“In the beginning…” are the first three words of Genesis 1:1 in the Bible. There is something very relevant that probably 99.9% of us don’t even think about in our daily lives. What do these words mean to us Biblically? I heard an instructor once ask his class of Bible students this question and it was like ‘pulling teeth’ to get an answer from them. How difficult is it for you to answer? Are you thinking you need more to go with it before you can answer the question? Something happened here before “God created.” Does that kind of thinking mean we are ‘lacking’ in our understanding of God’s word? Does it mean we are ‘missing’ something when we read the Bible? Does it mean we aren’t ‘seeing’ with our eyes and ‘hearing’ with our ears? What is the answer to our question?
“In the beginning…” tells us two things: the first tells us, if there is a beginning, there must be an end. The second tells us ‘time’ has been instituted and is now a part of the universe. If you are saying, “I knew that”, then why didn’t you answer it [in your mind] when first asked the question? Why wasn’t it recognized immediately if it was something ‘known’ to us? The most important reason is because instead of reading the Bible with intent to learn by ‘seeing and hearing’ each word, it’s read like a fairy tale or story; something in the history of the past without any ‘awesomeness’ of God actually being realized. So, what’s the point of all this? That is what we are going to get into with this teaching.
Please turn in your Bible to the Gospel of John, Chapter one, beginning with verse one:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was
in the beginning with God. All things were made through him. Without him was not anything made
that has been made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men.”
In these passages, we see how things were before God began creation. First and foremost, it’s made clear that God always was; also that the ‘Word’ always was with God and that the ‘Word’ was God. What more do these passages make clear to us? The old expression of ‘read between the lines’ comes to mind, but the truth is, we see with our ‘human’ eyes rather than allowing God to show us through our Spirit eyes. In human eyes, it’s plain that the passages are speaking of God and Yeshua/Jesus, the Messiah. However, we can see more than this through our Spirit eyes…we can see that God has a ‘specific plan’ and that His Word and Yeshua are His plan before creation was ever begun.
My heart really breaks when I hear Christian’s make the comment, “The Old Testament was done away with when Yeshua came and fulfilled His task of dying on the cross.” Do they not know what they are saying in regard to the Holy Scriptures? It’s like telling God, ‘You aren’t important anymore.’ God didn’t only have a plan for the redemption of ALL mankind; He didn’t just have a plan for people to become saved; He didn’t have a first plan and then make a second plan to ‘fix’ the first one [God DOESN’T make mistakes, man does, just as man made a very BIG mistake with that thought]; God made a plan that was made before creation [“In the beginning…”] and to be carried out to the ‘end of time.’ It’s very simple…ONE GOD and ONE PLAN…nothing added, nothing deleted.
The other night while I was re-listening to my instructor on one of his tape series, I could hear the excitement in his voice when he would speak about certain parts of Scripture from the book of Ezekiel. And it’s not just on this series, but on others as well that this happens. When he makes comment of how ‘awesome’ something is, you can hear the excitement in him. But that night, something hit me like a brick…Why don’t I feel that same excitement and feel the awesomeness of God in the reality of Who He Is and what He does or can do? I put the tape on pause and pondered over that question within myself. I even had to ask myself if I was envying him, which I hope I wasn’t. It brought tears to my heart and to my eyes when I realized the answer to my own question.
Our Spirit [what some call our ‘inner man’] constantly has contact with God’s Spirit; that’s part of the way God makes things known to us in times of trouble, needing direction or an answer from God. Within my Spirit, came the realization that we don’t have the ‘real’ awareness of the Power of God in our lives. We criticize the Jewish People for their disbelief in Yeshua as the Messiah, yet we don’t recognize their ‘extreme awareness’ of God. Why? I’ll use the example at Mount Sinai found in Exodus, Chapters 19 and 20. When the children of Israel met with God and heard His voice, the people actually ‘saw’ His voice! That’s what the interpretation in 20:18 is speaking about. That’s why they wanted Moses to be their spokesman to God; they feared God, and that gave them a ‘greater’ reverence of and to God. We of the Western World, haven’t ever experienced anything like this, and therefore, God is taken more for ‘granted’ in our lives. It’s one thing to have an ‘experience of emotions’ at Salvation, but it’s another to literally see and hear God’s voice directly in an all consuming realm. Some may have even had miracles done in their lives, I have in mine, but I’m sure they aren’t as great or awesome as seeing the Red Sea part right before ones eyes.
So what does this have to do with our topic? Much indeed…in that we have ‘allowed’ the Plan of God to be altered in our lives. We’ve ALL been there…we were taught it from the pulpits in the churches. We want to believe that we have all the ‘blessings’ and none of the ‘curses’, and that’s only a minor point! It’s time that this day and age are awakened to the Truth and the Knowledge of God and His Word and bring our pastor’s and teacher’s into subjection of God’s Word and have it taught ‘correctly’ to us and our children. Proverbs makes God’s Word very clear…
Pro 7:1-3 My son, keep my words. Lay up my mitzvot [commandments] within you. Keep my mitzvot
and live! Guard my teaching as the apple of your eye. Bind them on your fingers. Write them on the
tablet of your heart.
ALL of God’s Plan and ALL of God’s Word is needed for today. Haven’t you ever heard the saying, “God sits upon the ‘circle’ of the earth? What it actually says is found in Isaiah…
Isa 40:21-22 Haven't you known? Haven't you heard, yet? Haven't you been told from the
beginning? Haven't you understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he who sits above the
circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a
curtain, and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in;…
Just as the earth is made in a circle, so is the Plan of God. It moves in a circle that began with time and at the end of time the circle is completed. Just as there was a Garden of Eden at the beginning of the circle, so the Garden of Eden is restored at the close of the circle. Just as God told the people to build Him a Temple in which to dwell, so there will be a Temple at the close of the circle, everything being done the same as it was done in the Wilderness, in the First Temple and in the Second Temple. There will be a Third Temple, as spoken of in the book of Ezekiel, with the Prince [which will be Yeshua] doing ALL the sacrifices. Have you read the book of Ezekiel? Have you ever had your church pastor preach or teach the book of Ezekiel concerning the building of Temple and the sacrifices being done in the future? No. Do you know why? Because they weren’t taught…the same as we have not been taught correctly.
Are you aware of how important it is to understand about the Temple of God? I’m not speaking of what Christian’s call the Temple of God within them…I’m speaking of the actual, physical Temple of God. Look, see and hear the following Scriptures from Ezekiel…they are speaking of the FUTURE, known as Eschatology…
Eze 2:3 He said to me, Son of man, I send you to the children of Israel, to nations that are rebellious, which have rebelled against me: they and their fathers have transgressed against me even to this very day.
Eze 2:4 The children are impudent and stiff-hearted: I am sending you to them; and you shall tell them, Thus says the Lord Yahweh.
Eze 43:10 You, son of man, show the house [Temple] to the house of Israel, that they may be ashamed of their iniquities; and let them measure the pattern.
Eze 43:11 If they be ashamed of all that they have done, make known to them the form of the house, and its fashion, and its exits, and its entrances, and all its forms, and all its ordinances, and all its forms, and all its laws; and write it in their sight; that they may keep the whole form of it, and all its ordinances, and do them.
Eze 45:16 All the people of the land shall give to this offering for the prince in Israel.
Eze 45:17 It shall be the prince's[Yeshua] part to give the burnt offerings, and the meal offerings, and the drink offerings, in the feasts, and on the new moons, and on the Sabbaths, in all the appointed feasts of the house of Israel: he shall prepare the sin offering, and the meal offering, and the burnt offering, and the peace offerings, to make atonement for the house of Israel.
Take the time to read the book of Ezekiel and see all that God says…remembering that this Temple has not yet been built, but the ‘time’ is coming that it will be.
In closing, I’d like you to turn in your Bible to John 14 beginning with verse 15…
Joh 14:15 If you love me, keep my commandments.
Joh 14:16 I will pray to the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, that he may be with you forever,-
Joh 14:17 the Spirit of truth, whom the world can't receive; for it doesn't see him, neither knows him. You know him, for he lives with you, and will be in you.
Joh 14:18 I will not leave you orphans. I will come to you.
Joh 14:19 Yet a little while, and the world will see me no more; but you will see me. Because I live, you will live also.
Joh 14:20 In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.
Joh 14:21 One who has my commandments, and keeps them, that person is one who loves me. One who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him, and will reveal myself to him."
Joh 14:22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, "Lord, what has happened that you are about to reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?"
Joh 14:23 Jesus answered him, "If a man loves me, he will keep my word. My Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make our home with him.
Joh 14:24 He who doesn't love me doesn't keep my words. The word which you hear isn't mine, but the Father's who sent me.
Joh 14:25 I have said these things to you, while still living with you.
Joh 14:26 But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and will remind you of all that I said to you.
Yeshua was speaking about ALL the commandments, not just the two mentioned in the New Testament or the ten listed in the Exodus 20. There are 613 total commandments…some deal with just women, some with just men, some for just priests, some for just the High Priest, some for Gentiles, and some for both Jews and Gentiles. Everyone needs to be aware of what each of these commandments say, for they ALL came from God, not man, and incorporate the ones that apply to us into our lives. If you would like a copy of these 613 commandments, send me an email and I will send you a complete copy.
Remember the words of David… Do good to your servant. I will live and I will obey your word. Open my
eyes, that I may see wondrous things out of your law. Ps 119:17-18
The Lord bless thee and keep thee; The Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious
unto thee; The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee and give thee shalom [peace].
