"DO THE WORK OF FAITH"

[Bishop W.C. Maddox D.D.]

ARE YOU UNDER COVER?

Ge 3:9 -21And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?

And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.

And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;

Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living. Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.

What do we do when we are already caught up in something ungodly? How do we get out of…….works of foolishness?

How do we get out of …..the works of unforgiveness. How do we get out of …..the works of anger, or hatred, or addiction, or gang activity, or lying.

How…..do we get out of the works of foolishness? In order to get out of foolish works, we must first see what is the meaning of a fool.

The Bible tells us in Ps 14:1 To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David.>> The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good. And then we see this repeated in Ps 53:1 as it says To the chief Musician upon Mahalath, Maschil, A Psalm of David.>> The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity: there is none that doeth good. So here we see that a fool says in his heart……or a fool believes that there is no God and that their works are no good. A fool does works of foolishness or works of……..iniquity. Iniquity is most generally defined as a bent away from God, in other words, iniquity is that something that tends to bend or turn us away from God and what God has called us to do. It’s that something that makes us say “God we are fine up to this point…..but at this point, even though you are calling me to do it one way…..I’m going to do it ……another way.”

When we look deeper into this “bent away from God” we notice a few things, one thing is that ultimately this bent is due to our own selfishness which was passed down to us by Adam, and we know that through Adam all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, which further lets us know that this “bent away from God” is something that all of us have. We all have a bent in us, somewhere. We also know that where there is a bent, there is crookedness. It is naturally impossible for something that has a bent or bend in it, to be strait, so that crookedness that is in each one of us, causes us to do…..crooked things.

We already know that Adam and the woman had partaken of the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and let us note that the name of the tree is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil…..not the action of good and evil, not the speaking of good and evil……it is the knowledge of good and evil which lets us know that this tree will give them some knowledge of some things, that God does not want them to know. This lets us know that the forbidden thing that will be exposed to all humanity is something that will be on the inside and not the outside. The corruption will deal with the thoughts and manifest themselves through our actions on those thoughts. So we see Adam and the woman, covering their nakedness, and hiding from God’s Word. The Word of God leads to works of God. We also see in our text that God gives what is called the proto evangelium which means “the first Gospel” in verse 15. Some of us have missed this in the past because it sounds foolish and I must submit that every now and then in order to get out of our own foolishness, we need to listen to and obey….the foolishness of God

1COR 1:18-29

For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his presence.

There is…..an importance in the work of preaching….if God thought it was so important that He took it upon Himself to do it first…..and then directly pass it down to man as a specific work to do, then it must be important to God……and what does it say about us, what does it say about our faith on and in God and what does it tell God about us and what we think about God when we want the preacher….to do something else, and put preaching in a secondary, or low priority. How does it look to God when people say that they love God, and here is something that God deemed to be so important that He did it first himself , but people show that it is really not that important in how unimportant they treat the work of the man of God to some it is not even considered to be…..work. Preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ has power to give us faith. The Bible tells us that faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God, and how can they hear without a preacher, and how can a preacher preach lest he be sent. The Word of God brings a saving faith. Now don’t get me wrong all of the saints are called to share the Gospel and one of the ways that we as saints are equipped to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ is through our Spiritual Gifts. However there is also a specific call to individuals to preach the Word of God or what we call the Gospel Ministry and even with the specific call to preach, and all preachers have a different way of preaching.

God made each of us unique and with that,

God has different gifts,

for different works,

for communication of the same Gospel,

in different ways,

to different people,

in different situations.

And God has gifted you, and with His gift, God has a unique work for you. In Adam‘s case……In Gen. 2:19-20 We find that one of his works, was to name the things of God‘s creation, but as we know….Adam fell. How many times have we fallen when God has given us something to do. How many times have we gone left, when God says go right or we’ve said it’s a bad day, when God said it’s a good day or we’ve blessed somebody out, when God said Bless the Lord….at all times. In the midst of our mess God is still calling us to Him because we are worth something. When Adam heard the word of God, Adam was afraid, which lets us know that he had an emotional reaction, do our emotional reactions bend us away from God. When Adam heard the Word of God and said that he was afraid because he was naked we see that his rationalizing, that his reasoning, that his mental reaction, that his new knowledge, bent him away from God. Does our thinking bend us away from God. When Adam heard and was afraid because he was naked he ended up hiding, which lets us know that because there is something already crooked in us and we start following crooked information from crooked emotions which lead to crooked reasoning, which leads to crooked action and we end up hiding. But yet while we are hiding, God is still calling out to us, while we were yet sinners, God showed His love for us in this, while we were doing our thing, God sent a Word. We must remember that God is a just God so there are consequences for our disobedience. God shows us that in order to get out of our disobedience we need to know about the one who is the way, the truth, and the life. We need to know about the one who is the seed of the woman, the one who bruised the head of that old serpent, the one who’s heel got bruised, that while we were yet sinners, God sent one….who was tempted at all sides….but yet without sin, and God just’s asks us to do the first work of faith, or what Jesus calls in John 6:29 the work of God.

We see Adam doing the work of God in verse 20 of our text and we might say all he did was change her name, however upon further review, we find that Adam changed her name to Eve. The name Eve, means mother of all living. God already let them know that the Messiah was coming and that the Messiah was coming through the woman. By Adam being on the earth before the crucifixion then Adam is looking forward to the coming Messiah, and His work on the cross. Whereas in our case, we are looking back at the work already done on the cross. That is to say that Adam shows his faith in the Word of God by agreeing that the life giver, the quickening spirit, will come from the mother of all living. Remember, one of the works that God assigned to Adam was to name the creations of God, now we see this work as a work of faith. So what is your work of faith? What names do you need to change? What situations do you need to change? What actions do you need to change? What is your work of faith? It took a work of faith to get you from where you used to be to get you where you are now and we know that on this journey there were times when the world said that it was impossible for us to get here! Through works of faith the power of God is seen, and the power of God is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. So if it is of God, then the work has to lead to the introduction or revelation of Jesus Christ. We find that after Adam shows His faith, God clothed them with coats of skin, God covered them with the skins of something that was living.

They were covered by something that God did, they were covered by something that was sacrificed, they were covered by something without sin, they were covered by the first of animals, and there was a man, who is more than a man. Who is 100%God, but yet 100% man. This man, was the first amongst many brethren. He was born by the seed of a woman, in other words, He was born of a virgin. He lived a perfect life, in other words He was without sin. He gave His life, on the cross, that we might be saved. The first Adam, was given life, but Jesus the second Adam, is the life giver. Adam was covered by the shedding of blood but the blood of Jesus was shed to cover us. Are you under cover, of His blood? If you are then through His Holy Spirit, it’s time to work out your salvation in fear and trembling and work your gifts. Work…..the works of faith.

Don’t worry…..what they enemy has thrown at you…..

Don’t worry about the situations that got you down……

Don’t worry about those weapons formed against you because you are under cover. Remember that greater is He who is in me than he who is in the world because you are under cover. That we can do all things through Christ Jesus who strengthens us, because we’re under cover.

We might have a bent…..but the blood of Jesus lets us do some strait things.

The world might say that it‘s impossible for a crooked person to do strait things but I just wanted to let you know that you can, when you get under cover.

Let your life preach for you, let your actions preach for you. Stand on the word of God, stand on the works of God, and stand under the covering of the blood shed on the cross by Jesus Christ

Get under His cover.

Do the work of Faith!

May God Comfort, Strengthen and Encourage You,

Bishop W.C. Maddox

www.globalchristianleadershipassociation.com

www.mesarimtabernacle.com