Slavery Part 2
6/16/17
In part one of this message, we were reminded that our creation and original status came from a perfect, holy, and just God which could not produce anything different than what defines Him in the first place. We also found out that what God gave Adam and Eve to do in the Garden of Eden was direct, simple, and non-complicated and God gave them the necessary tools (heart and mind) to recognize why God gave the single command to them. In addition, we learned the importance of applying these tools to recognize the distractions that are within our immediate worlds and what occurs when we allow those distractions to overtake our actions. The other important detail that we learned was that when God sets a plan into motion He cannot change that plan in order to “fix” a setting, it must be played out to its fullest. The resulting change in our lives through disobedience proves to be devastating and in this case the consequences of royalty going into slavery.
As the book of Genesis continues to unfold, we see that God, Adam, Eve, and the serpent all have a conversation in which the consequences of everyone’s actions are given out. God does not beat around the bush nor does He him / haw around with the situation. He is clear, precise, and authoritative on each level and what He says goes. While we are not going to dive into each specific detail about the judgments of each participant we are going to focus on a particular statement that God makes concerning the woman’s relationship to the man found in Genesis 3:16. I refer you back to an earlier message God gave us concerning this verse that was given on 10/10/16 titled “Dangers of Responsibility” for it was this message that God laid the foundation as to why we are living in a state of slavery. It is also this verse that many of us, including myself at one time, failed to directly understand what God is saying here about our status change yet only focusing on the letters and selfish meaning that most men take on as the dominating force over women.
Genesis 3:16 states the following: “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.” We “men” have taken this verse and have distorted it enough to say that we are the ones who should dominate over women and have special “rule” over them. We focus so much on the last portion of this verse for our own egos and totally miss what has occurred here and what we now are subject to. Adam and Eve’s entire life changed that day and everything they knew up until that point was no longer relevant and God did not make this statement for us men to overtake what He had already established as an equal partnership from our Creation. It is our own selfish interpretations of this verse that have landed us into a mess that we have not identified yet and until we do we cannot fix the problem. The issue here is not dominance but as the message “Dangers of Responsibility” explains to us, our job as men are to lead and to understand what changes occurred and how to fix them. This does not mean in ANY way that we should ever ignore or belittle the woman, in fact, it is quite the opposite. Our ignorance through selfishness has produced all of the “isms” which enslave us today which is not what God was talking about but what we believed through the lie from Satan.
To my own dereliction, I must admit that God has shared with me a portion of this section of Genesis that I have not written about as of yet, and through my laziness, I will have to go into a bit more detail about what God is referring to us concerning the perfect status of our Creation. In Genesis Chapter 2 we have the detailed passage where God forms man from the dust of the earth, then breathes into our lives His spirit. God then takes a rib from Adam and forms the woman and it is this specific detail about the rib that I have not written about but is highly significant because the location of the rib states equality from the moment of creation. It is this equality that defines human status in the Garden of Eden with each other and forms the perfect union for each other through the holy order of God serving as the Creator of all, the “Definition of We”. It is this equality that serves Adam and Eve until Genesis 3:6 occurs and then we find a difference occurs from this holy order, one that has its own definition.
The last portion of Genesis 3:16 is a statement by God of something that has already come to pass, with Him placing an emphasis on the new setting of inequality and what it means to the humans. What God is stating is that the definition of “we” that Adam and Eve had always known is over and that their true, identical, and identifying equality was no longer possible. Ladies, do not get upset at this statement and men lose the big head right now but it is one that holds divine truth and one that cannot be changed. God made man first, then He made the woman and it is this order of God that He has to abide by at all times; therefore, God must adhere to this setting and place the man over the woman per say. HOWEVER, that does not give man ANY right to take “forceful control” and dominate the woman it just defines that man and woman no longer are equal. Then, if equality has been taken away, that means that Adam and Eve cannot stay in the place where equality rules, thus, the reason that we see God telling them to leave the Garden soon afterward. This picture that God portrays gives us a clue that Satan cannot change what God has put in place even when the setting goes bad. To make issues worse, it seems like the participants in continued settings still have not correctly identified who is responsible for these differences either.
When equality exists it means that all participants involved hold equal say or amounts in a product that is in question. All issues whether good or bad are deemed split equally by all participating members of the deal or agreement. In this case, the deal is between Adam and Eve and God. Adam and Eve being created in an equal manner and from the other represent one equal side of the equation and God representing His eternal Divinity without question as the other portion of the equation. With Adam and Eve being equal this means that if one of them breaks the equality standard then their portion is separated from the equation rendering them unequal to each other as well as God. So, if this equality is founded in freedom through God and His holy template that means that when Adam and Eve broke this equality they broke their origins as well resulting in a permanent new setting as unequally brokered. If someone or something is not equal then the participants are now unequal and shall reflect such setting, thus creating a new standard by which that something is defined.
To go from a state of equality to a state of inequality cannot occur without a leadership change. Whether this change is personal or organizational a major shakeup has to occur in order for something this size to present itself. In addition to the change in leadership, God mentions that man and woman are no longer equal in status and that the woman will depend on her husband. This cannot occur in a place where God calls home or one that exists in His presence which means that the humans are now subject to another authority. When God laid out His plan of not eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil He did so with a known consequence, death. Death means that another ruler must be in charge because God is eternal and He only creates things that are eternal in origin. So, why would God offer the gift of death, or how could He offer anything lower than pure eternity? This means that another ruler of some sorts must now be in control of basic standards that are far lower than God’s original standards.
So what kind of person or being would make it his effort to entice and then subdue another person’s prized possession? One that was already subject to a lower plane that wanted to try and make a point to the one who offered the higher standard immediately comes to my mind. This means that in this instance, holy and pure freedom through eternal equality represents the higher standard which makes slavery the only other option because when perfect conditions are given up then imperfection and a pursuing cover-up must follow. If Satan is the father of lies then that means the only thing that he can represent is a lie and since God cannot lie those two representations cannot be equal or on the same side, just as Adam and Eve were “now” not equal. It is at this point that brings us to the issue of slavery for if one is not in complete freedom then they must be in some sort of slave-like conditions, thus bringing into truth Genesis 3:16.
If we are born into a certain condition that means we are subject to that condition and only be a sure grace of circumstances can change such inheritance. Psalms Chapter 51 states that I was conceived in sin which means now my life is subject to sin no matter how hard I try and do things correctly. Even if I do everything right my entire life and make no mistakes I still cannot claim to be perfect because at some point my body will give out and stop working, which means something or someone has me subject to their laws. If God cannot create death then that means someone else did through lies and since we have a being who has been eternally defined as the father of lies it is safe to say he has gained control over some portion of my life. If Satan cannot represent freedom, then what can he represent? He has to represent some type of standard or principle. This principle of his comes back to one single standard and that is slavery and it is through this principle that our physical lives become slaves to the world and everything that it stands for. It is through this principle that Satan lives, acts, and conquers and it is this original act of acclaimed disobedience in Genesis 3:6 that we ignored God’s authority based on His Kingdom of purity, hope, love, trust, and eternal sanctity and chose to be ruled by a loser who cannot even create his own name.
Well, this places an entirely new light on the issue of slavery and who is behind its nasty relevance in our lives both yesterday and today. This truth through God’s Word also gives us an idea of how wrong we have been in engaging this process against slavery and proves that when we do not or are not able to get to the root of the issue our efforts shall fall in vain. But through this truth, we will be able to fight the god of this world and to break the chains that have the potential to eternally bind us from God. This is the job of our enemy and from worldly standards, he has this slavery business all wrapped up nice and neat. Somehow we need to take hold again that sin is slavery and is not a friend of ours and that if we continue to obey the laws of sin we will fall into slavery deeper until there will seem like no other way to live. But have we already reached this point because the attitudes that we reflect today do not look too much like God and that of the world shines brightly as each sunset occurs. The depths of our slavery can be ironically measured up in a quote from a book that I am currently reading that is entitled “Restructuring the Household” by Peter W Bardaglio and the passage that is in light reads as follows:
“In fact, by law and custom the master exerted enormous power over his slaves, who were required to show proper obedience and respect to him. “The condition of the slave being merely passive one,” declared the Louisiana slave code of 1806, “his subordination to his master and to all who represent him is not susceptible of modification or restriction…he owes to his master, and to all his family, a respect without bounds, and an absolute obedience.”
When we allowed sin to enter into our lives we automatically volunteered to walk in the ways of the world to align ourselves with the ruler of the world. God gave us the protection that we needed to survive without having any adverse issues to encounter, the only thing we had to do was to obey one simple command and go on living without any problems. But as much as God wanted us to stay within His protection He understood that He could not force us to stay with His Ways but it would be our choice to do such. God did not fail to provide adequate information concerning the options that were in front of us, instead, He allowed us to make that choice and at some point in time we as a human race decided to go it alone thus choosing the opposite of freedom, slavery. Take a few moments and read this short passage again from the slavery book and then see if we are not following in the footsteps of the world’s slave master.
How far off are we to solving the issue of slavery? We are so far off that we do not even understand the role of the people who are supposed to be “fixing” the issue. There can be no argument that Jesus understood the issue to the fullest and that through this understanding He was able to heal thousands of years of slavery, true hatred and discrimination in just a few minutes and then stay for a weekend revival. We have had people telling us what to do and enslaving countless people and cultures ever since the first “kingdom” was established and we still have fallen well short of solving the issue of inequality. Inequality is the definition of slavery if you have not figured this out yet and this unequal status has been in place all the way back to Genesis 3:7 and then defined by God in Genesis 3:16. Yet, for some reason, we have been stuck on the lie that Genesis 3:16 has given men the answer of sole dominance and authority over women. This interpretation of this verse in that manner is just that an interpretation and one that is a lie from the slave master himself.
There is no way that we can fight against the issues of today if we do not understand the origins behind them first. The origins of this lifestyle have been sitting right in front of us for such a long time yet we have been totally blind to its existence. I hope that we have missed this truth about this passage because if we have sat on a known truth and have not taught this to the Church we have been living in sin ourselves knowingly and even Job stated that God would not judge him for any unknown sin in his life. God cannot create anything unequally He does not have that ability to do such a thing for He is perfect in all ways and on all levels. We must never forget that the struggles that many of us face come straight from our enemy who has control over our lives and that we can avoid so much garbage if we just return to God and His Ways.
One of my friends suggested one time that we should study the 3:16s of the Bible and at the time I thought it would be a novel idea and one that I would eventually complete. It took me a couple of years to remember that suggestion again and another couple of days to write out each 3:16 of each book of the Bible that had this content. The gentleman was correct, the rewards for this study fascinated and I continue to refer to these verses on a regular basis. At that time I had no idea of how significant those verses would be and how they would define a part of this series and how important it is to know who controls this world. I use the word control loosely here and I am incorrect in doing it because it does not give the severity and amount of control that Satan has on this world, for it is a slave like demeanor and everyone who follows this “beautiful, fun, and free” lifestyle is consumed in its selfish vacuum. When this occurs the 3:16s of the Bible become obsolete for the world will not teach the truth about its overall and controlled setting, it can only lie and say one is free through its popularity totally masquerading the reason why John 3:16 was written. Some question the reasoning of why Jesus was sent to this world to die and it was for this reason alone so that we can be free from the bonds of slavery and restore to everyone who chooses to live in abundant and pure freedom again.
We need to understand that slavery is a possession and not just an occupation and it is important to understand just how deep that possession goes. It is well known that when human physical slavery was popular that every master had to pay a price for each slave they bought. Once God informed the participants of Genesis 3:16 of the new living arrangements, it must have been another confusing portion added to Adam and Eve’s day not to mention what would now arrive after that day too, just as it has been for us all these millennia down the road. When we look this verse squarely in the eye and allow its true meaning to fill our hearts we will be able to witness exactly what is going on in the world and understand who is pulling our strings as well.
DLB
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