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The Light
Dr David Wood
THE LIGHT
OBEDIENCE PART TWO – THE SIXTH SPIRITUAL LAW
By
Dr. David R. Wood
We at Eastern Gate Ministries International
Incorporated greet our partners and friends everywhere. It is my distinct
privilege and pleasure to bring The Light to you each month. I encourage you to
read it, meditate upon the content and if you have questions feel free to
contact me through the website. Again this month I will be talking about
obedience before we move on to the Seventh Spiritual Law. Like I said last
month I can sense your enthusiasm building already. Obedience is not a dirty
word but with God obedience in fact puts you in the best of all places, His
will. It may be useful for you to review last month teaching which was titled,
Obedience – The Sixth Spiritual Law.
In the garden of Eden Adam was given a limited
number of commandments or instructions by God. Let us review them in the
following passages.
Genesis 1:26-28 (KJV)
26
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them
have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over
the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth
upon the earth.
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 2:15-17 (KJV)
15
And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it
and to keep it.
16
And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou
mayest freely eat:
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.
These passages together are the origin of the Law
of Obedience. Every law has an obligation or responsibility and a consequence
for obedience and disobedience. The responsibilities given man were as follows;
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Man had a responsibility to exercise dominion
(authority) over all the earth. A failure to exercise dominion results in
being dominated. Adam (Eve) bowed to Satan and Satan become his master and
god of this world.
Romans 6:16 (KJV)
16
Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants
ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto
righteousness?
2 Corinthians 4:4 (KJV)
4 In
whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe
not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God,
should shine unto them.
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Man was blessed in order to carry out the
mandate of God. To walk in the fullness of the blessing requires absolute
obedience or submission to God and when this is done His Holy Spirit will
open and close doors and whatever else is needed to accomplish your God
given mission. In addition you are empowered spirit, soul and body to
accomplish the mission whatever it may be.
Genesis 12:1-3 (KJV)
1
Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy
kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee:
2
And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name
great; and thou shalt be a blessing:
3
And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in
thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.
Abram obeyed God and he did become rich and
famous and certainly a blessing in all the earth for by him came Jesus the
Christ.
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God goes on to tell Adam that they are to be
fruitful, they are to multiply, they are to replenish and they are to subdue
the earth. To be fruitful means to produce. When we talk about the fruit
of the spirit we are talking about walking in love, joy, peace, patience,
goodness, gentleness, faith, humility and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).
If you are a singer, you have an obligation to sing and so on. To not
develop in the fruit of the spirit, to not use our natural God given talents
and to not operate in the gifts of the Spirit is disobedience, a sin.
Remember the account of the talents?
Matthew 25:28-30 (KJV)
28
Take therefore the talent from him, and give it
unto him which hath ten talents.
29
For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he
shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that
which he hath.
30
And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer
darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
To multiply means to increase whatever you have
or have responsibility over. Again in the account of the talents we see the
obligation and the positive consequences of obedience to the command to
multiply. We saw the negative consequences above. God is ever increasing and
if we are not increasing we are not like our Father but like Satan and are in
disobedience which is sin.
Matthew 25:20-21 (KJV)
20
And so he that had received five talents came and
brought other five talents, saying, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me five talents:
behold, I have gained beside them five talents more.
21
His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and
faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee
ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.
For some increased clarity look at the same
account in the Gospel of Luke.
Luke 19:16-17 (KJV)
16
Then came the first, saying, Lord, thy pound hath gained
ten pounds.
17
And he said unto him, Well, thou good servant: because
thou hast been faithful in a very little, have thou authority over ten cities.
Adam was given the instruction to replenish the
earth which means to fill the earth. So they were not to hole up on the ranch
so to speak and just indulge themselves. God wants everyday of your life full
of joy but He wants you about the business of the Kingdom bringing that joy and
all that God is to others in the process. He knows that when we are giving,
lifting the burdens and destroying the yokes on other people that we will be the
happiest. Adam was about the business of filling the earth with the garden of
Eden when they fell. That is where the woman came from that Cain married and
the people came from that populated the city Cain built.
Genesis 3:20 (KJV)
20
And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.
Notice what Adam said when he named his help meet
Eve. He said that she was the mother of all living. Not that she would be the
mother of all that would live but that she is already the mother of all living.
This is before Cain and Abel.
Next God told Adam to subdue the earth. To
subdue something or someone means to bring it or them into subjection. As I
pointed out above they were in the process of carrying out this mandate. To
subdue is to exercise power, miracle working power. The consequence of not
subduing is that you will be subdued by another (Romans 6:16). His name is
Satan. To not continuously subdue the demonic enemies is sin. Not to subdue
the environment around us is a failure to exercise our God given mandate and
ability to subdue. By the way, these things I am talking about apply to us
today as well. Jesus repeated these mandated, orders, commands on the Mount of
Olives in His final discourse on the earth with the disciples.
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Next Adam was given the responsibilities to
dress and keep the garden of Eden (Genesis 2:15). To dress the garden meant
to take care of it and we are not talking about with a hoe and spade but the
words of his mouth. Adam was and we are to operate like our Father and
speak the Word only. It appears that Adam was taking care of the garden,
not only that which God made for Adam but also the expanded garden of Eden
now occupied by mankind spreading over the earth. The population of which
Adam was the progenitor. To keep the garden means to hedge it about, to
guard it. We know that he failed this command for they (the female Adam) is
carrying on a conversation with Satan in Eden with Adam (the male) in
attendance (Genesis 3:6). Think about it they only had one threat and that
was Satan. The other fallen angels thrown out of Heaven with Lucifer
(Satan) were in chains awaiting judgment (2 Peter 2:4). In addition they
saw very clearly in the spirit realm and they knew who they were dealing
with all the time. Yet they failed to hedge about the garden or guard it
but are instead entertaining the very one that was and is intent on taking
God’s place. This failure for them was sin and so it is for us. This 15th
verse of Genesis chapter two is a stewardship verse and they failed, they
sinned. Just as the Church has failed in its stewardship of our government
and the other pillars of society. We have sinned.
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Finally they are told in Genesis 2:16 and 17
that they may eat freely of all the trees in the garden except one. They
were not to eat (partake) “of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil…for
in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”
I want to bring out three points concerning this
tree of the knowledge of good and evil. First God was telling them, you must
not be a partaker of good and evil. I think it goes without saying that He
wants us to partake of the good only for the evil will bring death.
Galatians 6:8 (KJV)
8
For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that
soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.
Romans 6:23 (KJV)
23
For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Adam sowed to the flesh and reaped sin and now a
Savior was needed and provision was made for this Savior from the foundation of
the world. Jesus spoke of this a little differently.
Mark 4:24-29 (KJV)
24
And he said unto them, Take heed what ye hear:
with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you: and unto you that hear
shall more be given.
25 For he
that hath, to him shall be given: and he that hath not, from him shall be taken
even that which he hath.
26
And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a
man should cast seed into the ground;
27
And should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed
should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how.
28
For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the
blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear.
29
But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he
putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come.
Matthew 12:33-35 (KJV)
33
Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else
make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his
fruit.
34
O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak
good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.
35
A good man out of the good treasure of the heart
bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth
forth evil things.
What are you giving your attention too? That is
what will grow, multiply in your life. What kinds of seed are you allowing into
you, what kind of seed are you sowing into yourself? You are the ground. You
are the tree. You decide whether the tree (yourself) is good or corrupt. Will
you bring forth the harvest of righteousness, abundant life or corruption
leading to death? This death or life can be in all areas of life like finances,
health, children and other relationships, spirit, soul and body.
Now the second point is that this tree of the
knowledge of good and evil was the tithe. It was the part that they could not
have or partake of, it was God’s. They were to take care of it (which would
include touching [handle]) and they were to guard it. We get the tithe first
through a variety of means most generally a paycheck. We have it in our
possession, we take care of it, and we guard it and bring it to the storehouse.
It is interesting and disgusting that this is a major area of the attack of
Satan today. A small percent of the Church tithe but that was not always so.
In fact in early America the tithe that went to the Church was the welfare
system not the government and I suspect way more efficient.
Third, Satan has always wanted what is God’s. He
wanted the man that was made in the image and likeness of God and submitted to
God. He wanted the earth, he wanted his own world system and he wanted that
tree. He knew that this mixture of good and evil would bring down mankind. And
this idea that we can mix a little good and evil is demonic and brings death.
You see it everywhere in the Church.
Pastors, fellow believers it is time to repent,
follow God’s mandate (commands). It is time to awake, arise and triumph!
2 Chronicles 7:14 (KJV)
14
If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray,
and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven,
and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
Until next month;
2 Peter 1:2 (KJV)
2
Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of
Jesus our Lord,
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