Date: Saturday, 14th August 2021
Speaker 2: Reverend Ken Igbinedion
Text: Genesis 3:1-7
Satan is anything but foolish. He is not very powerful but he is a strategist (Gen. 3:1). Eden was a pleasurable place when God created it. It was a place of intercourse where God intended to impregnate man by His visitations. He intended to keep wooing men so that he would willingly accept His proposal to seal them. However, the enemy intruded into this love affair shortly before it was sealed.
The interactions between Satan and Eve continued until she was won over, right under Adam’s watch (Gen. 3:6). These interactions must have lasted sometime until she was convinced to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Out of the excitement of that adventure, she innocently showed the fruit to her husband. This innocent act shows that she did not have any evil intentions and was only excited about the opening of her eyes.
When the man took of the fruit, their eyes became open and they saw that they were naked (Gen. 3:7). They lost the covering that shielded them from the fact that they were flesh all along. This should be a counsel to ministers. They should remember that they are still flesh and are only clothed by the anointing upon them. God intended to take Adam and Eve on a journey to a place where He would seal them but before this was realized, the enemy came to hijack the whole process. They both ate the fruit and were stung by the serpent. The sting of the serpent found its way into them by that act of disobedience.
While the serpent spoke with the woman, he made references to God, blackmailing the name of God (Gen. 3:1,5). The reason he had to blackmail God was to first poison their hearts against God; this was so that if he could not eventually win them over to himself, they would not be able to return to God. The enemy did this because he knew that God was setting the man up against him. The seal that God was going to place upon man was a seal that the enemy once greatly desired.
Adam once had authority over all kinds of creatures. They all responded to man because of something that rested upon him (Gen. 1:28); but after man fell, the creatures no longer responded to man the way they used to. God planned to raise man (male and female), seal them and launch them to dominate all other things. However, this apprenticeship program was cut short and the man set foot into the bigger world unprepared.
The things that God has are all defined by life, including everlasting and Eternal life. God does not have houses, cars or other ephemeral things to give. The things that He has are blessings that only He can give. This life is what God intended to give man and for that reason, He planted trees in the garden with the hope that man will feed on all the trees (Gen. 2:16); because there was something man was meant to receive from all the trees, which God planned to crown with the Tree of Life.
Man ate poison in that garden, but it did not show until God mentioned it. Afterwards, man began to see things differently. God would not have blocked the way to the Tree of Life if there was no threat of man’s return to eating that tree in his fallen state (Gen. 3:24). Notice that the way to the tree was not blocked from man before the fall.
God put an enmity between the woman’s seed and the serpent, thus orchestrating that man’s deliverance and navigation back to the Tree of Life would be through the raising of the woman’s seed (Gen. 3:15). Naturally, women do not have seeds; what they have are fruits of the womb which are products of the seed of the man.
As man stepped out of the garden, the poison began to manifest and various aberrations were revealed. Sin has various manifestations. The enemy planted a seed in man that defiled his conscience, and this remains man’s greatest problem till date. This defiled conscience is the reason men no longer trust one another. God cannot do anything to the conscience if He does not do something to the heart first. Therefore, redeeming man from his state became priority over the original plan to seal him.
When a man comes bearing the gospel of Christ as wisdom, righteousness and redemption, many men will hate him because the message claims their life. What to do instead of fighting the message is to seek to know why the message seems to tamper with our natural before reorganizing them. Many of the things we have held on for survival would be taken from us when we first accept this message. However, what God does by that is to deal with the trust we have put in those things, not that He hates our having them. After such trusts have been removed and we have become committed, we receive the reward of faithfulness.
Man ought to live by faith and not by sight. The souls of the Israelites were discouraged because of the way they spoke against God (Num. 21:5). Men speak against God when the way is unclear. Jesus is the only way to God and this way is described as a strait and narrow way (Matt. 7:14); He is a way that does not accommodate our excesses. We do not approach God in a perfect state - we are to come as we are. However, as we come, we should ensure that our excesses are eroded by the administration of the Way.
God will not seal us in our state of unforgiveness, malice and other vices; we must first be made pure. Many things must be worked into our souls and to do so, the venoms of the enemy have to be removed. We were brought into the way to die to our former lives, energy, and strengths (Num. 21:5). The comfort we have in the system of this world is not from God, so we need to be delivered from this state.
If God does not compress us through certain distressing situations, we would not follow Him. We were raised by our traditions to pray against sufferings. Therefore, when we accept this message, if we are not hedged in, we would not stay. In the world today, we now pay and subscribe to be schooled by the world through the things we expose ourselves to on social media. We also must give ourselves to the learning of this message. It is possible to learn the language of this message and be having trouble with living it out. We must therefore stay in the way because it is in the way that we learn the will.
The people grumbled in the wilderness and God sent serpents to them to show them that the reason He was taking them through the dealing of the wilderness was the bite of a serpent from the beginning (Num 21:7). After they repented, He redefined living for them and this new definition was for them to look and live (Num 21:8). As they looked at the brazen serpent, they were healed. By that, God was referring to Jesus (Jn. 3:14) and how He will draw all men to Himself when He is lifted up (Jn. 12:32).
"Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: [24] And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." (Ps. 139:23 – 24). God loved David so much because he surrendered himself to be searched for. He recognized that there was a way within him that should be removed. There are courses of this world that are already located in our souls. If God will lead us in the way to everlasting life, He must first search our hearts to remove any poison in us. This is why churches are usually better off only when the members are few. When members increase and resources increase, Satan begins to lurk around until he finds his way in. This is how Satan tried to tempt Jesus with the glories of this world.
We should prayerfully desire that God should search our hearts. Truth is not truth if it only remains in our hearts. We are blessed in this season wherein God is opening our eyes, for man ought not to perish (Jn. 3:16). The statement, ‘he should not perish’ indicates that man still has a tendency to perish.
Closing Charge by Reverend Kayode Oyegoke
The heart is a very powerful storehouse that can hold things that are as old as man. There are things in us that use us without us knowing. The Word of God is a discerner of the thoughts and the intents of the heart (Hebrews 4:12). Thoughts and intents are deep. Satan has wrought certain creatures in us and hid them, but they cannot pass the detection of the High Priest. To search our hearts is a blessing (Psalm 139:23).
Wickedness are intents and thoughts that will stop us from attaining everlasting life. The heart is key. It is a heart of unbelief that hindered the Israelites from entering into His rest (Heb 4:6). The gospel is a declaration that we should not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16). We should not perish and the way to do so is to be sincere with God about our hearts.
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