Sexual intimacy, is as close to another person as you can get. Adam & Eve after the fall knew each other. But it contained the first fruits of the knowledge that themselves had done something that they had wanted to push under the bed or hide in a basket.
But the light of this world made their transgression manifest that he might clothe them with the only remedy to darkness, death, demons & disobedience – The covering of the sacrificial blood of the lamb.
Adam & Eves first fruit was bad it was the product of the fall. Adam & Eves knowing of each other lacked the babe of Bethlehem, it lacked the arch Angel Gabriel and the very word from heaven.
The seed had been corrupted.
The seed had been corrupted bringing with it thorns and the deceitfulness of riches, the ground of their hearts had become rocky.
While at University the visiting speaker at the Christian Union, made a passing reference to pre fall life. He casually made reference and directly implied that they would have been sexually active. He wasn’t making any kind of theological point, but it is an inference that I believe is incorrect and which I believe is incorrect for a number of reasons.
Primarily, God wanted Adam & Eves fruit to be after his own likeness, hence, had they resisted temptation they would have as individuals and as a couple received the word of God. Had they stood upon the truth and promises of God in temptations hour they would have become one with the word, the ground upon which the fruit would have reproduced after Gods own kindness.
The foundations would have been stable, and God would have been able to pour out his love upon them.
And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness.
Jesus was led, by Gods Spirit IN the wilderness. He was not taken into the wilderness to prove himself as a man able to resist temptation. No, Jesus knew how to answer the devil, as he was being lead continually by the Spirit – you shall not tempt the Lord your God. Jesus overcame temptation not by proving himself, but by trusting his Fathers faithfulness.
Jesus kept the Word his Father had spoken from an open heaven. Jesus did not allow it to be snatched away by the devil. The path laid out before Jesus had taken him to the Jordan and then into the wilderness, and the Word God had spoken to him was not going to be snatched away by some passing bird of flight. Jesus was not on his own path, he was not following a path that was open to negotiation and flights of fancy or self determination – such paths are from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Command these stones to become bread.
Jesus would not change his path, Jesus being led of the Spirit accepted the terrain into which he had been led. As the Son of God, Jesus has shown us the path of obedience and the path of the reality of the providential providence of God. Jesus knew that had his Father so decreed he could have sent manna from heaven. Jesus accepted the circumstances and environment into which he had been led as the crucible in which his Father would be glorified.
Political correctness has a veiling of this path, as within political correctness is a denial of truth, Man cannot create an environment that is in and of itself all goodness. And thus, Political correctness is a veil to the kingdom of deception, but the fear through which it attempts to conform the masses is its unveiling as a deception of darkness, as the truth sets you free from fear and torment.
Jesus walked through the wilderness as a light, as a providential and sovereign light. This light, this life, this character and nature of a man, was defined by the Word that kept him and that he would not have snatched from him. Jesus, walked through the wilderness as a man speaking the word of truth unto his own heart: My Father loves me.
This is the knowledge of truth, this is the incorruptible seed, this is the demarcation and it is the ground that God is seeking to cultivate in all are lives.
‘My Father loves me’, this is full of authenticity, this is full of wonder, this is full of relationship, wonder, worship and boundless creativity. This is full of life and it is full of a life that has a knowledge of a kingdom that a serpent could never replicate as rebellion and deception cannot produce the fruits of Gods Spirit: Love.
Fruit of Gods Spirit: Love. Jesus was led in the wilderness by the Spirit, it was a path set before him to endure that his Joy may be full through a great cloud of witnesses seeing the throne of God – the reign of God, a kingdom ruled by the crucified one.
We need this Word of God to endure. We need this Word of God that saves us from are sins. We need the crucified one to keep his death, resurrection and ascension as the path which has utterly routed the powers of darkness.
We need this Word of God to love are enemies, to shine a light into the fears of Political insanity. The enlightenment is founded on science but there is no science that changes the biological, the chemistry or physics of gender as its in the dna.
How is it that men and women especially in the public eye can be afraid of affirming that a man is a man and a women is a women, how is it that the process by which we have all been born, can be denied. Oh, thank God for the path….thank God for the Bible and the Word of God, as it is ultimately the only way through, the wilderness that seeks to steal from man the Glory of the knowledge of God: My Father Loves Me – Glory to the Lamb of GOD.
Why Matthew and Luke have the second and third temptations in opposite orders I know not, but that both have genealogies present in relation to it is a more important truth.
Matthew goes from Abraham to Jesus, linking the uniqueness of having no earthly Father with the voice that spake from heaven at his baptism.
Jesus was not a politically correct birth, he was born as a word from heaven, born King of the Jews. Jesus was not born to fit into the cliche of the establishment or to rise through its ranks through conformity to its deception.
Luke, goes right back to Adam, while also highlighting the uniqueness of his birth. Therefore, the entrance into the wilderness and overcoming the deception of the devil and this fallen and corrupt world is the Word of God from the beginning – God hasn’t changed the path of fruitfulness, it has unity and oneness with his Word of Life as the only tree that can bear good fruit after Gods own kindness – a crucified Saviour, the truth that God has withheld no good thing to make us wise – the dying thief procuring wisdom through fear of being lead off the highway into Heaven – remember me in your kingdom, at your Fathers right hand side, I want to be in a kingdom where the Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father, this is the environment I want to live for eternity.
All the devils deception, could not take this word from the dying thief’s heart. No bird of the air could steal it. He had heard the bedrock, and he had seen the truth, the Father loved the Son, he knew it as no Son could forgive like that unless he knew his Fathers heart.
The thief found that which cannot be taken away. He found the ground that is eternal and that has no competition, no glitz or fame or wealth can come close to genuine love born out of union and oneness with Gods own heart.
Perhaps the parable of the Sower with the three negative grounds has a parallel with the three temptations of Jesus, the Word that produces fruit.
Perhaps the second temptation in Matthews sequence mirrors the ground that has no root. In that the deception is to lie when hardship comes that Gods truth cannot be in this. On the pinnacle of the temple in worship and upon the high places of religion and works, in this place we will not experience conflict or temptation and if we do then Gods Word is not true!! The devil wanted Jesus to conform to political correctness, the devil wanted to make Jesus effeminate by making the word of God only a platform that has no test or temptation, or conflict. But that is such a 100 % lie, as being patted on the back by the devil, is no salvation from the fall at all. Jesus came to redeem men from the slim pits of babel, a corrupt and deceitful building reaching into the heavens declaring that the cross would not be the wisdom that founded their eternal security.
Jesus knew that the devil was a lier, Jesus was not deceived by the devils temptation on the pinnacle of the temple. His Father had allowed his Son to be carried there by the prince of darkness, but Jesus would not make the high place of worship a pretty little scene, as the procession of no roots passed by. Jesus was on a path to the cross, where they put nails through his feet, and Jesus was already intent on forgiving those who would do this to him, Jesus wanted to be carried by the Angels back to his Fathers home and embrace having finished the redemption of the high place, having torn the veil of separation through his own sacrifice for the rebellious sin of this world.
This unveiling of the truth of God, God shared the beloved Son with us. This truth doesn’t need slim to climb, NO God forbid, as are security is in the Fathers Love, who So loved us that he gave us his only begotten Son. The path upon which Jesus was nailed to a Cross, that is a place that has the deepest roots of love, it is a place that germination occurs, where true worship gives sight: Let us make man in are image, Let us see if what they are building is good and kind unto children and the next generation.
Matthew starts with Abraham as he was a worshipper of God, a man who would not be compromised by the politics of Sodom. Abraham, rejected all the kingdoms of fallen mans corruption, he rejected them as the Glory of God had appeared to him: My Father loves me, Abraham knew that the fellowship of God, was the light and truth of Creation. To loose him, to loose his blessing, left only a fallen and corrupt slim pit.
The cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desire for other things only ever choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. All have their origin to the original temptation and fall. All three types of ground are indelibly from that root.
But this one, the third in Matthews gospel, is the progressive one, this one is the one that has fully flowered and has its branches all over the place, over the highway and in are cities on billboards and Tv Adverts.
This one is the whole tree of another seed, of another kingdom.
The cog of industry, of education, of fashion, of leisure. All and anything that predominates us to the extent that we do not allow the word of God to naturally bear its own fruit.
This one is the more enduring one that we are surrounded by daily, have we made a start, have we endure initial persecution, but this babel is pressing its walls upon mans soul from every side.
But the Spirit, he is here to help us and to lead us and to guide us, hence the imperative injunction to be filled and to keep on being filled. Gods remedy is not an uprising against political correctness rather a constant supply of a better wine and fellowship: My Father loves me, my father will provide all I need to get through today and then tomorrow and then when I am old, every stage of life he is faithful.
Thomas was not afraid as he took the truth of Jesus’s path to the religious elite around Jerusalem – God fulfilled his Word of promise and he was despised and rejected of men for your healing. And he was not effeminate as he walked towards India with its multitude of demi idol gods. He knew the love of God revealed through the Cross was the highest throne in heaven.
Mark Ch 4 v20:
Thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.
Three negative grounds – spoken into by Gods redemptive seed of promise and unto all nations and families.
thirtyfold.
Jesus was thirty years old when he was baptized. The seed that went into the ground and died on the third day.
Sixtyfold, is two thirtyfold’s. Six is the number of man. Gods image Male & Female.
A hundredfold is three thirtyfold’s plus ten.
Last night on a Zoom service we had a message based on the Hebrews epistle a central text being Hebrews Ch 8 v1. His message was that we need the sacrifice of Jesus to worship God and to be liberated. That through the sacrifice of Jesus Gods living word and spirit (bread & wine) God creates the response unto him. That through the Son, the love of God is poured out and back unto God, setting are own hearts free with Joy and gladness. He referred to Gen Ch 14, how that God knew that Abraham despite the great victory had an inward need, and that was for bread and wine, the living Word and Spirit. God knows are need. Abraham gave him a tenth, in response to the bread and the wine.
Well it made something click here for me, in that the hundred fold has the addition of the 10th. God adds to the pattern a 10th. You cant out give God, the hundredfold already has a factor of 10 to it. But God highlights it, as the acknowledgement that it came from God in the first place is an essential factor in the seed bearing good fruit.
The fourth ground is good. The 4th has light in it, the 4th has the word not returning void.
The fourth has the provided sacrifice the foundation between the ground and heavens fruit – Gods word producing its original intended design and purpose. The fourth has the cross & the blood completing the doorway.
Something redemptive in the hundredfold. Covers the three negative grounds 3×30.
But has an addition of ten, its like the Lord is saying the true blueprint cant be overcome and that heaven will be a lampstand of nations & families that proves his path is the way of purest love and the fruit of God is everlasting Joy. That the blueprint is Gods eternal dwelling place prepared before the foundations of the earth for his bride to inhabit.
A physical and spiritual union. Physical in respect to it being are actual habitation.
Revelation Ch 22 v17
The 100 fold speaks of more having been added. For to the one who has, more will be given.
The measure you use, it will be measured to you & still more will be added – ten.
Measure – the proportion you receive & hold onto.
This implies that Gods word itself & his truth, his light, that they are what contain the fruit not the ground.
The fruit depends on receiving it and holding it.
The depth that you hear, the heart of God. That is the measure – God has given all of himself Gen Ch 22: God provided a sacrifice.
From sixtyfold to hundredfold is the addition of 40.
The 40 speaks of Jesus’s 40 days in the wilderness, of Israels 40 years in the wilderness.
Isaac was 40 when he married Rebecca.
The seed and the ground became fruitful together – literally – in their union after Isaac prayed.
There was famine, but Isaac obeyed God and did not go down to Egypt and the Lord blessed him a hundredfold.
The measure must be in this narrative: Rebecca paid attention to the messenger, the Holy Spirit. The story of Abraham and Gods timing in her own response to giving the camels water. She had heard loves call through her own spontaneous obedient service & knew that this was the measure that must be used. And she responded having never met the man, I will go, this is the land that is good as her faith was placed entirely in the God of covenant promise.
Faith works by love.
Note:
Of course thirtyfold and sixtyfold, they are good ground 100 %. And they are a measure.
But the 100 fold has an aspect to it that is unique. When scripture has an addition to what was a clear multiplication it must have meaning its not random.
God is speaking into all the negative ground of hurt and pain defeat and failure. Of loving other things, and not experiencing the extravagant heart of God.
God is speaking redemption, God is speaking transformation.
Am I surrounded by concrete blocks that block the horizon, am I struggling just to keep one flower alive within the metropolis of this world.
The 100 fold has a perfection to it, it has the new creation the floodwaters having passed away.
It has the birth of the promised Son, unto the Father of are faith, it has wrapped within it the seed-line of promises that crushes the serpent lies and deception.
Preach the love of God, Preach redemption, Preach the prince of peace, Preach the good seed of the new covenant.
The 100 fold has the redemption of the land in it, not stopped by skyscrapers or thorn bushes, not by concrete and hard ground. The famine, the uncircumcised nor the giants could stop the seed of promise bearing fruit when the path has been laid by heaven and the seed sown in obedient faith.
eternalrays 