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Chapter 13 The Fall In Eden "It was God's Opportunity to Demonstrate His Love." The scripture declares that "GOD IS LOVE." What a simple statement this seems to be to the casual reader, but how far out of reach is it's true meaning to the carnal mind. May the Holy Ghost who caused it to be written come now and shed light upon His Word. To say that God is love, is to declare that love was the motive spring behind all that He has ever done or ever will do. Every action that our God has ever taken, or allowed to be taken, was motivated by love for His people. To say that God is love is to declare that His character, His nature, His very life, comes forth from a center core which is love. Never for one moment has our CREATOR been out of control of His Creation. Never has a created being been able to usurp his authority and bring to pass a circumstance that was not first weighed in the SCALES OF HIS LOVE. Rom. 8:28 is God's everlasting testimony to this fact. "And we know that ALL THINGS work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose." We must apply this truth to our own lives. This revelation will help us so much in accepting the trials and tribulations of our daily lives. We will never be able to understand all the ways that He ORDERS OUR STEPS, (PS. 37:23), but to know that He has weighed it all in His scales, and means it for our good is enough. The "all things" of Romans 8:28 reaches out and includes the fall in the Garden of Eden. The fall was God's planned opportunity to demonstrate the great mystery of His love. Keeping this revelation fully in mind let us now look at the plan of Creation, which included the fall of man in Eden. We were meant to walk in this body of flesh with all of it's failures and sins, then be REDEEMED out of it. The Bible and our Prophet, William Branham, teach that the fall was for the main purpose of God demonstrating His fathomless love. QUOTE: CHRIST THE MYSTERY OF GOD REVEALED, PAGE 26, "Oh, THE GREAT REVELATION NOW! He had to let them get lost, do you understand it? He had to let them sin, put them on free moral agency. He could not make them sin and remain God--- then punish them for something He made them do. (He straitly warned Adam and Eve not to eat of the tree (Gen. 2:17). But when He put man on partnership with Himself, then let man act as a free moral agent----see! The same thing that He has you on today. You act any way you want to, you're a free moral agent.-----in letting man do that, and knowing he would do that , IT DISPLAYED HIS ATTRIBUTE AS SAVIOR, AND THE WHOLE PURPOSE (OF THE FALL) WAS FOR JESUS CHRIST TO BECOME GOD HIMSELF, TO TAKE THE PENALTY OF HIS OWN LAW, TO DIE, TO REDEEM THE WIFE THAT WAS LOST." (End quote) A prophet saying that the whole purpose of the fall was to make opportunity for our Father God to demonstrate His love that had heretofore had no proper outlet. In II Thes. 3:5, Paul prayed a prayer, "And the Lord direct your hearts in to THE LOVE OF GOD-----." Paul prayed that God would let them, and us, be able to look into the "love of God" and begin to understand it. We understand His love by understanding that He planned the terrible six hour death for Himself on Golgatha's Hill, by allowing the fall which necessitated it. No born-again Christian, understanding the Sovereignty of God, can doubt that God could have prevented the fall. He could have chosen not to have "MADE THE CREATURE SUBJECT TO VANITY" (Rom.8:20). He could have kept Adam and Eve pure and undefiled, and He could have kept you and me from being born with the nature of Satan in our flesh (Rom. 7:21). He could have left us on earth until the appointed time, then took us to Heaven, never having been polluted by sin. We could have then enjoyed His presence throughout eternity, and that would have been an amazing demonstration of His love. But Brother Branham said, in essence, that God choose to grant to His people still further, higher revelation of His amazing love. He gave far higher and grander proof by suffering us to fall, then coming HIMSELF to redeem us from it. "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:13) QUOTE: CHRIST THE MYSTERY, PAGES 22-23, (The prophet gives God's first purpose of allowing the fall.) "We want to find out what is this three fold purpose (of the creation and fall). The first thing was that God wanted to reveal HIMSELF to the people. (His nature, His love)----He is too great to ever be revealed to people, because it would be too mysterious. But what He wanted to do, He loved fatherhood (to show His love as a father) for He was a father .And the only way He could express it was to become A SON OF MAN. (So He could redeem us by dying for us.)" (End quote) But before there could be a need for such a redeemer, there had to be those who needed redeeming. For this cause God planted in Eden "The tree of knowledge of good and evil". (Gen. 2:9) This tree, Satan, would instigate the entrance of sin and the resulting fall. But please notice, it was God that planted the tree, knowing what He would allow Satan to do. Through the fall, and man's desperate plight, God Himself could move on the earthly scene and express the powerful love that could find no other outlet than that the Father Himself should die for His Children. There is a great need in this hour for the Bride to have the revelation of "why" God planned the fall. She needs comforting. (Isa. 40:1), "Comfort ye, comfort ye, My people, saith your God." And why so? Because God's Bride in every age have been the most distressed people on the face of the earth. They are distressed by the sin in their own flesh man, distressed by the sins of those around them, and by the sins in the world at large. How often are they cast down by doubts and fears, allowed by the Master to try their faith. A great portion of their lives is spent in the "Great howling wilderness." They "groan" waiting for the redemption of this body. At times they experience peace and joy that passes understanding, but then it is back into the furnace for further purifying and character building. Truth is, the Bride has their "ups and downs" and they have their "twists and turns" as Satan is allowed to trouble them. It is not all light hearts and smiling countenances. They are oppressed by their coldness of heart, over evil thoughts that plague their minds, and unbelief is a foe to be daily resisted. Yes, there is plenty of reason for the Bride to need comforting. A large degree of this comfort can come through understanding God's reason for the fall and our resulting life in a sinful flesh body. HE WANTED TO WALK WITH US DAILY, PROVING HIS UNDYING LOVE BY CONSTANTLY FORGIVING OUR TRESPASSES AND FAILURES. IT WAS HIS APPOINTED MEANS OF GRACE. (Heb. 9:15) In Eph. 1:4 we read that, "God chose us in Him----that we should be Holy and without blame before Him in love." Had we been formulating the plan of creation we might have said, "Let that purpose stand. Let man never become sinful. Let him go from earth back to Heaven never having experienced sin." We might have thought that God would have planned it that way. But He did not! He chose to commend His love yet further to us by allowing the fall, setting before us the IMPOSSIBLE STANDARD of His Holy Law, then keeping it for us in Christ. Our sexual birth (which was the result of the fall), made the standard impossible for us to ever reach. Therefore, Grace could have it's full sway every hour of our walk on earth. Every day that He granted us life would be a display of the love that He was determined to show. We would see His love, demonstrated by His forgiveness, and be constrained to love Him back in a way that would have otherwise been impossible. Brother Branham taught from the scriptures that the fall, and our subsequent redemption from it, was the highest and most remarkable demonstration of God's love that His infinite mind could conceive. He pointed to God's great purpose for the fall and said, "The first thing was that God wanted to reveal HIMSELF to the people." (And God is love.) Only by allowing the fall could the love that throbbed in His Great heart be given proper expression. Seeing then that He so wanted to express that love through the forgiving of our daily sins, how quickly we should accept it and be moved out from under all condemnation. Far from being hesitant to receive forgiveness, we should do our part to bring Father's plan to full fruition in the forgiveness of sin. As Paul said in Gal. 2:21, we should not "frustrate the grace of God." How His heart must be grieved when we stand afar off and refuse to avail ourselves of His full pardon. To accept any degree of condemnation from the enemy is to frustrate God's love. When he said, "Without shedding of blood is no remission of sin" (Heb. 9:22), He had opened the way of death on the cross for Himself. He would shed His own Blood. Because we had no choice in the matter of our SEXUAL BIRTH, which birth brought us forth into sin, He would die to make possible a NEW BIRTH. We CHOSE to sin, but He CHOSE to die to deliver us from it's penalty. Some day soon we will be delivered from it's presence. With the death of Jesus on the Cross, sins could then be REMITTED. They could be destroyed and forgotten as though they never existed. Through this death, God's inflexible justice had been met, and His righteous law absolutely satisfied. All the filthy sin stains could be removed from the Sons of God. Not just covered over, as by the blood of bulls and goats, but taken away so that no memory of them remained in the mind of God. Heb. 8:12, "For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." We are looking at the love of God, and how it was wound up to it's highest pitch because of the fall and the need of a Redeemer, who punished His own bowels in our stead. Amazing beyond the conception of the carnal mind is that which happened at the cross. There the Creator of ALL LIFE DIED. There the most glorious person was ridiculed in shame. There the one who never committed sin was MADE SIN. There the one out of whom all BLESSINGS flow was made a CURSE. There the one who had no beginning and no ending was brought to an END. Through the ingenious plan of the Virgin Birth, God became a MAN and died. There he who was the ALL IN ALL, gave his all for those who were NOTHING AT ALL. This was a part of the mystery as stated in Col. 1:26, "Even the Mystery which hath been from Ages and from Generations, but now is made manifest to His Saints." The Mystery is revealed, His life was given, His love is manifested so that man is restored from His fall, and LOVE forgives him moment by moment, as he has need for forgiveness. I John 4:9, "In this was manifested the LOVE of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him." Why did not God keep Adam and Eve in their original state of purity? Why were we subjected to live in a sin-harassed body, that "groans, being burdened"? (II Cor. 5:4) Why are we "plagued all the day long, and chastened every morning"? (Ps. 73: 14) Why is it that after we have done our best, "evil" rises up and hinders us? (Rom. 7:21) Let the prophet state the reason again. QUOTE: CHRIST IS THE MYSTERY OF GOD REVEALED, PAGE 23, "Now, why didn't He just keep Adam and Eve like that? (without sin) Then He never would have been able to express His fullness, His full attribute (of love) He could have been a Father there, that's true, but He is also a Savior----He is a Savior and he had to express that, and How could he do it, only through Christ. See! All things are wound up in that one Person, Jesus Christ." (End quote) Saying that God had His purpose for the FALL, it was to manifest HIMSELF as Jesus Christ. It was to reveal His love to His people and make them His prisoners, love slaves of Christ. To accomplish this end, God would die to save us from the FALL He allowed. QUOTE: THE MYSTERY OF GOD REVEALED, PAGE 23, "When I see GOD'S GREAT PURPOSE---revealing Himself----first to reveal Himself in Christ, the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and then to bring that fullness of the Godhead bodily into a people, that He might have the preeminence, the oversight, the leading.-----I preached here one night on "A Prisoner of Jesus Christ, Paul A Prisoner." When God gets you to being His prisoner, then you can't do nothing but what the Spirit says do." (End quote) What was God's design in allowing the FALL? It was to show us His Love so that we would, in turn, become his love slaves. Surely we could have loved Him as did Adam in his first state of Holiness. But now, after the fall and our struggle against sin, we have a grasp on His love that even the unfallen Angels do not understand. As has been stated before, the motive spring behind all that God has ever done, or allowed to be done, was LOVE. Then are we to allow ourselves to be hindered by the fall and the sin that dwells in our members? No! We should do our best to live above sin, then trust that Great Love that was manifested for the very purpose of forgiving us when we fail. Can we understand that we were meant to walk this walk? Will we accept His payment and walk in FAITH, being RECONCILED TO GOD in spite of the sins of our OUTER MAN? Can we now understand His Love and know that the fall was not meant for harm but only to draw us closer to His bleeding side? Can we believe His Word that declares that He has, in Christ, delivered us totally and completely from that sin that He subjected us to? Do we accept Him as the ONE PERSON of the Godhead, who HIMSELF subjected us to sin, then HIMSELF stated a Holy Law that we could not keep because of that sin, who knowing that beforehand, took upon HIMSELF divine wrath as though He HIMSELF had been the transgressor? God put HIMSELF in Christ, then charged this Christ with all the sins of His Elect, then proceeded to deal with Him accordingly. For six, long, terrible hours He died to set us free. Rom. 4:25, "Who was delivered (to death) for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification." Rom. 5:19, "For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made RIGHTEOUS." Rom. 8:3, "-------God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and FOR SIN, condemned sin in the flesh." (Our flesh) II Cor. 5:21, "For He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD IN HIM." I Peter 2:24, "Who His own self bear our sins in His own Body on the tree (cross)." Col. 2:13, "Having forgiven you ALL trespasses." Dan. 9:24, Christ came here "to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity." Rom. 8:1, "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." Isa. 43:25, God Himself declares that He "will not remember thy sins." Isa. 38:17, "----Thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption. For Thou hast cast all my sins behind Thy back." Isa. 44:22, "I have blotted out as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and as a cloud thy sins." Micah 7:18-19, "Who is a God like unto Thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of His Heritage-----and Thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea." Heb. 9:26, So Christ has come "to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself." Ps. 103:12, "As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgression from us." All this Word, and much, much more, has he given us to show that there is no mischief that sin has done that His love has not repaired. There is no debt that we owed that He did not pay. There is no enemy to which sin had us bound that He did not conquer. There was no curse that we were under that was not placed upon Him. There was no mountain in our way that He did not climb for us. There was no distance between us and our Father that He did not span. But still, in our natural way of thinking, we are apt to retain the thought that our God could have gotten greater glory for Himself had He not allowed sin to invade His Creation and corrupt His Children. Yet our Father thought otherwise, or else He would not have suffered it to be so. Does it not seem to us that we could glorify Him far better in this life if we did not have this "law of sin" in our members. (Rom. 7:22) Yet, if this were actually so, God would take away our sinful nature. We suppose that we could accomplish much more for Him if the hindrances were removed and the pressures all relieved. We reason that without our sins and failures to pull us down, our lives could bring Him far more glory. How often do we pray for changed circumstances, no sickness at all, more money, friends that never let us down, a new set of neighbors, or a different pastor. We could continue with our fleshly desires that we suppose would result in greater glory for the Lord. But the truth is we are not capable of thinking right until our thoughts are formed by the Word of God. The PURPOSE of God in allowing the fall, and our life on this earth in a sin cursed body of flesh, is made known in the scriptures. That purpose was framed by infinite wisdom and flawless LOVE, so that there can be no flaw or failure in it. The scriptures and the prophet have made it clear in no unmistakable terms, that the fall was in order to magnify God, to bring Him glory by revealing His love, through Christ. To suppose that the grandest of all God's works was without a purpose that would work for our good, is to accuse Him of wrong doing. The enmity of the Serpent against the Seed of the Woman has been displayed throughout the ages. Perhaps nothing is more misunderstood than God allowing this hatred to come against His Elect. The powerful revelation is that Satan has sinned away his DAY OF GRACE. He is no longer a free moral agent; he can only follow orders. He is being "used" by His Creator to instill a character in the Bride that will be fit for fellowship with the King. To the Bride we would say, "Do not regret your present state. Do not bemoan your failures (after repentance), but look at each one as a rung up the ladder to a Godly character. Strive with all your might to live holy and above sin, then trust the Master for the rest." No plan of God can be hindered by Satan. He cannot destroy the works of God. God is bringing forth His fruit and using Satan as His tool. Beaten with the hammer of adversity, our crude ore is being turned into tempered steel, and all the while our shackles are dropping away and our feet being lifted out of the net. We are being enlarged for the Rapture! Amen. |
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