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God’s Word is the Rock of our salvation—the salvation of the soul. Most have spent scant time attending to the needs of the soul. All of us have a soul man who has eyes, ears, lips, hands, and feet. A soul is a spiritual entity that can clearly be seen in the spirit realm. The soul of the redeemed eats and his food is the Word of God. Revelation 19:13 speaks of Jesus Christ and states that “His name is called The Word of God.” John 6:32-35:
32 Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven.
33 For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world.
34 Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread.
35 And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.
Salvation—the place Jesus calls “born again”—is where the redeemed soul begins to partake of the bread that came down from heaven.
Have you been born again? Have you taken the time to consider your own soul? Are you ready to come and dine? Will today be the day you repent of your sins and surrender yourself to Jesus Christ? You won’t regret it. Do it now. Click onto “Further With Jesus” for childlike instructions and immediate entry into the Kingdom of God. NOW FOR TODAY’S SUBJECT.
GOD SAID, Isaiah 5:20-23:
20 Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
21 Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!
22 Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink:
23 Which justify the wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him!
GOD SAID, Genesis 3:24:
So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.
MAN SAID: “How to retire a millionaire!”
Now THE RECORD: Welcome to GodSaidManSaid feature 781 that will once again confirm the inerrancy of the Holy Bible. All of these features are archived here in text and streaming audio for the edification of the blood-bought and as ammunition in the battle for the souls of men. Every Thursday eve, God willing, they grow by one. Thank you for visiting today.
In the beginning, everything was flipped upside-down: everything. God’s original plan for man was immortality in Paradise where there was no sickness or sorrow, no pain or crying, nor death—and no knowledge of good and evil. But one day, our grandmother Eve, in an act of unbelief and disobedience, ate from the forbidden tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and our grandfather Adam followed her. God’s caution to them is recorded in Genesis 2:17:
But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
Adam and Eve died the very day they ate of the tree even though they lived on for hundreds of years. The Scriptures speak of two deaths.
Revelation 2:10-11:
10 Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.
11 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death.
Where the progeny of Adam and Eve are concerned, the first death is when the physical body is laid in the grave. The second death, then, is a spiritual death where one is separated from God—who alone is the source of every good and perfect gift—and cast into hell and, finally, the Lake of Fire, which is eternal judgment. This place is not oblivion, but a place of eternal punishment wherein dwells nothing good. This is the second death.
We are not like Adam and Eve in their original state. They were created to live forever; they were immortal, but chose instead, in an act of unbelief and disobedience, to reject God’s Word and die. Adam and Eve died the second death first. Hundreds of years later, they died the first death. You and I, on the other hand, were dead in trespasses and sins and by the preaching of the Cross, we were convinced to repent of our sins and to believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ. Here, we inherited the promise of the blessed hope. We die the first death first, but the second death has no power over us. We pass on into immortality. Revelation 21:4:
And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.
REVIEW:
• Everything was flipped upside-down: Adam and Eve were created to live forever but chose to die—dying the second death first, and hundreds of years later, dying the first death.
• The redeemed were spiritually born dead in trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1), but through the preaching of the Cross chose Jesus Christ—the promise of eternal life. We die the first death, but the second death has no power over us and we pass onto eternal life. Jesus said it’s impossible to die. Revelation 21: 4:
And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.
Of course, these are opposite positions.
In Eden, everything was turned upside-down. Because of Eve and Adam’s sin, everything was turned upside-down and it’s everywhere to see. The children of Eve and Adam are like mother, like daughter; like father, like son.
Isaiah 5:18-23:
18 Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope:
19 That say, Let him make speed, and hasten his work, that we may see it: and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and come, that we may know it!
20 Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
21 Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!
22 Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink:
23 Which justify the wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him!
In the Saxon language, according to Noah Webster’s 1828 American Dictionary, good and God are interchangeable. Verse 20 would then read, “Woe unto them that call evil God, and God evil;”—and that is surely this world’s state of affairs. Several examples of the upside-down opposites follow:
♦ In the very beginning, God established His social structure. He biologically designed male and female and directed them to come together in marriage, bear children, and create a family—the cornerstone of a healthy, thriving society. Genesis 1: 27-28:
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
Genesis 2:23-24:
23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
But Satan, whose M.O. is to steal, kill, and destroy, seduced men into believing that homosexuality is a desirable and acceptable lifestyle—including gay marriage. The social structure is upside-down. Those who oppose today’s new morés are labeled as “evil.”
♦ In US politics, there are two dominant philosophies, liberalism and conservatism, and they oppose one another. GodSaidManSaid has no political affiliation, but Christians, because they are students of the Bible, are conservative. The more Bible you believe, the more conservative you are.
Listening to the radio the other day, I heard a researcher using data gathered from Spotify listeners reporting on top song choices of the Iowa audience—an audience with a strong evangelical-conservative base—versus New Hampshire, which has the opposite. In Iowa, the contemporary version of the gospel song “Amazing Grace” was first place. In New Hampshire, the first place song, whose title I have forgotten, was reported to have included in its opening lyrics:“M.F-er.” That is an abbreviation. Everything is turned upside down.
It’s easier to believe a lie than the truth because of the Adamic nature. Everything was turned upside-down in Eden.
The world is caught up in digital social media (e.g. Twitter and Facebook), and false perceptions abound, with many profiting by it. Charles Seife, in his book Virtual Unreality, wrote the following:
And that’s just one upon thousands of thousands of schemes to create fake Twitter users. There are plenty of sites out there where you can purchase Twitter followers—the going rate right now is about a penny a follower (with discounts for bulk purchase). Since a person’s importance on Twitter is largely measured by the size of his audience, swelling the ranks with phony accounts can make you look a lot more important than you are. It’s not an uncommon practice.
Sometimes fake Twitterers can be used for political ends. In mid-2011, as Republican candidates were jockeying for position before the official opening of primary season, it looked as though Newt Gingrich was building a surprisingly strong following on the internet. He made it a point of his campaign to use social media to build excitement around him. In fact, earlier that year, Gingrich became the first major presidential hopeful to announce his candidacy via Twitter. With 1.3 million followers, it seemed that he had quite a lot of backing—and he didn’t let his opponents forget it. “I have six times as many Twitter followers as all the other candidates combined,” he bragged to the Marietta Daily Journal. But in August, an anonymous former Gingrich staffer told Gawker that the vast majority of those followers were fake. “Newt employs a variety of agencies whose sole purpose is to procure Twitter followers for people who are shallow/insecure/unpopular enough to pay for them,” the staffer told the website. “As you might guess, Newt is decidedly one of those people to which these agencies cater.” Within a few days, the web analytic firm PeekYou looked at Newt’s followers and determined that, of those 1.3 million followers, a mere 8 percent were real human beings. “Newt Gingrich’s [8 percent] was the lowest we had ever seen,” the CEO of PeekYou said in a press release. “At first, we actually thought it might have been a bug on our side, but a quick manual look at the data showed our analysis was true.”
Though Gingrich’s campaign denied the charges, it’s hard to imagine that he—or at least his social media team—was unaware that the vast majority of his followers were not real. They’re easy to spot. [End of quote]
Truly, this is a world upside-down.
The headline reads “How to Retire a Millionaire.” Man spends 65 years of his life preparing for five years of retirement and not 65 minutes for his eternal soul. It’s upside-down. Man strives to accumulate Monopoly money—simply recycled mud—never considering that when he dies, it’s not his anymore—not his money, not his car, not his clothes, not his house, not even his wife. Consider that Jesus Christ left this earth at Calvary as a naked pauper. Because of that sacrifice, the headline of the born-again reads, “How to Live Forever with Wealth beyond Measure.” In Eden, everything was turned upside-down, but Jesus Christ came to set it straight. Serve the Lord Jesus with your might and your outcome will be glorious.
GOD SAID, Isaiah 5:20-23:
20 Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
21 Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!
22 Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink:
23 Which justify the wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him!
GOD SAID, Genesis 3:24:
So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.
MAN SAID: “How to retire a millionaire!”
Now you have THE RECORD.
References:
Authorized King James Version
Seife, C., Virtual Unreality, Penguin Group, 2014, New York
