By Lord Buckbeak

7/28/22

I heard this on Bott Radio. Pastor Robert Morris of Gateway Church in Dallas was preaching and this aired Jan 10, 2023. As near as I can discern from the Gateway church website they are a charismatic-dispensational church. I neither recommend nor de-recommend their church (even tho’ they claim to be nondenominational, every church has a denominational-type set of beliefs) as their Statement of Faith is biblically sound and very much the same as any number of evangelical, bible-believing Christian churches across America. Like many charismatic Christian churches they have female pastors while their Elders are all properly men as the scriptures state. I note this simply to give some background and proper credit to my source.

Morris said that we need to know that we are human beings, not human doings. Then using Gen 1:26-28 he stated that God gave man (that is mankind, male and female) a directive for living with Him. Morris calls it the four ‘B’s. That is Being, Believing, Belonging, and Building. God gave us our Being which is in His image. He wants us to believe what He tells us that we may have eternal life in Christ. He wants us to Belong to His family. And He wants us to build His kingdom.

Morris goes on to say that God warned Adam and Eve that the Tree of Knowledge (of good and evil) was poisonous and that if they ate of its fruit they would die. God wanted man to believe Him and live. Man did not believe God, ate and so they died. Morris then relates a cute incident from his wife’s childhood that bears on this idea. When his wife was a little girl she was watching her father use a soldering iron and he warned his daughter not to touch the iron as it would be hot and would burn her. Looking at the iron it did not appear hot so she touched it and burned herself. After soothing her he reminded her that he had warned her not to touch the iron and that he was sorry that she did not believe him and got hurt. She responded, “You should have put it up Daddy, you know what I’m like.”

That is a great illustration of blaming God for our failure. “You know what we are like so why did you leave the tree there?” Anyone who reads this story for the first (or hundredth) time is tempted to say the same thing. But the foundation of our salvation, of life with God, is to believe what He says whether or not it seems right to us. Without faith it is impossible to please Him (Heb 11:6).

This standard interpretation of the Fall is reasonable and has been the interpretation of the church for thousands of years. It however leaves out an important and I would say vital point. Without the Holy Spirit it is impossible for the natural man to believe God. Further it is impossible to resist temptation in our natural state and I include this to be our state of innocence before the Fall. To resist the temptation to eat of the Tree of Knowledge required supernatural insight and power which only comes to man by the gift of the Holy Spirit.

And how were Adam and Eve supposed to obtain this gift? By eating of the Tree of Life which represented Christ. Adam and Eve erroneously believed that they could resist the Tree of Death under their own power. As they steadfastly refused to eat of the Tree of Life they had no power to resist the Devil when he came calling.

The Two Trees were no ordinary trees as were the rest of the trees in the Garden. They were supernatural Trees that had the power to give or take life. That is spiritual or eternal life not necessarily ordinary biological life. We know Adam never ate of the Tree of Life because God had to place the burning sword to prevent them from doing so after the Fall. We also know that the pair did not die physically immediately after they ate, nor for nearly a thousand years. They did however die within that ‘day’ as a day is unto the Lord as a thousand years. The two did however die spiritually the moment they ate the poisonous fruit.

God did not give them the gift of faith to believe His word, eat of the Tree of Life and live forever (Gen 3:22). The reason for this we know from Paul’s teaching in the book of Romans. God had determined in Eternity to show His mercy, love and grace to all beings by redeeming the elect among men through the sacrifice of His Only Son. It was not to angels that He showed mercy but to man. To the elect angels, who kept their original estate, God confirmed them in Holiness. To the fallen angels He showed judgment and wrath without mercy. To the elect among men, the redeemed, He will also confirm them in Holiness when they shake off this mortal coil and put on immortality. To the rest of men He will show judgment and wrath without mercy.

It goes without question that God has placed us, completely and miraculously, on this earth for a purpose.

The five videos below address the topic of the “Goldilocks” (just right) universe, its fine tuning for life, and its miraculous origin in the Big Bang. They also address the futility of multiverse reasoning in an attempt to circumvent the obvious need for a Creator who exists beyond space-time, matter-energy, i.e., the universe.

But what is that purpose? The Westminster Catechism asks the question this way: “What is the chief end of man? The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.”

This is certainly a clear and direct answer to the question of purpose for all sentient, created beings – from angels to archangels, cherubim to seraphim, men, women and children – we are all created to glorify God by enjoying his presence forever.

But this answer still begs the question, how do we specifically as humans and as individuals glorify God now, in this life?

I believe the answer to be this: That we, while in this life, must properly and effectively bear the image of God by doing what He did. I fully address the various nuances to what it means to be an image bearer in this blog, so here I will just state the conclusion of that blog as given by Tom Terry.

God says in Genesis 1:26 that man is to rule over the earth. He repeats this idea in verses 27 and 28 when he said to Adam, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

These are very important commands, and they form the first part of the covenant God made with Adam. That covenant is still in place today for you and I.  It is God’s covenant with man—regardless of whether man is a believer or not.  What did God command man to do?

•    Be Fruitful
•    Multiply
•    Fill the earth
•    Subdue
•    Rule

Have you ever wondered why God issued these five commands to man? He did so because in the preceding verse (26) he declared man to be made in his image. These two ideas are inseparably linked.

The answer historically given by the church from Augustine up to the Reformation was that God was only glorified by human activity directly related to His service and worship. Activities involved in the mass or in caring for the poor brought praises and honor to God’s name and therefore glorified Him. In contrast those normal activities that sustained our common life such as building homes, cooking, cleaning, farming, etc., were vulgar, secular, and profane.

This separation of the secular and the sacred led to the common Christian feeling a sense of hopelessness in ever moving forward in his personal sanctification and walk with God while demeaning the common labor necessary to sustain life and provide monies for the church. Income from secular pursuits could only be redeemed if given to the church. Working to better one’s station in life was condemned as greedy or materialistic. This stemmed from an interpretation of Genesis chapter 3 that work was part of the curse God pronounced on man after the Fall.

However with the Reformation and the establishment of the Protestant work ethic, particularly by John Calvin, all honest work was elevated to its rightful place as a blessing from God and a noble and even holy endeavor. The Reformers sought to reestablish the honor in honest labor stating that any work done to the benefit of you, your family and your neighbor was  glorifying to God because such work blessed both the worker, through his wages, and the recipient of the labor through the meeting of some need.

And holiness was not simply giving prayers and studying the Word but also included the normal affairs of life such as rearing children, honest labor, and living a  pure and undefiled life in the world.

This meant that all believers, not just the clergy, were set apart for God’s service.  When any believer lived his or her life with integrity, study, prayerfulness and honor he or she was engaging in the practice of holiness.  When a Christian went about his duties – whether cooking or cleaning, mending or building, plowing, sowing or reaping – he was glorifying his Father in Heaven.  All things were to be brought captive to Christ – whether rising in the morning or laying down at night, whether work or play or rest – all were to be done to the glory of God in Christ.

Calvin was a student of the Apostle Paul and especially his letter to the Romans.  That is why Calvin is known for reestablishing the honor of work and the doctrine of predestination – both concepts largely taken from the writings of Paul.  Paul also wrote that those who labor full time for the Lord were worthy of double honor and deserved to be compensated for their work.  But at the same time not all pastors faithfully care for their flocks just as not all believers faithfully fulfill their duties to themselves, their families, their neighbors or to God.

Concomitant with the restoration of the value of common labor was the restoration of the priesthood of all believers.  That is all baptized Christians were a holy priesthood, a royal nation of kings and queens in the eyes of God.  Rather than a separate priesthood with special powers and access to God all believers had direct access to God in Christ.  All believers were to be separate from the world and to lead holy and sanctified lives.  And when a believer shares the Gospel with anyone he or she is acting as a prophet bringing the very oracles of Heaven to the lost and showing them the way to eternal life.

Much debate has ensued as to what it means to be in the world but not part of it.  This is answered by the Apostle John when he delineates what separation from the world means.  It is to avoid the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.  And what does this mean?  I think a helpful answer is to note that John is echoing Genesis 3:6 and the Fall of Eve.  After listening to the Serpent she believed that the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge was good for food, pleasant to the eyes and desirable to make one wise.  All of which turned out to be wrong.  The fruit was actually poison, its beauty was only skin deep, and they became fools who ate of it.

Simply put she rejected the Word of God, listened to Satan’s lies, and followed the lust of her flesh, the lust of her eyes and the pride of life.  Yet she and Adam were freely offered eternal life.  God commanded them to eat of the Tree of Life which they refused to do.  Its fruit was small and unappealing to the eyes.  It neither looked good nor gave off any enticing aromas to lure one to eat it.  In short it could only be eaten in faith.

What God is saying in His word is that the world is continually offering you poison wrapped up to look like the most wonderful of foods.  It entices men to lust after women, and women to lust after money, and people to pursue wealth through fraud.  It calls us to believe that if we just had more food, drink and sex we would be happy.  Or if we seek out the hidden things of the Spirit through mediums, seances, fortune telling, and the occult we will be wise. It calls us to worship the sun, the moon and the stars and to call Chance our father and the Earth our mother.

The Roman church went too far as it did in many things.  It took separation from the world to mean that a holy person should eat drab, boring foods; it was better to be celibate than to marry and taint yourself with sex; and to study anything to grow in knowledge and wisdom of the created order was to seek after forbidden knowledge.  It taught the divine right of Kings to rule and that the peasants should be happy in their poverty and grateful for the King’s protection and willingly go off to die in his wars. And of course to actually enjoy one’s work was a direct affront to God since it was given as a curse.

All of this started to change with the Reformation and the Enlightenment. For it is the Reformation coupled with the Enlightenment that produced an American revolution that led to stability, peace and freedom under God. It should be noted that the French revolution combined the Renaissance with the Enlightenment and produced the Reign of Terror, instability, multiple constitutions and republics, the Napoleonic wars and atheism.

Now back to the question of our purpose in life.  In general the obvious answer for the individual is that you will know how to fulfill your particular purpose in life by following where your talents, opportunities and desires lead you.  In other words following your gifts.  Many of us waste far too much time and energy fretting and worrying about finding our purpose in life when we haven’t a clue how we would recognize it if we found it.  When you pray ask God to make you aware of your own talents and gifts and how best to use these to provide for yourself and your family and to honor God.  Seek God with all of your heart, mind, soul and will and He will give you the desires of your heart.  And remember that those who desire fame or fortune will generally find ruin in this world and in the next.