Cdc 25th May Same Old Design is Still Use by Hell

[Singing in background] Churches and fellowships cannot be more spiritual than the individuals and families that constitute them. God greatly desires a godly home. These are words of restoration and instruction in righteousness from Family Tent Ministry. May you be blessed as you listen. [Speaker 1] The Lord help us to move on from that point. We need to round up that topic. The topic needed to be rounded up. Even if we move to something else, we need to round up that topic. That matter of the various injunction that God gave as regards what happened at the Fall. So let’s quickly go there. We saw that the Lord said something, the man said "the woman," then the woman said "the serpent." And the Lord said unto the serpent... Verse 13. I want us to look at that verse 13, even though we have moved to... we stopped that day at verse 15. "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, between thy seed and her seed. It shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel." And that was where we stopped. We have to move on to verse 16, what he said unto the woman. But there is something I want us to see in that verse 13. It says, "And the Lord God said unto the woman, 'What is this that thou hast done?'" NLT: "Then the Lord asked the woman, 'What have you done?'" "The serpent deceived me," she replied. "That was why I ate it." Now, please let’s go back up to something, to verse 4. Verse 4: "And the serpent said unto the woman, 'You shall not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as gods, knowing good from evil.' When the woman saw that this tree was good for food and that it was pleasant to the eyes and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave also unto her husband and he did eat." Now, what I want to call your attention to is this. If you look at verses 4, 5, and 6, compare it with the woman's response in verse 13. "And the Lord said unto the woman, 'What is this that thou hast done?'" and the woman said, "The serpent deceived me and I did eat." Now, I'm relating something, bringing something together. In verses 4, 5, 6, and 7 where we read, when the woman was having the discussion with the serpent and they were deciding "eat or not eat," how did the woman see the serpent? How did the woman see the serpent? [Speaker 2] A friend. Something who is in the conform... he's a friend. [Speaker 1] A friend. She saw the serpent as somebody who want to make things better. Who want to improve the quality of her life. Somebody who want to give her a better opportunity than God has given. Are you understanding? He said, "No, you will not die. God knows that when you eat it, you will become like God." In other words, God is limiting you from something. You have a better opportunity. And when the woman decided to take it and eat, she was seeing serpent as somebody who means something better than God meant. Do you get what I’m trying to make you see? And after she ate the fruit, that was still her position, because if not, she would not be able to argue through with the husband. When she ate it, nothing happened to her. That was how she was even able to argue through with the husband, because you see later what God said to the husband was that "because you listened to your wife..." what actually pained God was not because Adam was... Adam was not deceived. The woman was deceived quite well. Adam was not. Adam deliberately disobeyed God and listened to his wife. Of course, we saw that later in the scripture where the Bible says "for Adam was not deceived, but Eve was..." and all of that. But what I'm trying to point out is that the woman, having taken side with the serpent as having a better offer than what God had earlier offered, having a better promise or better promises than what God had earlier promised, she was able to also meet the husband and made him realize that there's nothing wrong with eating this thing. If God said something, it does not matter if it is really true. Why didn't something happen to me? Why didn't... where is the death? There's nothing like that, nothing will happen. It was after the man ate it that the consequence came, that the woman realized that serpent deceived me. Because by the time the eyes of both of them were opened, there was nothing to argue again with the husband. The husband too knew that he had made a mistake in listening to the wife. You get the point I'm making. And that was why the man, for you to know that there were issues between the man and the woman before he finally took it, was why the man was saying "the woman, the woman..." There were discussions. It's not as if the man did not know the fruit that the woman was giving to him. When you read it in 4 and 5, it's not as if Adam did not know which fruit. When they say "and he gave her husband too," it looks as if she just ate, Adam did not know what the fruit is, he's just after "what fruit did you give me?" That was not what happened. Are you following me? Even though it looks so in the earlier verses. The point I'm trying to bring out to you is this: ever since time began, there has not been a time when that which will destroy a man appears to him as that which will destroy him. Ever since time began... what took man out of what God had for him was that something appeared to the woman, and when it appeared, it appeared as a better offer than what God had initially offered. Do you get what I'm trying to bring out? I'm showing you that ever since time began—because this is the beginning of time. This is the beginning. Before time began, we did not know. But when time began was when God created Heaven and Earth, and time began. So from that beginning, you notice that that which was to destroy man, that which was to radically eternally reverse the entire life of man from the place of glory to the place of dishonor, shame, and bondage, when it appeared to man, it appeared as a fantastic idea. Are you getting me? The idea was fantastic! The idea was something... wow! For those of us who are in the second Saturday meeting, element of truth but that is not truth. It appeared completely rational. I mean, rationally, it was say, "Look, that is a lie. God knows that if you eat it, you will become like God." Of course, they will become like God. Would they not become like God? Would they not become like God? They will, I hope you know. Although they were made in the image of God, but they will become like God. Becoming like God in this sense now is in a sense that God don't want them to be like him. In the sense that they will be able to know good from evil. If you look at the end of that chapter 3, he said, "Man has now become like us, knowing good from evil. Let us send him out of this place." Man now have the power... the power that we did not really intend for him. There's something now about man. Unfortunately, that thing that he got is in corruption. So let's again stretch forth his hand and eat the tree of life and live forever. He should not live forever in this state. In this state, he should no more live forever. Initially he was to live forever. But in this new state, he should not live forever. He should not live forever. He should rather die. He should not have access again to the tree of life. We will later come back to eat that tree, should go back again to Revelation, so that we will be eating that tree again, eventually, when we would have put down mortality and wear immortality in glory. But what I'm really trying to talk about is the fact that ever since the beginning of time—lati ateteko se, lati ateteko se... From that time, from that earliest time, things that will destroy man, that will reverse the glory of man, that will eternally finish him, that will take him out of freedom, mercy, and glory into bondage, weeping, and crying, that will take him from life into death, actually appeared as a fantastic idea. It appeared as something better than what God offered. God has said, "Don't eat it. The day you eat it, you will die." When it appeared, it appeared "You will not die. If you eat it, you will be like God, knowing good from evil. You will become like God." And when the woman now saw that the tree... igi yi... is very... achieving this thing. She took it to achieve that, but she didn't know that it's actually a deception. What I'm trying to make you see: man, in the fullness of his glory, at the beginning of time, have always been susceptible, there's possibility for man to give in to what looks like a better offer than what God is offering. Now, what do you think about man in the corrupt state? You know, then man was not corrupted. He had not been corrupted as at that time. And something came when he was in that state, and man saw it that yes, God said we would die, we will not die. Man disbelieved God. Man saw a better offer than what God offered, and man went for it. It was later he felt, "Ah, I did not know! The serpent... I didn't know he was deceiving me. I thought he was speaking the truth." Now look at it today now. Man is no more conceived in glory. Anytime you give birth to man, he's conceived in sin. He's conceived in corruption. What I want to ask you is, what is the possibility for this man now, call Brother Wale, or call Brother Milare, or call Brother Tolu, or call Sister Comfort, or call Sister Christie or Ayo, or Sister Binkpe. What is the possibility, the degree of possibility for them to disbelieve God and see a better offer than God offered and go for it? Is the possibility reduced? Is this a reduced possibility or an increased possibility? It's an increased possibility. Because the man you have now, that man that fell was a man that did not have the true nature. "Walk in the spirit, you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh." But when we are in two... there are two kingdoms. Do you get the point I'm making? There were actually two kingdoms, actually. Satan has fallen and he want to bring man into his kingdom. But as at that time, man had not entered. He was still fully in this kingdom. He was full of completely light, no part of him was darkness. You know that what God is doing today is trying to undo in us what sin has done. I hope you know. You know what sin did is permanent and it's eternal. Permanent and eternal. So God began from inside to outside. God first gave eternal life in the place of eternal death. God now begin another work, "be transformed by renewing your mind." The renewal now starts, wanting to remove all the effect of sin, all the effect of sin. That work will not end until we meet him, when we now put down this body so that we will die no more. You know the consequence of sin is still with us because we still die. No matter how glorious you are, you will still die. That's why Jesus has to die. What came by sin was something that was irreversible, except by that God came to reverse it. But in reversing it, God went through some of the consequences. I hope you get the point I'm making. Now we are in it. Glory has come. We are to face up and move on. Or let me use another illustration for you, the actual one that the picture that was drawn. Jesus said, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness," so will the Son of Man be lifted up, so that whoever looks up will be saved. In the case of Adam, there was no serpent on the floor. It was to just look up to what God has said. So if Eve had just looked up, there was no serpent down. In our own case, living serpents are on the floor. And you are asked to look away from those serpents and look up. Which is easier? Of course, the first case is easier than the second case. You know what I'm trying to make us see as we look at this matter? It is crucial for us to see our vulnerability, our weakness, our susceptibility to sin. It is important to see our state, so that it will prompt us more to rely on the Lord. It will take away from us element of self-confidence, element of "I can move on without the Lord," element of "I know what I'm doing." Because even when we were in glory, and we think we know what we were doing, we thought we could disbelieve God and look for something more rational, a better offer. Where did this land us? We are still in it today, still struggling. Is it not enough lesson for us to realize, for us to know, for us to understand, that see... see... much more than ever before, we need to believe God for what he has said? We need to hold tenaciously to the Lord. We need to be aware of the encumbrance that we wear. And what the encumbrance? This body. You know this body is the body of sin. This body is the body of sin. When Jesus himself put on this body, you saw the struggle too for him. When he came to the point where he was to die, you saw the struggle. What was the struggle? Father, let this cup... yet not as I will. When he too put on this body, there was a reality of something in which the earth is different from the heavens. If you look at the Lord's Prayer, it says, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." When we put down this body and we are with him, that's why sometimes I believe those stories that people say that when they died and then Jesus took them somewhere... like Jesus took them somewhere, and when Jesus said that they should go back to life, they didn't want to go again, they were crying, they wanted to remain there. I hope that Paul had the same experience. He said it's between two things. I wish that I should just go and leave this body so that I can be free and be with the Lord. But because of the church, for me I wish to go, but for your sake, I will ask God to still keep me here for your sake. But ordinarily me, me, God just let me die and go. When you encounter the heavenly glory, do you know why? Because the will of the Lord is done freely. It's done easily. It's done perfectly. It's done without struggle. So Jesus say, "Pray that your will be done on earth as it is done in heaven." Now we are praying it, we are trusting God for it, we are believing God for it. That God's will, we do it with struggle, we don't do it freely. We do it with... if not because the Holy Ghost restrained me now, the way I would have reacted! You see the thing restraining you, at the same time it will be paining you as you... I don't know you have felt what I'm trying to say. You will feel restrained. Ordinarily if you were to act freely... What I'm trying to say is that the will of God is not done freely. The will of God is done with denying yourself, with saying no, with forgetting yourself, with renouncing yourself, with daily denying yourself so that you can do that will. The picture I'm painting for you is that, see... things have not changed. The things that will take us, that will still reverse our joy today, that will still scatter our life today, that will still scatter our peace today, that will shatter our eternity today, they will still be things that looks like a better offer than what God has offered. They will still be things that looks like... ooto lohun yi o sise jare... (the Yoruba phrase roughly translated to: truly this will not work anyway). God aside, let me do something. If God's own is not fast, this God's own is not working. A sister said, "Olohun o se ma da bi awon ti awon ogun bi ti awon Sango yen? K'o f'arada bayi k'o pa yan..." (Yoruba language: Why doesn't God act like those deities of war, those of Sango? Why doesn't he just kill someone and show he's there?) It looks like the method, the pattern, the ways of God today... the things that are making us to leave God... see, go and quietly look at your life. Go and quietly evaluate your life. You will still see these three things will always come to play. One, you will disbelieve God for what he has said. God will have said something like "love your enemies," "do good to them that hate you." It looks like loving this enemy is not giving me result. Let me show my enemy that I'm not a fool. I don't know whether you understand me. It will look like you will disbelieve God, there's this... go and check every time we miss out of God. It comes with what? An unbelief. An unbelief. It comes with an unbelief. It comes with disbelieving God. Number two, it also come with "this is a better offer than what God had offered" or "this is offering a better platform than what God is offering." Go and check it. That is why you notice that the Bible warns us that every man... James chapter 1 where he say "don't let anybody say 'I am tempted of the Lord', because God cannot be tempted with evil and he does not tempt anybody with evil." God may bring trials. God may bring challenges to make our faith better. But God don't tempt with evil. It says, "Every man is tempted when he's drawn away by his own lust." And I've often said this thing, although I say it more when I'm with little children. Ask yourself, since you became a Christian, have you ever been tempted to eat sand? Why? Because you don't have desire for it. So do you see that temptation is not possible when there is no desire? Temptation is not possible when there is no desire. Go and check areas where we fall. Go and check it. I am showing you that see... things have not changed. The pattern still remain the same. The tempter and the tempted, it is still the same old pattern. As it was in the beginning, so it is now. But what make now to be a little different from the beginning is what I've just explained. That at the beginning, man had not been conceived in sin. Man was conceived in glory. The difference now is just that, unlike at the beginning, we need more to be more careful, more watchful, more relying on the Lord, more, more, more because of our human infirmities and weaknesses. But I am showing you the trend. Those things that make you to fall into bondage, that brings you to shame that he was hiding, that make him to be covering his face, that brought the sickness, the death, everything that is going through... those things were things was something that looks like a better offer than what God has offered. And you feel the same thing today. Even the Yorubas, they say: eni to ba n w'ofa lo n w'ofo... (He who is looking for cheap things will find destruction). When something is free, you begin to take, take, take, forget that there's a price for your stomach. If you are buying it with your money, you'll be conservative. But you see, eat, somebody is buying it! You'll just be eating. Now the point I'm trying to bring out is I want us to go and sit down and think through and look at it. As long as there are things in our lives that we place so high desire on, so much desire on, they will become subject of temptation. And there are things that we don't desire, we can never be tempted along those lines. Do you get what I'm trying to say? If you will enter into any bondage, if you will enter into any problem, if your life will not go the way it should go, if you will move out of what God has given you into a situation where you are now weeping and you are now hiding, you are now using leaf to cover yourself, you are now... it was a difficult time for Adam and Eve. It was not things as usual. The glory, the joy, everything was gone. That which take away our joy, they begin with first, a disbelief in what God... about what God has said. God has said something but you just disbelieve it. "You will not die." You just disbelieve it. Ko, ko ri be... (It is not so). You will disbelieve something, you will adjust something, something will adjust in your heart. I am trying to make us see what we need to be careful about, what we need to be watchful about, what we need to be sensitive about. Be sensitive to situations in your life where you begin to disbelieve what you have believed, where you begin to... you know this is the Word of God, you begin to look for explanation for it, you begin to try to... like I gave you the example of the boy, the young man who was had two offers of a job. One was offering about 500, the other one was offering about maybe 120 or something. The other one was "you must not be above 25," the boy is 27. This one they had no age limit. And was saying, "Daddy, I'm just confused, I'm just confused. I don't know what God is trying to tell me." I said, "What is..." He said, "You know 25, zero to five, six to ten, there's this age range thing. So 25 to 30 is a range. It's a range, daddy. Is it not a range? I mean, I'm in statistics. It's a range. So 26, 25 they're all range around themselves. That if you just tell them that it's 25, does it really mean anything?" And I simply told him, "You are not confused, you are only wicked." And he was surprised. I said because you know the truth. You're only trying to disbelieve the truth. You know that all unrighteousness is a sin. What you are struggling with is what Eve struggled with. God said you will die. Something said you will not die. You already know all unrighteousness is a sin. I said, are they asking for age range? That's what I asked him. What are they asking for? Age range? Or "what is your age?" Does any age count 25 to 27? Does any age like that, age 25 to 27? Is there any age like that? When you feel that this thing that looks like is a better offer, you are not seeing it, that anytime we are disbelieving God for what looks like a better offer, that thing that looks like is going to be glorious, I'm telling you is going to be a doom. It will not be glorious. It will not be glorious. And you can multiply this thing to many, many simple things in our lives. Many, many simple things in our lives. Don't look at the testimony that our sister gave earlier. You already know the principle of God. If your brother offend you, go and meet him and show him his fault. But something say, "Ah, no! Why will you do that one? It will not be glorious. He will think you are weak. When you put up a face... and you fire a little when you start... you just do like this, you see... she will know that you too..." and that looks like something fantastic. It looks a more glorious offer. Is that not? It's a glorious offer. And so what do we do? We disbelieve God and we take the other offer. You see, I begin to see, I'm just trying to make you see that there are little, little forces, what spoiled the vine for Adam and Eve were little, little forces. Because when Eve ate, nothing happened. Is it not a little force? Nothing happened. Adam too could see... "Hey, you see? If we eat it, nothing happened to you, nothing happened to me." It looks ordinarily nothing. The things and... you know what just came to my mind? Is that what is the portion, what is the proportion? If you want to poison a food, what is the proportion of the poison to the food? If you want to poison a food for somebody to eat, the poison you want to put, just little. The person will be eating all the sweet one. In fact, the food will sound very sweet, the taste will not change. But actually death is in it. What I'm trying to say is that as the time of the Lord draws near, as the days draw nearer and nearer, let us be conscious of the fact that our adversary get more desperate and desperate to get result. I'm not talking about a fear about the gate of Hell. That is foolishness. We don't need to fear, it's not living in fear. There's a difference between fear and watchfulness. Do you agree with me? Do you agree with me? Fearfulness itself is not a product of faith. We must believe the Lord is able to keep us. And if we believe he's able to keep us, then we must understand that we need to become more careful and more watchful for us to hear, for our dog to listen to the hunter's whistle. Aja t'o ba s'onu, ko ni gbo fere ode. (The dog that wanders off will not hear the hunter’s whistle). There are a lot of thing now, the way things are, there are subtle things that ordinarily... before you know, you would have left the whistle. Because don't forget that the whistle of the Word of God is not a whistle that intimidates. I gave this example one day in a meeting and it's coming to my heart now again. When Eve was about to go and eat that thing, couldn't God just send Gabriel? Gabriel would just appear, "Hey, what do you want to do? Stop that! Don't you know you want to be deceived? Stop it! Don't eat it!" Just hold her hand, "Better put it down!" Couldn't God send Gabriel to do that? Was God not in the picture when everything was taking place? Why didn't he intimidate them to say, "Hey! After I have told you that you will die! I have said you will die and you are still about to eat this thing! Don't eat it, stop!" so that Eve can stop. Why didn't he quickly impose himself at that juncture to interrupt the process? What I'm trying to make us see is that the time that we are in, the time where we are journeying through, there's a need again for us to become more conscious. Let us be conscious of our humanity, our vulnerability, our susceptibility, our weaknesses. That's not to make us fear, but to make us see how much... I took that hymn and I wanted to sing it and I found myself re-singing it in my own way. The hymn actually is: I need Thee every hour, Most gracious Lord; No tender voice like Thine Can peace afford. I need Thee, oh, I need Thee, Every hour I need Thee; Oh, bless me now, my Savior, I come to Thee. I found myself singing that hymn and I was singing "I need thee every moment." I said, "Baba, hour is even too much." I wanted to say "seconds," I was afraid again to say "seconds." Even though the man who sang that hymn may also mean every moment. Do you agree with me? But hour could not just fit into what I was experiencing immediately. Hour was looking at a whole... in fact, I would have gone in seconds. I said, "God, we need you every moment. We need you every moment, most gracious God. We need thee, oh, we need thee." So let's watch, let’s watch, let’s watch this trend in our life. The trend of disbelieving what we know God have told us. The trend of seeing a better offer in certain situations, in certain possibilities apart from what God had initially offered. Three: let’s be careful the level of desire we place so high desire on, so much desire on. I like this Yoruba something, Yoruba say "nkan bi nti l’aye" (meaning "like the nothingness of the world"). What is "minti"? Who can help us? "Insignificant." Bro, sister, let us be very factual among ourselves. Are you actually seeing life as "minti"? Are you actually seeing life as insignificant, as something that doesn't matter? Go and check for example, if you have been cheated by a brother with ordinary 500 Naira, how do you handle it? Are you still a Christian or you want to address the matter? When a colleague, a fellow, or somebody does something that looks like he has touched on your interest, how do you react? Help you to know whether you are seeing "aye" (the world) as "minti," insignificant. The amount of, the extent to which your blood level rises over matters, over issues of this life, will help you to know how much attachment you have to things. How much attachment. What I’m trying to make us see: blessed are those who hold the things of this world very lightly. Blessed are those who hold things very lightly. One major source of our fall from freedom to bondage, from peace to unrest, from quietness to disquietness, is the attachment we have with the world. I'll read a passage in the Bible and then I will close for today. Let's look at this scripture: Psalm 37. Are you there? Can we try different version? I want to read verse 1 to verse 11. I will read KJV. Look at King James, it says, "Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity. For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb. Trust in the Lord and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed. Delight thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass. And he shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday. Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him; fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass. Cease from anger, and forsake wrath; fret not thyself in any wise to do evil. For evildoers shall be cut off; but those who wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the earth. For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be; yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be. But the meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace." Easy-to-read: "Don't get upset about evil people. Don't be jealous of those who do wrong. They are like grass and other green plants that dry up quickly and then die."