We are continuing what we started a few weeks ago. It is all about sexual purity, the lifestyle that is appropriate for those who are called “children of God.”

But we thought it would be a great advantage to all of us to spend more time on the basics of Christianity, the truth of God, before we dive into the appropriate lifestyle of a born-again Christian. Before we say, “This is talking about me and my lifestyle,” it is good to ask ourselves biblically if in the first place we are born-again Christians.

Last week, we closed the post saying:

“Adam and Eve were created in the image of God. When they sinned against God, that glorious image of God got “disfigured.” Paul puts this concept in this way: “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” Romans 3:23 ESV”

And today we will continue from there.

According to the word of God, the human race died with Adam and Eve. After them, we all came into this world carrying a disfigured image of God and being spiritually dead. We are like walking zombies.

You see, like everything God created, we too were created for God, to love God, to worship Him alone, to live, to do, say and do everything for our Creator’s glory. After the fall, this part of us died because God said to Adam:

“The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”” Genesis 2:15-17 ESV

This is not a joke. God said it and Adam and Eve died after they ate the forbidden fruit. After they died, they continued giving birth and all their offspring, including you and me, came into this world being dead from the inside.

The word of God puts this “deadness” in this way:

““There is none righteous, no, not one;
There is none who understands;
There is none who seeks after God.
They have all turned aside;
They have together become unprofitable;
There is none who does good, no, not one.””  Romans 3:11-12 NKJV

And,

“The Lord looks down from heaven upon the children of men,
To see if there are any who understand, who seek God.
They have all turned aside,
They have together become corrupt;
There is none who does good,
No, not one.” Psalm 14:11-12 NKJV

Our deadness, according to the word of God, is manifested by our hatred of God and being the enemies of God. Left to ourselves, everything we do, say and think becomes an abomination to God since there is nothing good in us. Every good in us died with Adam and Eve.

This is a very critical truth of God that we, born-again Christians, should need to know. If we miss this, if we believe something like, “Yes, Adam sinned against God but he didn’t totally die, there in him remained some good things, like his will and power of choice that enables him to choose God,” we cannot follow the rest of the truth of the Bible.

Yes, man still has his will and power of choice but not a will to seek God, not the power to choose God among other so-called “gods.” All the power and will that remains in man is to do evil.

After the fall, we all became separated from God. No chance for any one of us to run back to Him. No will, no desire in us to seek God as the Bible says. After Adam sinned, a big rift was created between God and man.

So, what we need to ask at this point is this:

“Okay, we are dead and we don’t seek God. Then how did I become a Christian?” (if we know for sure that we are Christians, born-again Christians)

Well, Paul explained it this way:

“And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” 2 Corinthians 4:3-6 ESV

Did you see that?

Paul is cross-referencing this passage from Genesis:

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.” Genesis 1:1-3 ESV

Where did the light come from?

From the Sun? There was no sun at this point in creation!

Then from where?

From “God says!”

God said, “Let there be light.”

In the same way, Paul says, we come to know God when “God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” Verse 6

Isn’t that amazing!

The next follow up question we need to ask is this:

Then how does God do that in our individual life?

God does that as we hear the Gospel, the Gospel about Jesus Christ. That is it! This is the way God chose to do it. The following passage of the Bible, in my opinion, will make this truth of God very clear for us.

Listen:

“The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of the valley; it was full of bones. And he led me around among them, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley, and behold, they were very dry. And he said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” Then he said to me, “Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.”

So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I prophesied, there was a sound, and behold, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. And I looked, and behold, there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them. But there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.” So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army.” Ezekiel 37:1-10 ESV

Oh, how marvelous are the words and truths of God!

Ezekiel was told by God to speak to the bones – (a prophecy mainly about the people of Israel, but this same prophecy was about the people who are going to be saved in Christ). Really? Yes! And not only that but God also told Ezekiel to tell those totally dry bones what God had promised to do with them.

I mean, Ezekiel must have been a real man of God who knew his God very well. God told him to say it, and Ezekiel said it. And boom! As God said, those dry bones “lived and stood on their feet,” and, hear this, they became, “great army.”

Army? Yes, army! For the rest of their life they live for one purpose only, to serve the King who called them to life out of death.

So, the Bible says,

“For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”

Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” 1 Corinthians 1:18-24 ESV

It says, “it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.”

Why is it called “folly?”

Think about it. Speaking to dead, dry bones about “the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” – I mean, what do you call that but folly (of course from the human perspective)? Right? But God in a way says, this is my way of saving people, this is my way of waking up dead people from death to life so they can live for the glory of God, as they were originally created for.

And, once those people are awake from death, where do they find faith in God?

Again, “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” Romans 10:17 ESV

Until we Christians give the word of God its rightful place in our lives, gatherings and churches, we end up lead a sexually perverted lifestyle and in all our Christian service, we become entertainers of dead people (people of this dark world), in the name of “evangelism,” leading all who hear us not to heaven but to hell- – – Contd. ///