if they chose to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
He deceived them. He manipulated God’s Words and deceived them into thinking that what they desired was the will of God for them. And of course, what they desired was not the will of God for them, what they desired was directly disobedient to the will of God for them.
So man falls and man has this great, humbling, as it were. This great devastating thing happens because he goes from being the supreme being in the universe next to God to someone who has to go and work with their hands and labour in the ground. He becomes a much lesser being. Although he still had the life of God in him. He never had the glory of God upon him. He never had the scope of authority and dominion and the scope of all of the wonders of the Divine being living in the human body, so that you had Divine and natural, cooperating and living in the natural world as one. He now was separated from that very force of life.
It’s a sombre moment, actually, in the history of mankind in the history of the spirit life, in the history of the universe and the heavenlies. It’s a very sombre moment. The Hebrew, the Hebrew scholars and the Hebrews that have had generations of scrolls and words and things that have been passed down to them, have a very wonderful picture that paints a story for us about how they interpret those events. Pastor Sharon, you’ve been doing some research and some reading from some of those some Rabbinical studies. And you want to and you want to share some of that with us?
Pastor Sharon:
These are some very learned studies of rabbinic scholars that are so in-depth into and so immersed into the Hebrew understanding of scripture. Their studies, have amazing insight into this profound fall of Adam and Eve at that time. So I’m just going to read some of it. It’s quite poetic and quite beautiful. He starts, it starts off here by saying that God gave His man sovereignty, of all of the mighty wonders which God created the greatest wonder is man, side by side with the material elements of earth because he was made from earth, there resides within man a lofty intellect and a Holy Spirit the stuff of Heaven. Truly this all-encompassing man is no less than a tiny universe and what is the purpose of the universe? Psalm 19:2 the heavens declare the glory of God and the expense of the sky tells of His handiwork all the world is a choir resounding with joy’s song. God placed Adam on the podium and appointed him conductor and choirmaster of the universe. Quite profound that, He created man to be on earth as God was in Heaven.
The diverse elements of creation are bidden to obey His baton. Adam who was composed of all these diverse elements was provided with a score to follow and instruction on how to use each creation in its proper time and place. So said the psalmist of the mission of man, Psalm 8:7, You gave him dominion over the works of Your hands, You placed everything under his feet. Man’s dominion is not merely a privilege, it’s an obligation. It requires balancing, adjusting, guiding and coaxing all of the world’s divergent forces into a sublime symphony of Divine service. Adam was created on the sixth day on the eve of the first Sabbath and the day consisted of twelve hours. In the ninth hour God informed Adam of his duties and restrictions and commanded him to obey and also warned of the dire consequences of disobedience. Adam failed to follow the Divine imperative. Not only did he fall but he dragged the entire universe down with him. It is not adequate to say that Adam dwelled in Paradise which is the garden of Eden. We would be more accurate to say that Paradise dwelled inside of him. He was blessed with an inner joy of security – this is Adam before he fell – and self-assurance. He could trust himself, the agony of self-doubt never tormented the first man. He was completely at peace with himself, confident that his every motive was pure. The inclination for evil did not exist inside of him, there was nothing inherent within his nature which could interfere with his spiritual ascent. No trace of friction or struggle existed inside Adam because he was a perfect and harmonious blend of sacred forces.
Pastor John:
If I can interrupt for a moment Sharon, as a harmonious blend of sacred forces, in other words, in the image of God. He was both Divine and he was human, yes. In that beautiful blend of Divine and human, he was this master of everything. I love the way that they said it, to say that he lived in Paradise is not accurate, rather one should say, Paradise lived in him. So his scope of what he saw, the scope of who he was, the scope of his relationship with God almighty was so magnificent and so majestic and glorious and this is all that he knew. So when a voice came in from the side, it was a strange thing that came, it was a strange thing that came, just the voice itself lacked harmony with what Adam was, but God had forewarned him and prepared him.
Pastor Sharon:
Although no evil impulse was found within him, there most surely existed a threat from without. The external inclination towards evil was personified by the serpent. Adam heard the word of God with his ears for on the day that you eat of it you will surely die, but the serpent, the adroit master of persuasion, presented an appealing argument. He reinforced his words with powerful evidence clearly visible to the eyes. Seeing is believing. A vision more convincing than a voice. Genesis 3:6, and the woman saw that the tree was good for food and an enticement for the eyes.
Pastor John:
The way that the Rabbinical texts phrased it, in our reading Sharon, is that he came with a persuasion presented in an appealing argument. This was a spiritual being that had been used to being in the presence of God and knew all of the things about the presence of God so when he came into the presence of men that was filled with the glory of God and was God on the earth this was not something that he was unused to confronting. Maybe the shape of this clay being was a little different but he still recognized the glory he still recognized the majesty, he still recognized the power and within himself, he still thought himself greater to be.
So he came with words to persuade this being to bow to his persuasion. Isn’t that the thing that really is… and we’ll talk about Jesus in a moment, but that’s the thing that so many Christians, our biggest challenge is not to know the truth it’s the persuasive arguments of the system of the world that would try and drag us on a different path to the truth and how persuasive are those arguments to the human vessel to not follow the Divine leading. So please carry on Sharon.
Pastor Sharon:
So the woman saw that the tree was good, saw, and the eyes of Adam were led astray by the external appearances which seemed to be good and enticing. Ultimately Adam realized that his eyes had been blinded by the smoke of deception.
Well, Satan is called the deceiver. In his prime, Adam could see from one end of the world to the other. His intellectual scope was all-encompassing, unlimited, and unhampered by distortion but sin clouded his vision and brought him to the gates of death. Adam changed profoundly after he heard… These rabbinic scholars have had a real depth of understanding of this fall. It was profound, John. Adam changed profoundly after he erred. At first, not the slightest trace of evil resided within him however after eating of the tree of knowledge Adam took the enemy into himself and thereby made evil an integral part of his makeup. His inner harmony was disrupted.
Pastor John:
Yes, because he was one, he was completely in oneness with God. He was complete, there was seamless interaction and flow between the thoughts of God and the thoughts of Adam. The ways of God and the ways of Adam, the Glory of God, the presence of God, the authority of God, the harmony of Adam was…it was seamless, and it was majestic, and it was Divine and supernatural, all in the same way.
Pastor Sharon:
He was already like God.
Pastor John:
He was already like God. And now, he took as the Rabbi says, he took the enemy’ nature into himself. The enemy’s nature, he suddenly found desires in himself that he had never discovered before. He had no clue and idea before he ate of that fruit, that this would so profoundly affect him that he would have a disharmony, he would have a desire for things that was not the desires of God.
Pastor Sharon:
John, that is what happens to us when we are disobedient to God. It profoundly alters us. We only discover, after a while, how profoundly our disobedience has altered us from His original intent for our lives. So it says here, He made, He took the enemy into himself and thereby made evil an integral part of his makeup. His inner harmony was disrupted. His entire being was shattered into two rival camps. Now Adam’s life became a bitter conflict, and in the struggle between good and evil, truth and falsehood, death and life. No longer could he trust himself.
That’s why they hid. They were so ashamed. Because that inner harmony had been disrupted through disobedience of simple commandments from a loving Creator.
Pastor John:
It’s a no go back from this decision. It was a forever human, Divine, relationship altering decision.
Pastor Sharon:
Yes.
Pastor John:
Until Jesus. We’ll talk about that in a minute.
Pastor Sharon:
He hesitated no longer could he trust himself. He hesitated, he stumbled, he fluctuated between ascent and descent, success and failure. No longer was man reliable and consistent, luckily never changing forces of nature. No longer was he a creature of truth, whose achievement is truth not deviating from the path set for his appointed mission. To the extent that Adam self-mastery vanished, he forfeited his sovereignty. The authority that God gave him to rule and reign on earth, John. He forfeited that.
Pastor John:
He forfeited that.
Pastor Sharon:
Over the world, his sovereignty over the world. The world system. For us now.
Pastor John:
Everything that was in it.
Pastor Sharon:
The universal song, He had conductors was interrupted, all but silenced.
Pastor John:
What a way that these rabbinical texts and these rabbinical insights have about this? What an insight of these? You know?
Pastor Sharon:
Yes, John.
Pastor John:
I speak to many people, about knowing the will of God for their lives. My answer is always a very simple answer. This is just a side nugget of gold here. For those that are watching and listening. Many people say to me, “I want to know the will of God for my life? I want to know what His plan for my life is, His purpose for my life? I want to know all of those things?” And so they say, “How can I hear the voice of God? How can I know the will of God?” Well, it starts very simply that there is the expressed written will of God which we must obey. Many people want to ignore fundamental principles in the Word of God. Like, the Word of God says, “We must assemble together. Forsake not the assembling together of yourselves.” Do not go to Church and get spiritual leadership from a TV. Any other kind or form of messaging is not acceptable according to the Word of God. It will not put you in the will of God.
Pastor Sharon:
That’s right.
Pastor John:
It’s the same thing that Adam did, it’s the same disobedience. You must not forsake the gathering together of yourselves. The Bible says that we should love one another as… Jesus says, “I give a new commandment that you love one another.” This is something that the Bible writes, we must love one another.
The Bible says that we must give first fruits, honour God with our substance, tithing, our giving. Honour God with our substance. These are practical things when it comes to prayer. God gives us instructions to pray. When it comes to rejoice in the Lord always and again I say, rejoice. That means we must obey that scripture and be rejoicing. There are simple things that when you obey God, then the desire to eat of the Tree of Life grows, then your desire for other things begins to fade. Then you can start to be led by that desire, and the Holy Spirit’s voice because it’s based on obeying the Word of God. But you cannot follow your own desires, if you’re disobeying the written will of God, so fundamentally as a Christian. It will lead you to where it led Adam. It will diminish and make smaller, your world. It will take your authority and it will minimize it and it will cause you to be much smaller in vision, much smaller in focus.
Pastor Sharon:
In conflict in yourself. Never sure.
Pastor John:
Never trust yourself. Yes.
Pastor Sharon:
There will be a continual internal struggle.
Pastor John:
Yes. That’s different from self-confidence. Having self-confidence is just a personality thing. This trust is a big deeper trust. It’s a life directing trust that you no longer trust yourself.
I want to read from one John chapter 3, in the Amplified Bible. I’m going to read from verse 7. Here’s what it says, in the Amplified Bible. 7Boys (lads), let no one deceive and lead you astray. Sounds like He could have been talking to Adam, let no one lead you astray. He who practices righteousness (who is upright, conforming to the Divine will in purpose, thought, and action, living a consistently conscientious life) is righteous, even as he is righteous (1 John 3:7 AMPC). Here’s the important verse now, verse 8. 8[But he who commits sin [who practices evildoing] is of the devil [takes his character from the evil one]. That sounds like what Adam did because he took the character of Satan into himself. You take that character into yourself. For the devil has sinned [violated the Divine law] from the beginning. The reason the Son of God was made manifest, why Jesus came to the earth, and (visible) was to undo (destroy, loosen, and dissolve) the works the devil [has done] (1 John 3:8 AMPC). Thank God, that before God started this whole process He had a plan. His plan was to introduce Jesus into the earth as all Divine, and all human. So that’s why He is referred to as the ‘second Adam’. Because when Father brought Him back into the earth, He brought Him with a Divine seed.
He was all Divine, created in the very image of God again. This time, He could not recreate man, He had to send the Divine Word of God Himself, Jesus. He descends Him and makes Him human form. So in that sense, He was all Divine, but He was also all human. His purpose was to come and obey God in everything. Then as He obeyed God in everything, His job was to undo, to destroy, to loosen and dissolve the works that the devil has done. So, if He has undone that, then all the things that happened to Adam, He has undone that for us.
Pastor Sharon:
Yes.
Pastor John:
That means now that we walk with God with Jesus in our hearts again, all of that is restored to us. That’s why Jesus, when He died on the cross, His last words that He uttered, was, “It is finished, and into Your Hands do I commit My Spirit.”
When Jesus said, “It is finished,” it meant that in His human natural form, there was no more that the enemy could do to Him. He had lived a hundred per cent pure before the Father, He had not made a decision like Adam made to take evil into His Spirit. He was pure before God.
Pastor Sharon:
That’s right.
Pastor John:
So when He died, He said, “You may take this Body, and I sacrifice this Body willingly, but My Spirit, I commend, and I commit it to the Father because I’ve done everything I can in the human body, as both Divine and natural man.” Then, of course, we know, that the Father called Him out of the grave, and said, “Now I resurrect Your body, so Your Spirit can live eternally in that new Divine body so that You can be the firstborn of many that will have the same experience as You.
Pastor Sharon:
Yes.
Pastor John:
And so now, we can live on the earth with authority, harmony, we can live in that place of unity, that place of glory with God. Because we are designed now, those of us that are born again that have asked Jesus to come into our lives, we are designed to take Him fully into our hearts and be new creatures.
Pastor Sharon:
That’s right. And the Rabbi confirmed that. I mean, we know that many Jewish people have become born again. That they know now that Jesus was the Messiah. But these Rabbi’s say this: In the days of the Messiah, Israel will once again achieve the clarity of vision that Adam had. Their vision will not be distorted by any distractions placed before their eyes for they will see with their ears guided only by the spoken Word of God, and all flesh will share in the Messianic gift together in harmony, free from dissension in brotherhood. There is the commandment of love, without jealousy, selfishness or pride. Each creature recognizing its own straight path, interfering with no others, Adam’s universal melody will be struck up again. Never to be interrupted. Hallelujah! Messiah will echo the timeless words and proceed further and beyond the Psalms. Hallelujah.
Pastor John:
So we can see from those writings; vision is restored. The unity, the harmony, the absolute symphony of God in our lives is restored to us. So every day, the devil wants to put a dampener on our vision.
Pastor Sharon:
And cause us to disobey.
Pastor John:
And cause us to disobey so we can be in disharmony.
Pastor Sharon:
Exactly Pastor John.
Pastor John:
Every day. He can’t afford to let one day go by in any given Christians life, where he doesn’t try and bring words or a system around him that speaks words or visions, that is an alternate vision and alternate word to God’s Word.
Pastor Sharon:
Yes, that’s right.
Pastor John:
He can’t afford to because if we have one day, one full day where a Christian is completely in harmony with God, it could alter so many things in the universe, around that person, and in the world that we live in.
It alters so many things. It’s so powerful, that he can’t afford a day to go by without trying to persuade Christians to walk away from the harmony and the beauty and the glory of your personal authority that you have in God.
Pastor Sharon:
Yes. And the truth of God’s Word.
Pastor John:
The truth of God’s Word.
Pastor John:
Spoken by us with power that transforms our world it touches everything. So for those who have been listening to our other message about the two systems. The system that says we want to take your children and God says, “I will take the children.” The system says “Give me your money”, and God says, “Why don’t you honour Me with your money, and I will bless you and I will give you greatness and favour.” These are the systems, the two systems at work right here.
Pastor Sharon:
Yes.
Pastor John:
A system of disharmony, of disunity.
Pastor Sharon:
Of who Satan is the god of.
Pastor John:
Of destruction, of who Satan is the god of destruction, death. No vision, no harmony for your life. No unity. Where God says, “I want your children to live in a system where I have a say in their future. And I want you to have a financial system that’s based on My system.”
Pastor Sharon:
Yes.
Pastor John:
Which is a harmonious abandoned overflow, growing, developing. A productive system.
Pastor Sharon:
Seedtime, harvest time, flowing.
Pastor John:
So it goes against the darkness. It goes against that system. It’s always and it’s not that God’s system goes against the other system. Instead, the devil always is bringing lies. He’s bringing deception. His manipulating words constantly try to get us to not obey God completely.
Pastor Sharon:
And not live in absolute harmony internally.
Pastor John:
Yes. And it all happened in that moment when Pontius Pilate asked Jesus, and said to Jesus, “Don’t you know that I have the authority to take your life from you?” And Jesus said to him, “No man can take My life. I choose to lay it down.”
Pastor Sharon:
Hallelujah.
Pastor John:
He laid down His life and He died on the cross. He put His Body on the cross to be killed but Jesus brought Him up on resurrection day. But the Blood that was spilt, the hanging of the cross was an absolute demand of God’s eternal plan. That there would be pure Blood spilt as a Divine Offering to cover the sins of every human being that was ever going to be born, that ever had been born and that ever will be born. God covered and obliterated the effects of the enemy through the Blood and the Body of the Lord Jesus Christ.
What an awesome and powerful thing that Jesus did for us. We are going to celebrate the crucifixion of Jesus. We’re going to celebrate what His Body did for us. I just want to read for you in Mark chapter 14 verse 23, and this of course is Jesus talking about Himself before He died. ²³He also took a cup [of the juice of grapes], and when He had given thanks, He gave [it] to them, and they all drank of it. 24And He said to them, This is My blood [which ratifies] the new covenant, [the blood] which is being poured out for (on account of) many (Mark 14:23-24 AMPC). And He was saying this before He even died. He said, “This is my blood that is producing a new covenant.”
Pastor Sharon:
Yes.
Pastor John:
It is a covenant that is restoring what Adam lost, back to man. 25Solemnly and surely I tell you, I shall not again drink of the fruit of the vine till that day when I drink it of a new and a higher quality in God’s kingdom. 26And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives (Mark 14:25-26 AMPC). Jesus went to go and pray. So this was His Body. This was His Blood, which He shed and He was talking about the Body, that was in them, for them. What a beautiful, beautiful thing. We are going to partake. Sharon, we are going to partake here now. Can I serve you with this?
Pastor Sharon;
Thank you.
Pastor John:
If you are with us now, and we have sent you and asked you to be prepared to share this. Under the new covenant, Jesus has prepared for us. His body that was broken, for all of our sickness and all of our disease. His body was broken so that we can have a New Covenant. We ask you to share in the Body of the Lord Jesus with us. That as you partake of this, Pastor Sharon, I believe together right now, as you partake of this, Divine life comes into your body. Divine life comes into your soul and it immediately produces the life of Christ in you. It heals your body, it heals emotions, it heals mental anguishes and pangs and pains that you have. All sickness and disease must leave, because of the Body of the Lord Jesus Christ that was broken.
For this course, the stripes on the Body of the Lord Jesus, for this course was His body broken, that we can have healing and freedom from all kinds of oppression in our human world. So let us partake of this, and celebrate and rejoice in our freedom through the death of the Body of the Lord Jesus Christ. Please share with us.
[Partaking in the body]
Pastor John:
We thank You, Lord, right now, for Your healing power that comes into every believer that is watching. Where there is any sickness and disease, from the smallest thing as arthritis, gout, a headache, a sore throat, a fever, to any other kind of viral disease or any kind of viral attack on your body, to any major thing like heart disease or, or major cancer. We command in the Name of Jesus, that that sickness leave your body now.
Pastor Sharon:
Yes, Lord.
Pastor John:
We ask you to get into agreement with these words and receive your healing from the Lord Jesus Christ by the Person of the Holy Spirit.
Pastor John:
Now we asked you to take the Blood of the Lord Jesus, which was shed for us, so that all of our sins, past, current and future. All of our twisted ways that are just not in harmony and not in unity and not in agreement with the ways of God, that He forgives us, that He delivers us. And He releases us into His abundance and into His grace and His mercy is upon us day upon day, His grace hovers over us, and His blessing goes before us. In the Name of Jesus, be at peace, and have joy abundant as we celebrate the blood of the Lord Jesus.
[Partaking in the Blood]
Pastor John:
Now we declare, and we pray, that this day and every other day after this day will be filled with glory and the wonder and the majesty and the beauty of Jesus Himself. The Holy Spirit, the Word of God, at all the fragrance essence of who God is. May He permeate your life.
You want to say something Pastor Sharon?
What a wonderful thing that we can experience the fragrance of God and the glory of God. Well, everything that God has wanted to say He said now. We asked you to go in peace and go in joy. Thank you for joining us today. May God bless you. Goodbye.
Pastor Sharon:
Bye.
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