Hi, I'm David Bercot, and tonight we're going to be talking about what is life all about. Or to put it another way, why did God create humans in the first place? What are we here for? After all, God never does anything unless He has a purpose behind it. In the Scriptures, God reveals Himself as our Father, and we believers are shown to be His children. So, as a parent, why did God want to have children? Perhaps I should first ask, why do we humans want to have children?
I realize that a lot of children born today are unwanted, but that's not the case among Kingdom Christians. Even among the world, most couples want to have children. In fact, often they will adopt a child if they aren't able to have children of their own. So, why do we humans want children? I think the main reason we want children is to have someone to love and to care for. It's impossible to love in an abstract sense. Love needs an object to express itself.
Of course, we have our spouses to love, yet most of us want to expand our love beyond just one person. So, children give us more people to love. I mean, I realize that we are to love all mankind, and certainly we love our brothers and sisters in the Lord, but that love isn't quite the same love we feel for our spouses and our children. But love is not the only reason we want children. We also want to pass on the values we hold dear to others. Is it any different with God?
God is love, so He desires to have children on whom He can pour out His love. That was His main purpose in creating both humans and angels, and He also wants to pass on His perfect attributes to others. The Scriptures tell us it is more blessed to give than to receive. We find joy in providing for our children and in giving them gifts and other things that bring them happiness. Yes, we enjoy blessing them with good things.
One of the activities I enjoy doing with Pierre, my four-year-old grandson, is to go to the closest rail station of the Washington, D.C. Metro and ride the commuter train with him. So long as we don't exit the rail system itself, we can both ride the commuter train all day between peak hours for just a few dollars. So, Pierre and I get on the train and travel about four or five stations down the line. We then get off and catch a returning train and ride it for a few stations.
We then get off that second train and we jump on the next train going our original direction and on and on. A lot of the fun for Pierre is just getting on and getting off the trains, which is why we board and unboard so often. And we usually ride up and down a few escalators between trains, which is a big thrill for him. Anyway, we keep up this routine for three or four hours before returning home. Now, if I were alone, would I find any of that to be fun? Not in the least.
It's nearly a five-hour round trip from our house to the nearest Washington, D.C. Metro station, which is no fun. And I don't personally get any enjoyment from riding a commuter train or going up and down escalators. Does this mean I don't enjoy these outings with Pierre? No, I love them. Why? Because I'd love to see the excitement on his face and the smiles and laughter all throughout the day. I receive joy from his happiness. It's that way with almost all parents and grandparents.
In the same fashion, I believe God receives joy from our happiness. That is, when we are walking in His ways, our happiness brings Him happiness. Now, if my grandson were bratty and if he fussed and complained the whole time when we did these train rides, would I still find it enjoyable? Not at all. In fact, there wouldn't be any train rides. So, our conduct brings no joy to God when we rebel against Him. If we find happiness in doing evil or in rebelling against God's ways, that brings Him no pleasure at all.
Rather, it saddens Him, and He has no desire to spend eternity with people who will only bring Him heartache. Do you enjoy giving presents to your children? I think we all do. Jesus tells us, "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him?" Yes, God loves to bless His children with good things. In fact, that's where the story of man began.
Genesis tells us, "The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food." Yes, God enjoyed blessing His first two human children with a delightful place to live and an array of good things to eat. God enjoys relating to His children just like we do. As parents and grandparents, we enjoy interacting with our children and grandchildren.
A four-year-old doesn't think the same way an adult does. Now, this can bring headaches sometimes, but most of us find it a joy to enter into the world of a four-year-old and to interact with them at their level. I have no doubt that God enjoys the same interrelationship with us. Some well-meaning Christians say things like, "We were put here on earth to praise God." When they say that, they think they're ascribing something noble to God, but they're doing the exact opposite.
It makes me think of a statement that Origen once made. He said, "People teach things about God that they wouldn't ascribe to the worst human imaginable." What would you think about some parent who told you, "The reason we wanted children is so we would have a lot of people around to praise us?" You'd think such a parent was some kind of sick egomaniac, wouldn't you? Yet Christians ignorantly ascribe things like that to God. No, He did not create us just to have someone to praise Him.
Now, don't get me wrong, it is certainly appropriate and wonderful to praise God, just like it's appropriate to praise our parents. But our parents didn't bring us into this world just to have someone to praise them, nor did God bring us into this world so He could have someone to praise Him. We are here as an expression of God's love and because He delights in interacting with us and blessing us.
So maybe we could sum up what we've said to this point as principle number one: God created mankind so He could fill the earth and heaven with His children. He wants to pour out His love on us and for us to love Him back and rejoice in our relationship with Him. With that in mind, let's read what the Scriptures say about the creation of the first humans. Genesis 1:26 and 27 reads, "Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness.
Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.'" So God created man in His own image. In the image of God, He created him. Male and female, He created them. God's creation of humans was very different from His creating the plants and animals. The animals that share the planet with us were not created in God's image. They aren't true children of God.
However, we humans were created as His true children because we were made in His image. The angels also were created as God's true children. Well, what does it mean that we were created in God's image? It certainly doesn't mean that God is a huge man and that we physically look like Him. In fact, Jesus tells us that God is Spirit. So our being made in the image of God means that we have many of the same attributes as God.
It also means that He has given us such a high nature that we can actually communicate with Him and He with us. No wonder Psalm 82 refers to us as gods. In that Psalm, God Himself says, "You are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High." However, God then adds, "But you shall die like men." And that's because of man's rebellion against God. Now, I said that being made in the image of God means we have many of the same attributes as He. One of these key attributes is free will.
If Adam and Eve had not had free will, they would not have been in the image of God. Well, what does it mean when we say that God has free will? It means that God has the power to choose to do good or evil. One of the early Christian writers, Clement of Alexandria, made this observation: God is not involuntarily good the way a fire is involuntarily hot. Rather, in Him, the imparting of good things is voluntary. Therefore, God does not do good by necessity. Rather, He blesses others from His free choice.
Now, when I first read that statement 30 years ago, it was a new thought for me. Without really having given much thought to it, I'd always assumed that God was involuntarily good. That is, He didn't have the ability to choose evil. But then I realized that would take away from His true goodness. Think about it for a moment. Would you be praiseworthy for doing good if you had no free will to do anything but what was good? What would there be to praise? God is praiseworthy because of His own volition.
He has chosen to do nothing but good. In fact, evil thoughts don't even enter His mind. But you may ask, don't the Scriptures say that God cannot be tempted by evil? Yes, they do. So how do we reconcile this with my statement that God has free will to choose good or evil? Well, let me give you an illustration. A few months ago, someone parked their late model car alongside the mountain road I cross on my way to town and back. And it was actually there for two or three weeks, and I drove by it several times.
Now, since this mountain road is fairly isolated, particularly at night, I could have easily stopped and stolen the owner's hubcaps without much fear of getting caught. But was I tempted to do that? Not in the least. And I'm sure that would be true of all of you as well. Even though we are fallen humans, there are literally thousands and thousands of sins that do not tempt us whatsoever.
For example, if I were to visit any of my friends and I accidentally left my wallet at their house, I can assure you that none of them would be the least bit tempted to steal from it. So the fact that we are humanly capable of committing all sorts of evil things, as born-again Christians, many of those things do not tempt us whatsoever. Now, if that is true of imperfect humans, how much more is it true of our Creator? He is theoretically capable of doing all kinds of evil.
However, because of His wonderful nature, He is not tempted in the least by any kind of evil. He cannot do evil, not because He doesn't have the capacity, but because of His character. And God wants real children who are made in His image, which means they must have free will, just like He has free will. He doesn't want automatons who can only do what is right. My wife, Deborah, and I have a dog named Scrappy. She's a Basenji, which is a little-known breed from Africa.
Actually, Scrappy is our third Basenji because, to me, they're almost the ideal breed of dog for several reasons. First of all, they're very quiet. They don't bark ever. They have vocal cords, and they can whine or growl and sometimes make very scary sounds if they're really upset. But normally, they never bark, and normally, they're very, very quiet. Second, they're relatively small, about the size of a beagle, but not as heavy. So they don't eat a lot, and they're very easy to take care of.
They don't overeat the way many breeds do, and they have almost no doggy odor. In fact, they clean themselves like a cat. They're very good around children, and yet, at the same time, they're extremely brave. Scrappy is not afraid to confront black bears. We live right at the edge of a forest, and from time to time, black bears will visit our bird feeders if we forget to bring them in at night.
Now, I wouldn't have thought that black bears would have any interest in sunflower seeds, but as it turns out, they definitely do. Now, usually, we don't hear the bears when they come. It's Scrappy who smells them and comes charging out after them, and we hear her as she charges across the deck. Now, even though these black bears are 10 to 20 times the size of Scrappy, she has actually treed several of them.
Well, on top of everything else, Basenjis are not a very expensive breed because there's not a lot of demand for them. Yet they have one major shortcoming. They are very mischievous. For example, if we leave a small tool outside like a screwdriver, Scrappy will pick it up in her mouth, cart it off, and start chewing on the handle. Quite a few of my screwdrivers and other small tools have chewed up handles as a result.
Most Basenji owners keep their dogs outside because if you ever left them alone in your house, you don't know what you might come back to. And it's not that we haven't trained Scrappy correctly. This is just a known trait of the Basenji breed. Now, given her shortcomings, you might think that I would prefer an automaton for a pet dog, a robot. I mean, as you probably know, Sony invented a robot dog that went on the market in 1999. It would always come when you called it.
It would perfectly obey any command that you gave it if it was in the list of commands it was capable of doing. It didn't use the restroom on your carpet, and it certainly didn't sneak off with your tools. This robot dog was the ideal pet, right? Wrong. Sony had to discontinue making them after six short years because there wasn't enough demand for them. People want a real dog, shortcomings and all. They don't want a robot dog who can never do wrong, but who can never really love them the way a real dog does.
Well, God doesn't want robots either. He wants real children made in His image. Without free will, we would not be real children of God. We would not be in His image. Yet God knew that the majority of His children would misuse their free will. They would choose to do the wrong things. So let's sum up this second principle we've been talking about. Principle number two, and that is humans are created in the image of God, meaning we have the same attributes as God does.
One of those attributes is free will, the ability to choose to do either good or evil. Without free will, we would not be true children of God. When God gave man free will, He knew that the majority of His children would misuse their free will. They would choose to do the wrong things. From the beginning of history, there have always been rebellious children who do wicked, hateful things. A case in point was the first child born to Adam and Eve, Cain. He murdered his own brother.
Now, most humans are not murderers, but most humans don't want to obey their heavenly Father. In fact, Jesus said about some people, "It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were drowned in the depths of the sea." God wants to populate the universe with righteous, loving children. He has no desire to populate it with rebellious children who hate the very things that He stands for.
People who find it miserable to live under God's laws in this life would be miserable living under God's rule in heaven or anywhere else. God doesn't want to populate the universe with beings who are miserable living under the same roof as He. So by endowing mankind with free will, God knew the result would be that some would choose to serve Him and others would rebel. A part of mankind would respond to their loving heavenly Father with reciprocating love. Others would not. God knew this before He ever created man.
Of course, it's easy to obey the law if there are no laws. It's easy to be an obedient child if your parents never forbid anything to you. So to find out what kind of children the first humans were, God gave them a test. We read, "And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, 'Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat. For in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.'" So God gave Adam and Eve a test.
They could eat the fruit of every kind of tree in Eden except that of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now, would you say that that was an easy test or a hard one? I think most of us would agree that it was a very easy test. Adam and Eve had plenty to eat. The test put no hardship on them whatsoever. Yet in His wisdom, God knew that this simple test would be sufficient to reveal their degree of love and loyalty to Him. Well, I think we all know how the story plays out.
Genesis chapter 3 tells us, "Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.
And He said to the woman, 'Has God indeed said, 'You shall not eat of every tree of the garden?'" And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, 'You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it lest you die.'" Then the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die, for God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." So when the
woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.
She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. So sin enters the universe. What was the first sin? Actually, it wasn't Eve's eating the fruit. The first sin was Satan lying about God. He told Eve, "You will not surely die, for God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." Now, not all lies are equal. Some are far worse than others. I think what Satan said to Eve would have to rank as probably the most evil lie ever spoken.
To begin with, he led Eve to sin through this lie. Eve, in turn, led Adam to sin. This, in turn, affected the whole human race. So the consequences of Satan's lie were enormous. But that wasn't the worst evil in his lie. Even more evil than that is that Satan accused God himself of being a liar. What was Satan implying about God? Well, one, that God did not give His commandments to Adam and Eve because He loved them. That God did not have their best interests in mind when He gave His command.
He was holding something very wonderful back from them. He implied that God's way of doing things is not the best way, nor is it the just way. And finally, He implied or directly stated that God lies. Adam and Eve would not die if they ate of the fruit. Now, Paul tells us that Eve was thoroughly deceived. What does that mean? It means that Eve believed all the things that Satan was implying about God. She believed Satan was telling the truth and that God was a liar.
That, of course, is shocking, wicked, and outrageous. But what about Adam? Scripture says that Adam was not deceived. He didn't believe any of the things that Satan had told Eve. He knew God was telling the truth. He knew he would die if he ate of the fruit. So why on earth did he eat of it? The only possible answer is that he cared more about pleasing his wife, even though it would mean his own death, than he did about pleasing God. That, too, is shocking and hard to believe.
No wonder Jesus said, "He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me." And he could have just as accurately also said, "He who loves wife or husband more than me is not worthy of me." So principle number three, God knew that by giving man free will, most of mankind would choose to follow evil rather than good.
Instead of responding in love in return for all of God's love expressed towards us, they would repay His love with treachery. Our first parents chose to listen to others rather than to listen to God. Eve listened to Satan, and Adam listened to Eve. Most of mankind have followed suit listening to anyone but God. When we think about the account of Adam and Eve, we think about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. However, there was another important tree, the tree of life. Genesis tells us this about that tree.
It says, "Then the Lord said, 'Behold, the man has become like one of us to know good and evil. And now lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever. Therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken.'" Now, that's all we know about the tree of life in the garden of Eden, that whoever ate from it would live forever. Interestingly, this tree of life comes back into the picture in the book of Revelation.
So we're going to talk more about it near the end of this message. Almost all Christian churches and denominations agree that the first humans were created with free will and that God originally wanted to have children who loved Him and voluntarily obeyed Him. However, churches disagree on what happened to God's plan as a result of Adam and Eve's sin. Accordingly, churches disagree as to what life is presently all about. I think the big question is, did Satan permanently thwart God's original plan?
According to the Protestant reformers, Satan succeeded. He has permanently thwarted God's original plan. According to them, God is no longer seeking a people who will love and obey Him out of their own free will. The reformers say that because of the fall, humans can no longer love God or obey Him. All of their righteousness is nothing but filthy rags to God. They say that we are totally depraved. So according to the reformers, God has had to move on to plan B.
And their plan B is this: God is still going to redeem a certain portion of mankind, but this will not be because of anything they have done. Rather, God has already arbitrarily chosen whom He will reward with eternal life and whom He will eternally damn. And there is not one thing any of us can do to change our predetermined fate. Unfortunately, according to the reformers, God has chosen to doom the vast majority of mankind to eternal torment.
This teaching may sound terrible, but Martin Luther defended this reformation doctrine, saying, "This is the highest degree of faith: to believe that He is merciful, who saves so few and damns so many; to believe Him to be just, who according to His own will makes us necessarily damnable; that He may seem, as Erasmus says, to delight in the torments of the miserable and to be an object of hatred rather than of love.
If therefore I could by any means comprehend how that same God can be merciful and just, who carries the appearance of so much wrath and iniquity, there would be no need of faith." I agree with Luther. It takes a high degree of faith to believe such a God as he describes that that God is merciful, loving, and just. In truth, the God the reformers created is none of those things. But thankfully, their God is not the God of the Bible.
And it's because of twisted teachings like that that Kingdom Christians through the centuries, groups like the Waldensians and the Anabaptists and the Brethren have had so little regard for the university-educated theologians. What we Kingdom Christians see in scripture is an entirely different God. We see a God of love and mercy, a God who is not difficult to understand, a God whose purposes are never thwarted.
God originally wanted a people who would love and obey Him out of their own free will, and that is what He still wants. Not only that, that is what He will have. We are still living under plan A. Now, I do need to mention that the plan B that Luther and Calvin put forward and the other major reformers has today largely been rejected by most evangelical Christians, and they've substituted a new plan B for it. And under their plan B, salvation is open to everyone. No one has been predestined to hell.
And in order to be saved, a person only has to acknowledge that he is a sinner and cannot save himself and to accept Jesus' free gift of salvation by inviting Jesus into his heart. So long as a person sincerely does this with genuine faith in the ability of Christ's blood to save him, his salvation is assured according to the evangelicals. That person does not have to live in obedience to Christ's commands. So under today's popular gospel, God's original plan has still been forever thwarted.
Instead of populating the universe with people who genuinely love Him and obey His commandments, He's going to have to settle to populate it with people who have embraced the theology that all of their righteousness is as filthy rags and that Christ's righteousness will be imputed to them. In other words, God will pretend that they are righteous even though they're not. However, this is not at all what God had originally planned.
If today's popular theology is true, then Satan succeeded in forever thwarting God's original plan. But if God is going to pretend that people are righteous even though they reject His commandments, why didn't He just pretend that Adam and Eve had never sinned? I feel quite certain that Adam and Eve would have been very willing to acknowledge that they were sinners and couldn't save themselves. If God was willing to settle for that, He could have spared us all of these centuries of evil, couldn't He?
However, God's original purpose has not been thwarted. Right after Adam and Eve sinned, God issued a prophecy to indicate that He had not been defeated, nor had His purpose for mankind been thwarted. In Genesis 3:15, He told Satan, "And I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed.
He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise His heel." It's highly unlikely that Adam and Eve understood the full significance of that prophecy, but we see its fulfillment today in the cross where Jesus was figuratively and literally bruised in the heel. Despite Adam and Eve's sin, God's original plan marched right on. Adam and Eve's second son, Abel, was righteous, and he died as a martyr. Several generations later, Enoch walked with God and was miraculously delivered from this earth.
Then came Noah, who Peter describes as a preacher of righteousness. Hebrews tells us about these three men, saying, "By faith, Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous. By faith, Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death and was not found because God had taken him. For before he was taken, he had this testimony that he pleased God.
By faith, Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith." Yes, God was still looking for righteous men and women who would walk with Him in love, faith, and obedience. Nothing had changed in that respect. Later, Abraham set an example of the type of obedient child God was seeking.
Hebrews tells us, "By faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance." So faith and obedience are not two opposite things, but two things that work hand in glove. Yet Abraham's willingness to leave his homeland and to travel to a faraway country he had never seen was only the beginning. God then gave Abraham a test that was perhaps greater than any test God has given any human. He asked Abraham to personally sacrifice his beloved son, Isaac.
Almost all fathers will lay down their lives to save the lives of their children, but this was the opposite: to take the life of his son. Yet remarkably, Abraham obeyed. Now, as we know, God stopped Abraham's hand at the last moment. Genesis 22 tells us this as to what happened next.
"Then the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time out of heaven and said, 'By myself I have sworn,' says the Lord, 'because you have done this thing and have not withheld your son, your only son, blessing I will bless you and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore, and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies.
In your seed, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.'" Now, listen to this last part: "Because you have obeyed my voice." Yes, even after Adam and Eve's sin, their descendants can obey the voice of God. Now, if an imperfect descendant of Adam and Eve can pass the test that Abraham passed, then indeed God can still populate the universe with His children, children who love Him and choose to obey Him out of their own free will. And God is still looking for such people.
His eternal purpose has not been thwarted one single bit. Now, by now, you may be wondering, "David, are you saying that we can be saved apart from grace? Are you saying we don't need the blood of Christ to cleanse us from our sins?" And that's certainly a valid question, and the answer is no. I'm not even remotely saying that. We can't save ourselves through obedience alone. That's because none of us obey perfectly. So we need God's grace, His mercy, His forgiveness, and we still need the atonement.
And only the blood of Christ can take away sin. Jesus is the door. We can only reach heaven through Him. There is no other way. Unfortunately, though, millions of Christians have been indoctrinated with the notion that there's a conflict between obedience and grace. They imagine that salvation through faith in Christ means we don't have to obey Jesus. However, Jesus said in John 14, "He who has my commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves me.
And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him. If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me does not keep my words." So there's no middle ground. God wants to populate the universe with children who love Him. He doesn't want to spend eternity with people who don't love Him. I mean, after all, would you want to spend eternity with someone who doesn't love you?
And if we love God, we will obey Him. It's that simple. So do you think Adam and Eve truly loved God? Not while they were in Eden. When you love someone, you don't believe lies told about them. When you love someone, you don't join sides with their enemy. So no, Adam and Eve demonstrated that they didn't love their heavenly Father, not at least at the beginning of their life. Hopefully, they did by the time they died. I don't judge where they stand with God. What about Noah, Abraham, and Job?
Well, they loved God, and they proved it by faithfully obeying His commandments. They could have joined the great rebellion against God like everyone else, but they didn't. But were these three men perfect? No, they were imperfect humans, just like the rest of Adam and Eve's offspring. Their obedient love has opened the door to eternal life for them, but they still will enter that door through the shed blood of Jesus Christ.
Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Moses told the Israelites, "I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore, choose life that both you and your descendants may live, that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days." Again, we are obviously still living under plan A.
Moses shows us that God was still looking for children who love Him and who demonstrate their love by obeying Him. And obviously, mankind still had free will, for God told the Israelites to choose between the way of life and the way of death. However, Martin Luther declared that just because God told the Israelites to choose between life and death didn't mean the Israelites had the ability to make that choice. In other words, he said God was just playing games with them.
You can believe that if you want to, but Kingdom people read the Bible as little children. We take things at face value, and we believe the Bible means just what it says. We don't believe in a God who plays word games with us, a God that you need a doctorate in theology to be able to understand. Now, as we go through the Old Testament and read about the history of Israel, one thing in particular stands out: God's plan has not changed. We are still in plan A.
God continues to look for men and women who love Him and demonstrate their love by their obedient walk with Him. Samuel told Saul, "Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.
Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He also has rejected you from being king." No, God still wanted obedience, just as He had wanted from Adam and Eve. In Micah 6:8, God sums up what He is wanting from all of us. We read, "He has shown you, O man, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you? But to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God." That's what God wanted from Adam and Eve, and it's what He still wants.
So we can sum it this up with principle number four, which is all throughout the Old Testament era, we find faithful men and women who love their heavenly Father and show their love by their faithful walk with Him. Adam and Eve's sin did not thwart God's original plan. It was still in effect all throughout the Old Testament period. However, what happens when we cross over to the New Testament? Do we still find the same God, or does He now deal differently with mankind? Let's see.
One of the early events in the New Testament was the ministry of John the Baptist. Matthew gives us this account: "Then Jerusalem, all Judea, and all the region around the Jordan went out to Him and were baptized by Him in the Jordan, confessing their sins. But when He saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to His baptism, He said to them, 'Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
Therefore, bear fruits worthy of repentance, and do not think to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones. And even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore, every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire." So let me ask you, were those people capable of bearing fruits worthy of repentance? If not, why did John tell them to bear such fruits?
People might say, "I'm naive, but when I read that passage, I take it at face value." If John told them to bear fruits worthy of repentance, then I believe they had the ability to do that. In saying that, I don't mean that I think they needed no help from God, nor does it mean I think they could live perfectly by God's commandments. But John didn't call them to live perfect lives. He only called them to bear fruits worthy of repentance.
Okay, you may say that was John the Baptist, but Jesus came preaching a different message. Did He? Well, after describing Jesus' baptism by John the Baptist and His time in the wilderness, Matthew relates this. It says, "From that time, Jesus began to preach and to say, 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.'" Now, that sounds very similar to the message that John the Baptist had been preaching.
At the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, "Enter by the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction. And there are many who go in by it, because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore, by their fruits you will know them.
Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.' Therefore, whoever hears these sayings of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock.
And the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. But everyone who hears these sayings of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, and it fell, and great was its fall." That sounds like plan A to me. It's the same basic message we have been hearing from the beginning.
That is, God is still looking for obedient, loving children. Jesus tells us we make the choice. We can enter in by the narrow gate. He says the narrow gate is difficult, but that's what leads to life. Or we can enter in the broad way that leads to destruction. Sounds very similar to what Moses told the Israelites back there in the book of Deuteronomy. Jesus says that every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
Very reminiscent of John the Baptist preaching about bearing fruit worthy of repentance. And He said that He will reject those, even though they use His name, do miracles in His name, and no doubt call themselves Christians, but they practice lawlessness. In other words, they do not obey Him. And finally, He says, "If we're going to build on the rock, the way we do it is by hearing what He says and doing them." Yes, this is plan A. As God Himself has spoken, "I am the Lord.
I do not change." However, with the coming of Christ, we learn a lot of things about plan A that we didn't know before. For one thing, before Adam and Eve were ever created, God and His Son Jesus had already worked out all of the details by which Jesus would give His life as a ransom for us. They also planned that our sins would be cleansed through the blood of Christ. Jesus and His Father had always known that to become part of God's eternal family, we would need to be rescued by Jesus.
That's why Jesus told us, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." Jesus also told us about a marvelous part of God's plan that no one had ever heard of. That is, we get to be born again. In fact, we must be born again before we can enter the kingdom of God. But this isn't plan B. It's just the full unfolding of plan A.
Although the Old Testament prophets taught much about God's grace, His forgiveness, and mercy, we learn even more about these qualities of the Father through the teachings of Jesus. However, grace and a new birth don't eliminate the need for obedience. Rather, they eliminate the need to wallow in sin. As we read earlier, Jesus told us that if we love Him, we will keep His commandments. And He made it clear that how we live will be the determining factor as to what our eternal destiny will be.
He said, "Do not marvel at this, for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth, those who have done good to the resurrection of life and those who have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation." That's John 5:28 and 29. In Matthew 25, Jesus says basically the same thing, explaining that He will separate the sheep from the goats based on what they have done to help the hungry, the poor, the sick, and the needy.
So our eternal destiny still turns on whether we have done good or whether we have done evil. In other words, what kind of children have we turned out to be? Now, some people will say, "Well, that was all under a different dispensation. Now we live in the dispensation of grace." They say in the dispensation of grace, it is good to obey God, but it has nothing to do with our salvation. We're saved by faith alone. Now, this is the evangelical plan B I talked about earlier.
Well, under this popular teaching, God is going to populate heaven with people who don't love Him. Now, your first response may be, "David, that's not true. Evangelicals don't teach that." And you're right. No one expressly says that. However, Jesus said in John 14 that if we love Him, we will keep His commandments. And if we don't keep His commandments, we don't love Him. So if we can inherit eternal life without steadfastly obeying Christ, then we can be saved without loving Him. And that is not going to happen.
All of the accolades of praise and all of the professions of love, people lather on the name of Jesus, means absolutely nothing to Him if we don't obey Him. How we live tells Him how much we really love Him and how much we really appreciate Him. The gospel that Jesus preached is the same gospel His apostles preached. There aren't two gospels. In fact, in His letter to the Romans, Paul says almost the exact same thing about the resurrection that Jesus had earlier said.
In Romans 2, Paul writes, "But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart, you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to each one according to his works eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality.
But to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish on every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek. But glory, honor, and peace to everyone who works what is good to the Jew first and also to the Greek." So you see, Paul was preaching the same message as Jesus. It doesn't change when Paul came upon the scene.
The thing that Paul and the other apostles point out that is new is the fact that salvation was now open to all people, Jew and Gentile alike, without regard to circumcision and without regard to the law of Moses. Those two things, circumcision and the law of Moses, were temporary commandments. They were never a permanent part of plan A. However, how we live is still the key thing, assuming we have faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior. And I didn't just pull an isolated passage of Paul out of context.
The necessity of living an obedient life of love is one of the messages that Paul teaches in nearly all of his letters. And it's the same message that the other New Testament writers teach. Here are just some more examples from Paul. 1 Corinthians 6:9 and 10. "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived.
Neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor homosexuals nor Sodomites nor thieves nor covetous nor drunkards nor revilers nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God." 1 Corinthians 7:19. "Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing. But keeping the commandments of God is what matters." 2 Corinthians 5:9 and 10. "Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well-pleasing to Him.
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ that each one may receive the things done in the body according to what He has done, whether good or bad." Galatians 5:19 through 21.
"Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are adultery, fornication—I'm not going to read the whole list—envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like, of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God." Hebrews 10:26 through 29.
"For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries. Anyone who has rejected Moses' law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. Of how much worse punishment do you suppose?
Will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?" And to those words of Paul, we can add the well-known teaching from James. James 2:21 through 25. "Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar?" Do you see that faith was working together with his works? And by works, faith was made perfect.
And the scripture was fulfilled which says, "Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness, and he was called a friend of God." You see then that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone. "Likewise, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way?" So principle number five, when we reach the epistles, we don't suddenly switch to plan B. It's still plan A, wonderful plan A. Now here's the marvelous part.
When we get to the last book of the Bible, Revelation, we find that the Bible ends on the same note in which it started and brings everything to completion. Revelation 20:11 and 12. "Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and heaven fled away, and there was found no place for them.
And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the book of life, and the dead were judged according to their works by the things written in the books." Just like Jesus said it would be and just like Paul said it would be. As God said, "I do not change." And as Hebrews tells us, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever." Do you see now how consistent the scriptures are?
The fundamental message is the same from the first pages of Genesis right up to the final chapter of Revelation. The Bible starts off with the account of how man lost paradise because of disobedience. It ends with a description of how the loving, obedient children of God will regain paradise. Jesus tells us in Revelation 2:7, "To him who overcomes, I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God." Now, I have no idea whether this is an earthly or heavenly paradise.
All I know is that God has not forgotten about the tree of life we read about earlier in Genesis. The children of God who overcome this world will be privileged to return to the paradise of God and to eat from that tree. So everything comes back full circle. Isn't God wonderful? Theologians have made the God of the Bible so complicated. They've divided up His actions into imaginary dispensations as though God changes every few centuries or millennia. But God does not change. There has never been a plan B.
The Bible is a unified whole. Although the Old Testament is very incomplete without the new, without Christ. But from the very first prophecy in Genesis 3 to the end of the Old Testament, prophecy after prophecy in the Old Testament points to Jesus. To be sure, we have been affected by our first parents' disobedience. But what we have lost in the fall, we've gained back through Christ as a result of the blood of Christ.
And although we are still imperfect, we stand in basically the same situation as did Adam and Eve and with the same fundamental test. Will we believe God and obey Him? Or will we side with Satan? Do we believe that every one of God's laws were given because He loves us? Or do we believe He doesn't have our best interest in mind when He gives us His commandments? In conclusion, what is life all about? Well, it's about a God who created children as an expression of His love.
It's about our being tested as to whether we will reciprocate with love for Him. Life is about loving God and demonstrating our love for Him through our willing obedience. As I said earlier, we love giving gifts and joy to our children. God is no different. If we will stay true to God and prove to be His loving children, this is the wonderful thing He has in store for us. Revelation 22 describes it. "And He showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb.
In the middle of its street and on either side of the river was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations, and there shall be no more curse. But the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants shall serve Him. They shall see His face, and His name shall be on their foreheads. There will be no night there.
They need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light, and they shall reign forever and ever."