The God Family

Well, Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving weekend has always been a very, I don't know, it's always been a joyous time for me. It's a wonderful time to just pause and give thanks to God. It's wonderful that we live in a country that there is a holiday that is specifically designed to give thanks to God.

Something that the world seems to have forgotten as God has taken for granted. You know, we live in a time, we live in a time now where, you know, so much is going on in America that it's kind of, just kind of foreign. Some people don't even want Thanksgiving Day anymore.

There's all this confusion and people claiming, well, you know, what group really made America great? Is it this group that made America great? Another group said, no, we made America great. And it's all this consternation over what is the history of this nation. You know, we know it is a great nation. We know that, we know that, you know, people say it's the wealthiest nation that has ever been in the history of the earth. I have no reason to doubt that because as I look around and I see our lives, my life personally, I think I can't imagine a better time to be alive where we've had more conveniences and more luxuries and more at our disposal than any people that have lived before. If any of us had to drop back into the 1200s or 1500s or even the 1800s, our lives would be far, far different than they are today.

So it is a land that has been richly blessed.

There's a lot of people out there that want their hands on this land, but there's a lot of people who want to take credit for what this land has become as well.

And the answer, of course, to who gets the credit for America's blessings is not any group of people. It's not me, it's not you, it's not this group of people, or this people came from this country or that country or anywhere else. The answer to God tells us exactly where the reason America is blessed is in the Bible. So I want to go back to a familiar, to begin the familiar prophecy that we find the beginning of back in Genesis 48.

And in this prophecy there's three things that I'm going to discuss today that as we're in this Thanksgiving Day weekend that hopefully we've been thankful for as we've looked at it. These aren't the typical things that we have spoke about on Thanksgiving, but things that you and I particularly should be thankful for in addition to everything else. All the physical blessings that God has given us. In Genesis 48, you know we have Jacob, who is at the end of his life, of course. Jacob, God has changed his name to Israel later. And in Chapter 48, he is about to die. And he brings Joseph, I'll say his favorite son. Joseph, you'll remember, was the first son of Rachel. He was one of those babies that were blessed by God.

Rachel was barren until God allowed her to have a child. And so Joseph became Jacob's favorite child. And at his old age, he calls Joseph to him and he wants to bless Joseph's two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh. We pick it up in Chapter 48 in verse 15. And it says, Jacob, he blessed Joseph and said, God, before whom my fathers, Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has fed me all my life long to this day, the angel who has redeemed me from all evil. Notice how Jacob even says the type of things that we would say. The angel, God who has redeemed me from all evil. What life I would have had if it wasn't God who redeemed me. If I didn't know him and lived the life that I did versus the life that I would have lived apart from God. The angel who has redeemed me from all evil. Bless the lads. Let my name be named upon them and the name of my fathers, Abraham and Isaac. And let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth. So we have these two boys, Ephraim and Manasseh, sons of Joseph. And Israel, as he's blessing them, says, let my name be on them.

So as we watch this, when we look forward in the Bible and we see the name Israel, we know it can include all 12 tribes of Israel. But it can be just Ephraim and Manasseh because that's where the name and that's where the blessing was given to Joseph and the last days.

If we go over to the next chapter in chapter 49, Jacob gathers his family together before him. Kind of a pleasant, pleasant picture as we see Jacob with all of his sons around him. He's about to die and he's going to give them a prophecy for the last days. These would be the days that you and I live in now.

Not for times that are in their lifetimes or even later on in the history of ancient Israel. But he specifically says in verse 1, Jacob called his sons and said, Gather together that I may tell you what will befall you in the last days. So he goes through each one of the 12 sons. But we'll just look at Joseph here in verses 22 to 26 because it was on Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh, that Israel's name was. And we see that Joseph's blessing, the blessing that Jacob speaks over him, is unique but quite extraordinary when you look at it.

Verse 22, chapter 49, Joseph, that's Ephraim and Manasseh, Israel, who he put his name on, is a fruitful bough, a fruitful bough by a well. His branches run over the wall. So he's constantly growing. The land that he's in can't even contain him.

So he has to spill over from that land to other lands that God gives him. Okay? Verse 23, the archers have bitterly grieved him, shot at him, and hated him. They were a hated nation. Now, we remember, maybe I should have started in Genesis 12, when God gave Abraham the blessing, he said, among other things, in you all nations of the earth will be blessed. Remember that in Genesis 12, 5?

In you all nations of the earth will be blessed. Of course, that has a spiritual component to it, because it is through Israel's or Abraham's line that Jesus Christ would be born, which is the ultimate blessing for all of mankind. But it has a physical component to it as well. And that in you all nations of the earth will be blessed. When we look at the world around us today, and we know the nation that we live in, America, there's never been a nation like America in the history of the earth. This nation has done more for the world than any other nation in the history of the world.

We have more than any nation ever. We are all a very blessed, physically blessed people. But America didn't keep everything to itself. America just gives and gives and gives. You'd be staggered if you saw how many billions of dollars we give away each year to other nations. America has never been a country like America that when it conquered, when it wins the war, it doesn't keep that for itself.

But it provides, it not only gives the land back to the people, but gives it money to rebuild itself. It hasn't been territorial. It's unlike any nation before it. And when you look at what America has done, and then discount because there is no nation on earth, that is perfect, right? I'm not saying that everything that America has done is right, that has its problems, like anything that's devised by man. But when you look what America has done, you have to pause and think, what would America be like, or what would the world be like if there was no America?

Can we imagine even what the world today would look like if there was no America? There wouldn't be the freedoms that the people around the world enjoy, because that came after centuries and centuries, millennia, of autocratic governments and kingdoms and kings dictating what you're going to do. It was the freedom that came from America that transformed how the world lives, around the world. If it wasn't for the billions of dollars that went on in America, or if there wasn't the wealth of America, what would the world be like?

It would be a very dark place, wouldn't it? We'd all be living on subsistence levels. We would be sitting there and working our fingers to the bone every day, just to have our food, the luxuries that we do. So we can look at this, and just as I kind of put into these verses, America and England, right? Because we've got England. There was a British Empire before America, and history shows us that there was never an empire greater than the British Empire.

There was never a more, if I can use the word in the right sense of the word, humanly speaking, a more benevolent empire. Wherever Britain went, they made the lands that they ruled better. They became more prosperous whenever Britain owned them.

But people from Britain spilled over. Where did they spill over from, as it says in verse 22? Well, we know. Some came to America, some came to Canada, some came to Australia, some came to New Zealand, and other places around the world, the English-speaking nations of the world. They came from one place. They populated that. When you look at the world around us, those nations are quite prosperous, and they have made a difference in the world today. Not because they're so smart, not because they're so great personally, but God's going to tell us who it is that gets the credit for America's greatness, or Joseph's greatness here, as we read in 22-26. In verse 23, or verse 24, even though these nations hate Joseph, they hate the English-speaking nations, they hate that.

We know, when we look around, despite everything America has done, you can look in the Middle East and you see these banners that say, Death to America, and we admit they'd make no bones, that they would like to see America gone, wiped off the face of the earth. We have what is an arch-rival, maybe China, that we could call who makes no bones. They would like to overtake. They would like to overtake and become the world power, and the world-dominant one.

So you have these people taking potshots at Joseph here. In verse 24, it says, But his bow remained in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong.

By the wisdom of their people, by the ingenious of their people, no, made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob. From there is the shepherd, the stone of Israel.

Verse 25, By the God of your Father who will help you, and by the Almighty who will bless you, with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lies beneath, blessings of the breasts, and of the womb.

Who gets the credit? God gets the credit.

End of story. He's the reason that we live in the land we do. He's the reason America is great. It's the promise that he made, and the prophecy that he gave here to Jacob, who passed it on to Joseph. And we're living in the last days, and as the Bible is true, we find nations that are completely richly blessed.

Not because of the wisdom of the people, not because of that, but because of God who gives them the wisdom, who gave it to them because Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob obeyed God, completely yielded to him and followed his way. Blessings come when you obey God. Blessings come from God. They don't come by our wisdom, and they don't come by our strength. In Deuteronomy 8, it's God who gives us the power to give wealth. And here in the Bible, we look at one of the things that the world will argue about. Who is it? The Bible gives us the answers here. If we go on in verse 26, the blessings of your Father have excelled the blessings of my ancestors. Up to the utmost bounds of the everlasting hills, they shall be on the head of Joseph and on the crown of the head of him, who was separate from his brothers. That's where it is. You and I know that. That's no secret from the world. If they would look into the Bible, they would know. It's God. If you want the blessings, obey God. For the rest of the world, if you want the blessings, obey God. Look at the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and follow him. The Bible doesn't hide that at all. We'll come back to Genesis... I'll reference Genesis 48 again in a minute, but let's go forward to Deuteronomy 29.

And verse 29...

We read this several weeks ago when we were talking about the book of Deuteronomy as we were reading that before and during the Feast of Tabernacles. In Deuteronomy 29 verse 29, there's kind of an inset verse there that's quite interesting.

29 and 29 says, the secret things belong to the eternal our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law. The secret things belong to God. He has the answers. Now, if you look in the Hebrew, the word secret there in Deuteronomy 29, 29, it would probably better be translated hidden. That's the sense that it has. The hidden things belong to the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us. God does reveal hidden things to his people. We know that when we have God's Holy Spirit, when we repent, when we're baptized, when we receive the Holy Spirit, God opens our minds to the truth. Everyone's sitting here today, everyone listening in on the web, everyone who will be listening to this sermon has been called by God, and he is the one who opens our minds to know the truth of the Bible. Without it, we would be blind like so much of the world is. But God gives us that knowledge. God opens those hidden things for us that we can read it and that we can understand. The hidden things belong to God, but when he reveals, they belong to us. We understand, and so we can march forward. So we can look at the blessings of Israel today and hear all the furor and all the chatter that goes around this, and as we watch people try to debate history, do this and do that, we know that it wasn't because of any group of people, it's God. The reason America is great, the reason that America is the greatest nation that's ever been on earth the most wealthy, is because God gave it to that, gave it to us. We are the benefactors, and that's because of the obedience of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. No secret. We know that. Now, there are other hidden things that God helps us to see as well.

And one of those hidden things that you and I know are who is Israel. When this prophecy is given by Jacob to Joseph, and this wonderful blessing is here. Joseph will run over the well. He's going to have the blessings of the hills, the blessings of everything. It'll be the power of God who's behind him so that he can win wars and he can defend against his land, etc., etc. Who is Israel? The world today has no idea who it is. They know what the ancient nation of Israel is. They know that in around 720 B.C., the ancient nation of Israel, who departed from God, no longer obeyed, God was defeated by the power of Assyria. And they went into captivity, and then as Assyria was conquered by Babylon, they were released into somewhere in the Black Sea, Caucasus area, and the world lost track of them. So they're known as the Lost Tribes of Israel. Where are they today? No one knows. Even when some are confronted with, well, this is probably where the Lost Tribes of Israel are who they are, they'll deny it. They don't want to hear it. Yet we know who Israel is. We just talked about some of it. And God has revealed that to us. Without knowing who Israel is today, you cannot understand Bible prophecy. So many people will say, where is America in Bible prophecy?

Well, you can look through every page of the Bible. You'll never find the word America. You'll never hear United States. You'll never hear North America. You'll never see any of it. But there are prophecies from Israel, prophecies for Israel separate from Judah, which is well known in the world today. Today it goes by the name, the little nation of Israel over there, but it's Judah. But God has revealed to his people where Israel is today.

If you go back to the first epistle of Peter, you see that God revealed where they are. Peter addressed his, or was it James, who addressed his epistle to the scattered tribes of Israel.

God lets his people know the hidden things. And so when we see Bible prophecy, when we read Genesis 49, 23 to 26, we know exactly what God is talking about.

You and I are living it. You and I, when we read about Israel and the prophecies in the Bible, about what's going forward, we know what it is. It gives us comfort. It gives us strength. It gives us knowledge. It gives us the settledness and the peace that comes from knowing God and his truth. God has given us that hidden knowledge. The rest of the world doesn't have it yet. They will. But when God gives us the hidden things, that's a blessing to be thankful for.

So we have God to be thankful for. When we observe this national day of thanksgiving, we should be very thankful to God for what he has allowed us to live in because it is him.

Clearly him.

And we should be thankful to God for the hidden things that he gives us. Even the knowledge of where Israel is so that when we read Bible prophecy, we know what will befall us. We know what will come about.

When we read Revelation 13 and when we read Daniel 11, the latter part, we look and say, Oh, there's no Western power that's anywhere there at the time before Jesus Christ's return.

It's all north, south, and east. No Western powers no longer exist.

That's where the power is today. But before the time of Jesus Christ, the power on earth is not in the West where it is today. That has disappeared. We know why.

We know because God has given us that hidden knowledge.

Something to be very thankful for. Don't ever discount it.

Be thankful to God that he's opened our minds and that we have that peace that surpasses all understanding by knowing what the future holds. Not in the detail that some of us might want, but he gives us a general outline, and as time goes on, he will provide the details we need in order to follow him and to be there when Jesus Christ returns.

So two things that we can look at when we look at that prophecy. There's a third one I want to draw your attention to and spend some time on, though.

In Genesis 49, we mentioned that Jacob gathered his sons together.

And there he is at the end of his life, and his twelve sons come together, and he's able to bless them and tell them what only God gives him to say, This is what's going to befall you, your descendants, in the last days.

And if we were to go through and track all those things, we would be able to identify where those sons are. Joseph is certainly clear where he is, because history bears out there is only one nation and empire that anywhere even closely fits to the prophecies of Joseph, and they have existed in the end time.

But also, it's a beautiful picture to see Joseph gathering his family around him.

You know, one of the things that I very much enjoy about Thanksgiving is the fact that it is about family.

And every year I look forward to it, because it's great that we have our kids down, and they were here for this weekend, and they're still there at the house. And it's wonderful to have family around you.

You know, I haven't agreed with everything that my kids do. No parent ever does, right? That we agree with everything they do and the choices they make. But it is wonderful. It is wonderful to have a family around you that can be at peace, that can enjoy each other, and that is living their lives productively.

There is a tremendous blessing that comes from a family at peace.

Jacob had that. As we read through the chapters relating to his sons, we see it wasn't always peaceful in the family of Jacob.

We see what they did to Joseph when they sold him off into slavery in Egypt.

Certainly not a great time, right, to be alive at that time. What family may him that that would have reeked on it. But the family came back together again as God brought it through all the purposes and everything that God had planned for the family of Abraham. We are the benefactors today, and we see how everything worked out. It all worked out for good. And here at the end of Jacob's life, despite everything that's going on, it's wonderful to have family together. Wonderful to have family together. And one of the things, as we celebrate Thanksgiving each year, I hope, is it's a wonderful thing that we can have family together.

You know, we are a family in Orlando, but we all have physical families as well. I remember back when I was growing up, and we had many, many cousins and uncles and aunts, because both my mom and dad came from bigger families. And we would have family reunions, and it was, even though we didn't see them all the time, there was always something bonding. It was like, even if you didn't see your cousins for a year, there was an instant bonding, because there was that blood that was between it. And it was always a wonderful thing. And, you know, recently we had a memorial service, and there was a lot of family at the memorial service, none of whom were in the church. But it was wonderful to watch the people just be there. And they were just having a wonderful time, renewing acquaintances, the little kids running around, and it brought back memories. And what a blessing! What a blessing family is! I wonder if we stop sometimes to thank God that He created man, and He created families. You know, like so many things in our society today, and so many things in the world around us, there are so many things that are under attack. Family is one of those things that are under attack, right?

I mean, we look and, you know, we have people who will come right out and attack the family, the nuclear family. Now we have to call it the nuclear family, right? Not just the family anymore, because mankind has redefined family in all sorts of ways that you don't find any basis for in the Bible. The nuclear family is husband, married to wife, and children that come from that union. That's the nuclear family. That's mom, dad, and kids living together in one house, loyal to one another, working with one another. That's what God designed. But today we have governments that redefine families. And our little kids can go to school, and the government tries to kind of force some of that down their throats. I can remember my, you know, hearing my son with the two grandkids we have, and, you know, these little books that they would come home with, and all of a sudden it's like pops up a story about two dads. It's like, two dads? What are two dads? Two mommies? Who has two mommies? The nuclear family is under attack in America today. It's all over the place. It actually didn't start just in the last few years, like we would think. The nuclear family has been under attack for a long time. You know, back in the 70s we had the sexual revolution.

Before that, it relaxed all the morals, right, in America. So, since then, you know, who needs marriage? Right? People live together. They have casual relationships. And when God created sex as a bond between husband and wife, and husband and wife only, the world cast that away and said, as long as you care for each other, who cares? That's what it's there for. Not at all true. God created it for a reason. Mankind cast it away. So today, you know, morality and the reason for sex is completely lost on the world.

They have it completely confused as to what it is and what God created and for what purpose. In the 70s, you had abortion. Now, what an outright attack on the family. Often we'll talk about abortion and just talk about it being the murder of infants. Indeed, it is, and it is wrong.

But also it was an attack on family. Children are a blessing from God, correct? A blessing from God. When he created man, he said, man and woman be fruitful and multiply the earth. But mankind says, I don't want this child. I don't want this child. Let me just get rid of it. And so the government legalizes it. It's an attack on the family. Children are no longer a blessing. Children are not at all a blessing to some people. They just want them gone.

You go forward in time and you see all the different things, divorces, skyrocketing. You know, when I was growing up, I don't know of any of the friends that I had, even outside the church, I don't recall. I was thinking about this the other day. I don't recall if any of those families ever had a divorce. I just don't remember any of my friends in school saying, mom and dad got a divorce. I just don't remember that. It could have happened that it would just be my memory. You don't think about those things when you're younger.

But since then, we'd be hard-pressed maybe to find couples who have stayed together that aren't in the church. Because divorces just become common. I don't like what you're doing, therefore I get rid of you. I don't do this and I'm not going to compromise.

I'm not going to talk. We're not going to work together. We're not going to bind together. We're not going to take the two and make it one the way God said, because I'm going to continue to do things just the way I want.

You're going to do things just the way you want. And hey, if we don't see eyes, let's just separate. No sense trying. And so we have that attack on the family that's skyrocketing divorce rates. You come into the 21st century, you have the Supreme Court changing the definition of marriage. No longer one man and one woman, but anyone, right? I mean anyone. Same-sex marriage is there. What kind of an attack on the family is that? And that redefined family for the modern day. Completely wrong, completely different than what the Bible says.

You go into that, you go into transsexuals, you go into the whole thing that the world deals with now. It is a complete attack on the family, and even now it's an outright attack on the family. There are groups out there that, you know, well, we've seen the tremendous raise in single-parent households. You know, it's more unusual to have mom and dad living together than it is to have just one parent there.

And the world will say, oh, that's the norm. That's the evolving family, a single parent, a single parent household. They don't know why God created man and woman, and that you have the male and female influence in the house. And so you find that you have a family under attack. Let me read to you. I'm not going to name the group. But it is representative of where the world is going, or one notable group in the world is going. They have taken this off of their website because they did take quite a bit of guff off of it. But just because something is taken off of a website doesn't mean the belief and the focus isn't still there.

Right? It's not a changed mind. To take it off of a website doesn't mean that we were wrong and we don't do this anymore. So let me just read this. Again, you're not going to find this on online anymore. But the quote is, we disrupt the Western prescribed nuclear family. We're going to see in a minute. It's not the Western prescribed nuclear family.

It's God who created family. It wasn't the Western world. Families have existed from the beginning of time. There were families back in the Middle Ages. There were families back in the Old Testament. There were families forever. It wasn't Western prescribed. It's God prescribed. We distrust the Western prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and villages that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable. When we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the belief that all in the world are heterosexual.

I left out a line that I'm just uncomfortable even reading. The world would want to take over your children. They would want to educate your children. Recently, we had the situation in one of the states where they had this political campaign, and one of the key issues that erupted there, or that came out there, was when one of the candidates said, the parents shouldn't have a say on what their kids are educated, the state should decide what that should be. It should be the teachers and the government that should decide that.

Really? I don't know that that is certainly anything that has ever been before. It's certainly not biblical. And we know, you and I know, if we don't do things according to the biblical way, not good things are going to result. Blessings only come from obeying God. Blessings only come from doing things God's way. It's when people depart from God, that terrible things, terrible results, inhumane results develop. Inhumane results, like you see in Revelation 13 of where the world is headed. Inhumane, or not inhumane, but disastrous results like Israel experienced when they kept departing ancient Israel from God, and were eventually conquered and taken into captivity by Assyria. So let's look at family here a little bit, and develop an appreciation of the blessing that God gave us. And if you'll bear with me, I'm going to go through this in a little bit of detail, and I'm going to be asking God to paint in your picture what he did, and what his purpose was when he created family, because what we live, who we are, what the human race is, is beyond anything that the world understands today. It's one of those hidden things that you and I know that the vast, vast, vast majority of mankind doesn't understand. They don't yet, because if they got it, they wouldn't do any of the things that they do. They wouldn't allow their marriages to dissolve. They wouldn't allow their kids to be educated by others. They wouldn't subscribe to any of this. And neither should you or I. So let's go back to Genesis 1, a very familiar verse here for us, where God created man. God created man. And he created him for a very special reason, and after a pattern that I hope that we can all appreciate, because we are going to see that mankind is unique. Mankind is unique in eternity up to this point. There's been no other creation by God ever like mankind. Genesis 1, verse 26. God said, Let us make man in our image according to our likeness. We know that the word us and the word our there are correct translations. They come from the Hebrew word eiluim, which means deity, which means more than one deity. We know that there's two God beings that said, Let us make man in our image. We know that because we know it, but also in John 1, verse 1, it tells us, In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. So there are two God beings that were there. Jesus, who we know is Jesus Christ, and God the Father for eternity. They were there. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. This is the us and our of Genesis 1, 26. So two beings, two God beings. We'll call them the Father and Jesus Christ. That's what we call them today, and that's the names that we use when we describe them. But that wasn't who they would have known them in Old Testament times, but that's who we know them as. Two God beings making one man. God said, Let us make man in our image according to our likeness.

Now, when God says, According to our likeness, what does that mean? Well, he's saying, I want to make man like us. Like us. You can keep your finger there in Genesis 1, but let's look and see what God looks like. Let's, you know, according...well, before we turn there, let me go down to verse 27. Let us make man in our image according to our likeness. Right? Verse 27. So God, Elohim, created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. He made mankind look like him. In the image of him.

Let's go back, or forward, to Ezekiel. The Bible does give us some glimpses of God through visions of some of the prophets that God has given those visions to over there. In Ezekiel 1, we find that God gives Ezekiel a vision into the throne of God, an encouraging and enlightening chapter as you read through it. But as we get down to verse 26, as Ezekiel is seeing this division and God is inspiring what he's writing, he talks about the being that he sees sitting on the throne.

Verse 26, and above the firmament over their heads, as he describes these angels and other creatures that he sees there in heaven, and above the firmament over their heads was the likeness of a throne in appearance like a sapphire stone. On the likeness of the throne was a likeness with the appearance of a man high above it. When he looked at it, he saw it, and, oh, it looks like a man.

In the vision, I don't see his face, but he looks like a man, also from the appearance of his waist, and upward I saw, as it were, the color of amber with the appearance of fire all around it. And from the appearance of his waist and downward I saw, as it were, the appearance of fire with brightness all around. So when Ezekiel sees, looks into the throne, he sees the one there, he looks like a man. That's how he describes them.

If we go over to Revelation 1, Revelation 1, and verse 14, as John is in a vision that God gives him, this is how John, the apostle, describes what he sees. Verse 12, Revelation 1, I turned to see the voice that spoke with me, and having turned I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the seven lampstands, one like the son of man, clothed with a garment down to the feet, and girded about the chest with a golden band. He has feet, he has a waist, looks like a man, looks like a man, has a chest. Verse 14, his head and hair were white like wool. His got a head, he's got a hair, and his eyes like a flame of fire.

His feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace, and his voice is the sound of many waters. In his right hand, seven stars. And out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword. Boy, if you just draw the physical features, all of a sudden you have a man, what looks like a man.

God said, let us two, because there are two God beings, one of the things that the world is still confused on when they have their doctrine of the Trinity, that there are three in one, but there's just one God being that personifies itself in three different ways. But there are two God beings who make man, and they say, let us make man in our image. Let's make man to look like us. And so, you know, God didn't make man to look like angels. I have no idea what the 24 elders look like, but I don't think God made man to look like the 24 elders in heaven.

Or the archangels or anyone else. Man looks like God. Let us make man in our image. Let him look like us, two beings making one man. And he made that one man. Let's go back to Genesis 1. And we drop down to...well, verse 28. I'll just read that in reference to this before.

But just so we have what the Bible says, it says that he created them male and female, or him male and female. And God blessed them. So he created man. Later we'll see that God takes woman out of man. So then you have two beings, right?

God blessed them, and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, etc. Two beings in eternity in heaven. Two beings. God the Father as we know him and Jesus Christ. We drop down to chapter 2, where God is going to put Adam into a deep sleep. And out of Adam, take the rib that will become Eve. In verse 21 of chapter 2 of Genesis, it says, And Adam said, this is now a bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh, she shall be called woman because she was taken out of man.

Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. Two, God says, will become one.

Now God the Father and Jesus Christ. What does Jesus Christ tell us over and over in the New Testament, especially in John 17, about God the Father and Jesus Christ? About those two beings. They're one. They're one. Two God beings, they're one. And Jesus Christ, and then we'll turn over to John 17.

In verse 11, Jesus Christ four times in his prayer before he's arrested, he says this, but in verse 11 it says, Now I, speaking as he's praying to God the Father, I no longer am in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to you, Holy Father, keep through your name, those who you have given me, that they may be one, as we are. So God the Father and Jesus Christ, the Logos, if we want to say that, from the Old Testament, and God, Elohim, they were one. They created man. Two God beings made man. They made man as two beings. Man and wife. Neither are complete without the other. God puts it together, and together they form a home. Together they find they follow God. Together they have children. Together they teach those children. Together they do those things. It's simply a picture of what God is. Two God beings that are one, and God says, I'm making man male and female. My will is that they become one. Now Jesus Christ is talking about the spiritual family, we get to that a little bit later, but in our physical families, He made man, man and woman, to become one. Life committed to each other for life, raising their children, producing children. From two come children. From God, two God beings come what He's creating in man, a unique creation in all of eternity. No other eternal being, or no other being that God has created, has been like man. That's one thing we do know. No one else is like man. No one else was created for the purpose that God created man. The angels weren't created for the same purpose you and I were. The angels, when God created them, He didn't say, let us make them in our image. He said that about man. When we look at what man's potential is, what God had created them for, it wasn't to become who God said the people, the mankind, would become.

As long as we're in John, let's turn over to 1 John. 1 John 3-3.

Well, we'll begin in verse 1. I'll read down to verse 3. 1 John 3. Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that's mankind, that we should be called children of God. You and I know that. We talk about this a lot. God has called us when we yield to Him, when we repent, when we're baptized, when He puts His Spirit, His very nature in us, just like a father puts his DNA into his children and a mother has her traits into children, when God puts His nature in us, when He puts His Spirit in us, we become His children. Right? It has to be said on us that we should be called children of God. No other created being could ever say that, that they're children of God. Therefore, the world doesn't know us. They're not children of God. Right? The world does not know us because it didn't know Him. Beloved, well, we are the children of God, and it hasn't yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we'll be like Him. Well, of course we will be. We were created in His image. Jesus Christ was the forerunner. He's the one who went before. He's the one who was born as a human being. He didn't come looking like anything different than Himself. He was God's Son. God placed Him in Mary's womb. He was born as a human being, and He went before us. He lived His life. He died. Always being loyal to God, He was resurrected. He became a spirit being. He's the forerunner, as it tells us in Hebrews. He's the firstborn among many brethren, it tells us in 1 Corinthians 15. It hasn't been yet revealed what we shall be, but we know when He is revealed, we'll be like Him. That's why we were created in His image, for we shall see Him as He is. If we had that vision, remember a few weeks ago, we talked about Habakkuk and the vision. God said, write the vision, Habakkuk, write it. Write it that those who run will have it. Remember those who run that race of enduras, one who has that that motivates them, that keeps them focused on what God's purpose is, where we're going, what God has in mind, and the responsibility that we have Him. We shall be like Him, and everyone who, verse 3, who has this hope, everyone who has that vision, everyone who believes God, everyone who God has revealed the hidden things of how important family is, and what we're doing in our families today, because they picture what God wants us to do and wants us to be for all eternity. That's why marriage is so important. That's why what we do is so important. God looks to see, are you going to be family? Are you going to do the things that I want? Are you going to do things the family way, or are you going to do things your own way? Are you going to split up? Are you going to become one? Everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure. That's why your goal and my goal is totally different than the world's. The world would think, oh, you know what? The more callous I become, the more immoral I become, the more woke I become, oh, I'm a better person, I can see all these things garbage.

Anyone who has this hope purifies himself, asks God, get rid of the dirt and the grime that's in me. Get rid of the false ideas that are in my head. Help me to resolve the issues that I have, that I become more like you. We become more like Him as we become one, like God the Father and Jesus Christ is. We become more like Him as we live the way that Jesus Christ, our elder brother, does, the way the husband, Jesus Christ, who will marry His bride, who does things the way He does, will be.

That's why God called us. That's why He created us in His image to become like Him. Two beings, two beings on earth that produce children, children that God loves so much that He gave His only begotten Son, the physical Jesus Christ, that He would die for you and me, that He would come and pay the penalty for what we've earned for ourselves, and that's death. He loved His children so much that every parent would likely say, I give my life for my child. If it comes down between my life and his or hers, I'll give mine.

God the Father did that for us, because He loved His children, us, that much. If we look at the last book in the Old Testament, Malachi, they said Malachi wrote this book 400 years before the New Testament. Maybe, no one knows, some counter that. Maybe the last Old Testament book that was written before Christ came to earth. In Malachi 2, verse 16, verse 13 we'll begin with, God talks about to ancient Israel what is important to Him. He talks about tithes and offerings, but in verse 13, He says this is the second thing you do, Malachi 2. You cover the altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping and crying. So He, God, doesn't regard the offering anymore, nor does He receive it with good will from your hands.

When you say, why? I'm giving God an offering. I'm guiding God this. Why doesn't He accept it? Because He, God, has been witness between you and the wife of your youth. He's watching what's going on. What's happening between husband and wife? Are they growing as one? Are they doing? Are they becoming the picture of God the Father and Jesus Christ because He created us in His image with the desire that man and woman become one over the course of their lifetimes?

Just as God the Father and Jesus Christ are one. Is that happening? I'm the witness, God says, between you and the wife of your youth, with whom you have dealt treacherously. You haven't treated her well. You have grudges against her. You put her away for no reason. You don't like one thing, so you...whatever. How many times does the Bible talk to us in Ephesians 5, 22-27?

I won't go there, but it tells us the marriage is a picture of the relationship between Jesus Christ and the Church. Jesus Christ, who is the future heaven, the Church, the firstborn, become the wife. How important is marriage? How important is it that God designed that institution at the very beginning of mankind? And that family unit has stood throughout all society.

When the family unit breaks up, society ends. It takes the family. It takes the family. And certainly in God's eyes, family is important. You've dealt with her treacherously. You know, so many things you learn in marriage. You learn not to hold grudges. You learn to forgive. You learn to love. You learn to do things that the other person wants. You learn to compromise, not just my idea, and I'm not going to listen to that anymore. I mean, there's times you give, and there's times that you work together, and you blend together as one.

That's what one is. It isn't totally wife, and it isn't totally husband. It's a blending of the two. It's a new family that's created. Out of the old, two become one. It looks different than wife's life before. It looks different than husband's life before. You become one. That's what it is.

That's what God is saying. Become one. You've dealt treacherously with her. You haven't worked at that the way you should. Yet she is your companion and your wife by covenant. You stood before me, God said, and you promised you would love her, take her, work with her, and you would become one. You promised that in the marriage relationship. It's our job to follow through on the commandments or the covenants that we make. Verse 15, didn't he make them one, having a remnant of the Spirit? And why one?

He seeks godly offspring. Be fruitful and multiply. Husband and wife, both with God's Spirit, teach your children God's way of life. Let that cycle of life begin. Let it continue. Parents have children. Children learn God's way. They grow up. They have children. They teach God's way. Godly offspring. Loving God. Knowing God. Apart from the world. Not, you know, still in the world because God keeps us in the world. And our children might go to school in the world. But what an opportunity, then, to show them and teach them what the world is teaching you today isn't biblical. You might have to repeat this on a test, but it is not God's way.

What an opportunity for teaching at home. What an opportunity to draw the difference between the world's way that leads to nothing and God's way that leads to everlasting life. It's a tremendous opportunity and a blessing in one way because it should create the family unit that teaches God more, that believes God more, that understands His way more.

Why does He make Him want? Because He wants offspring. He makes Godly offspring. Therefore, take heed to your spirit and let none deal treacherously with the wife of His youth. For Lord God of Israel says, He hates divorce. Why does He hate divorce? It's the antithesis of the reason that He called us. It's the anticipates. Separation is never of God. Separation is of Satan.

God is one. We know that clearly. We talk about it over and over again. God is one. Keep that in your mind. What He desires in our marriage is as we become one. God is one. The Lord God of Israel says, He hates divorce. For He covers one's garment with violence. Says the Lord of hosts, Therefore, take heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously.

Don't deal treacherously.

Become one.

Become one. You know, you look at the commandments. And two of them, really all of them, but two of them specifically talk about the family. The fifth one, the very first one after the first four that show us how to love God as our Father, says, Honor your father and mother. So kids, I mean, as part of being a family, honor your father and mother. That's an eternal thing. No matter how badly they think they've treated you. No matter what they've, you know, as you were growing up, if you weren't in the church, no matter what kind of things they may have laden you with, honor your father and mother.

Honor your father and mother. And of course, the seventh commandment talks about adultery when God says you be loyal, physically and spiritually, right? Physically and spiritually, you be loyal to that wife. That's what I called you to do. That's what you covered in to do. That's a picture of the relationship forever that God wants to develop with mankind. That's what we're doing on this earth. That's what we're living if we're in the church. That's what we're doing if we have God's Holy Spirit. It's letting Him make us into who He wants us to be, the picture of who He wants us to be. His children, His children He calls us.

Born of His Spirit, not yet born. Begotten now, born when Christ returns and we're born as Spirit.

Over in John 10.

John 10.

Verse 29. John 10.

Christ is talking about the sheep that hear His voice and He talks about some things. I'm not going to begin in verse 29. Where I'm going to begin is in verse 33. John 10. 33.

Christ makes a comment here and I'm going to go down to verse 34 and 35. That the world doesn't understand. Confuses them and we can even see it confuse the translators as they looked into the Greek and saw this worse. In verse 33, the Jews answered Christ saying, For good work we don't stone you, but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God. Well, He was the Son of God. That's why He was born.

Verse 34. Jesus answered them, Isn't it written in your law, I said, you are gods?

If He called them gods, to whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken, do you say of Him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world? You're blaspheming because I said, I'm the Son of God?

In interesting scripture. But in that scripture, we find what Jesus Christ was saying. The world doesn't get it. The translators didn't get it. In verse 34, when Christ says, He's quoting from Psalm 82 verse 6, You are gods, they use a little G. They don't know what it means. What is He saying? You are gods. And Christ says, well, if God the Father called them gods, to whom the word of God came, that would be you and me, right? I mean, God has opened our minds to it. If He called them gods, to whom the word of God came, and the scripture can't be broken, why would you say to me, who God the Father sent into the world? That I'm blasphemy because I'm the Son of God. Interesting what you learn when you go back and you look at the Greek words. In 34, 35, and 36, every single time you see the word God, whether it's capitalized God or small letter God, it's the same word, theos. The same word, theos. So if we were Greek, we wouldn't make any change in that at all. We would say, oh, if He called them gods, or is it not written in your law, I said, you are gods. The translators didn't know what to make of that. The world doesn't know what to make of it. Maybe we don't even need to know what to make of it.