Redemption – Part 1 Lawson and Aaron Perdue

Redemption Part 1 with Pastors Lawson and Aaron Perdue. In this episode of Grace For Today you’ll learn how God gave man dominion over all creation and how we can use our dominion to do what God called us to do.

Redemption Part 1 Transcription

Welcome friends of the broadcast. I’m so glad that you tuned in today. We are gonna be beginning a brand new series today on redemption. We’re gonna be talking about creation. And in creation, God gave man authority, God gave man dominion, but He also gave him ability, He gave him what it took to do what He called him to do. And you know it’s the same for us today? Stay tuned, you’ll be blessed today. Friends, I’m so glad that you’re with us today. We’re teaching on the subject of redemption. I believe it is the message of the Bible. We’re getting ready to celebrate the greatest event in the history of the universe. And that is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And that’s what we’re talking about really when we’re talking about redemption. There’s a verse in Ephesians 1:7. It says, “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.” And thank God for what Jesus did for us in His death, burial and resurrection.

Amen.

Thank God for redemption. Now, when we look at redemption, you know the first thing that comes to me? Well, what is it? When we read this verse in Ephesians 1:7, talking about, in Christ we have redemption. That word for redemption in the Greek is the word apolutrosis. And it means a release by a payment of ransom. Jesus paid the price for us. It means liberation, redemption, deliverance, salvation, riddance, praise God. And so we have been set free from our sin. We have been delivered, we have been made new. And then it goes on to say, in Christ we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins according to the richness or the ultimate wealth of His grace. And this word for forgiveness is the Greek word, ephesus. And it means remission, forgiveness, deliverance, liberty, release from bondage or imprisonment. Or forgiveness of a sin as it’s never been committed. You know, remission of a penalty, pardoned as if it’s never committed. Praise God. Our sins have been forgiven.

I don’t think of that definition of redemption as a payment for a ransom. You know, Jesus came and He said, “I came to set the captives free.”

Yeah.

And when He did that, He did that with, you know, His own offering of Himself. I love that term. The riches of His grace, the ultimate wealth of His grace. You know, His grace is completely abundant. There is no shortage of it. It can pay the ultimate payment.

Amen. And so the ultimate payment was the blood. The blood is the payment of redemption. We’ll be talking about that later this week as we talk about this subject of redemption. But really the Bible is a book of redemption. And the Bible begins with man in paradise with God. In Genesis 1, when God created man, created man in His own image, and then made Him in His own likeness, gave him authority, gave him dominion, put him in a beautiful garden, gave him only one command. Do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which is in the midst of the paradise of God. But in Revelation 2:7, we see just a little key to this. And it says “To him who overcomes will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.” So paradise is not found in the lifestyles of the rich and famous, but paradise is found through knowing Jesus, praise God. And we’re on our way back to paradise. You know, one person said, a good friend of mine, Pastor Ben Dailey from Calvary Church in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas area, said, really, in the Bible, if you understand, you know, the beginning and the end, and then what happened in the middle, what Jesus did for us in His death and resurrection, you really get a good understanding of the Bible. So praise God, we’re going back to paradise. And paradise isn’t found in the lifestyles of the rich and the famous, paradise is found through knowing Jesus. Praise God. We’re going back to the tree of life. We’re going back to the, amen, presence of God, to the throne of God, to the river of God. And the Bible actually says this in Revelation 22. We’ll read it later, but it says, there shall be no more curse. And so as you study Genesis, after Adam and Eve were created in the garden, created in the image of God, they were the ultimate of God’s creation. We’ll go and read just a little bit about that in Genesis 1:1 and then 26-28. It says, in Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God created the heaven and earth.” And Aaron, you understand this in the Hebrew, but when it says God created the heaven and earth, who’s it talking about?

It’s talking about Elohim is the Hebrew word. They’re.

Right.

So it’s talking about the plurality of God. That ending, it’s talking about a plural ending, in the Hebrew. So it’s talking about God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. It says in verse two, “The Earth was without form and void. there was darkness upon the face of the deep, but the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the water.” So we can see the Holy Spirit was there with the Father, with Jesus in the beginning, creating all things. And you know, even though it was without form and void, I believe the Holy Spirit hovered over the face of the water. In fact, this word moved is the Hebrew word rachaph. And it means to flutter, to move, to shake, to hover. You know, and so the Holy Spirit, I believe, was brooding. Another way that’s been translated is brooding over the face of the deep and creating a plan. And then after the Holy Spirit created this plan, God begin to speak creation into existence. And as God speaks creation into existence, He starts from the lowest forms of creation. And then He goes to the highest forms of creation. And ultimately, man, it was the highest of God’s creation. God created man in His own image and His own likeness, and He gave him dominion. Aaron, why don’t you read in verse 26 through verse 28, talking about God’s creation of man.

Yeah. So here it says, “Then God said, Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in His own image, in the image of God, He created him, male and female, He created them. Then God blessed them. And God said to them, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

And so God created man, and God blessed man. Man was blessed from the very beginning. And God gave him authority. God gave him dominion. You know, He made him productive. He said, be fruitful and multiply, you know, take dominion over the earth. And not only did God give him, you know, a job to do, God gave him, you know, those things, it took to fulfill what God said to do. You know, the Bible actually says this in 1 Thessalonians 5, it says, “Faithful is He who calls you, who also will do it.” If God calls you to do something, then God gives us the ability with that call to accomplish what He’s called us to do. And here we see in the next two verses that God, in actually the next three verses, verse 29-31, that God gave man every herb bearing seed, He gave him every animal were in there’s life. And then He looked at it and saw that it was very good. Now, what is unique about herbs that bear seed and animals that have life, they have the power to reproduce. And so God told man, I want you to be fruitful. I want you to multiply. I want you to take dominion, but I’m giving you the power to be productive. I’m giving you seed, herbs bearing seed, seeds reproduce after their own kind. This is one reason we know man didn’t come from a monkey. God created everything to, you know, reproduce after its own kind. So when humans get together, they have humans. And when monkeys get together, they have monkeys. You know, all this crazy, you know, teaching about, you know, evolution. There is no fossil record for it. It’s just a, it’s just a philosophy of man. So they can come up with crazy ideas. But in the beginning, God created the heaven and earth. You know, if you understand that, you’re on the right track. Understand God’s created you. And then He created them, male and female. It goes on to say how He created man when He created them in His own likeness, in His own image. And God made everything to reproduce after its own kind. And you know, ducks make ducks and geese make geese. And horses make horses, and cows make cows. That’s just, that’s how watermelons, you sell watermelon seeds, you get watermelon plants, you sell corn seed, you get corn, you sell weeds, you get weeds. So everything, God set it up that way. And the Bible actually says in Romans 1, that every created being knows that they have a creator. You know, there are no atheists in the foxholes. Basically, most atheists are mad at God. And they’re really mad at God because they think God did something that probably God didn’t do. Because not only is there a God in heaven, there’s a devil in hell. And when we get into Genesis 2, we see after man was created that the Lord God, in verse eight it says this, “Planted a garden in the east of Eden and put the man whom He had formed.” You know, God created man, and He had a father’s heart. And as a father, He wanted to provide for His children. So He put ’em in this garden, this paradise, and out of the garden, the Lord made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, that is good for food, the tree of life in the middle of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So I mean, there were, you know, I literally believe there were thousands and thousands of trees in this garden, and you had to do some work to get to the center of it, where the tree of life was, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And so He gave man just really one choice and one commandment. Do not eat of the tree, of the knowledge of good and evil, which is in the midst of the paradise of God. So here he was, and a river, in verse 10, “went out of Eden, to water the garden. And from there, it parted and became four heads.” And he talks about this river. There was, you know, the name of the first is Pishon, which is compass, the whole land of Havilah, where there’s gold. Again, there’s more provision. Gold of that land is good. And onyx stone, all these different stones, the name of the second river as Gihon the same compass, the whole land of Ethiopia, the name of the third river Hiddekel, that which goes towards the east of Assyria. And the fourth is the Euphrates. And not only did God, you know, provide for man well and gave him this beautiful place to stay, God gave him a job to do. He gave him responsibility. So with authority, right? With dominion and responsib- God gave man this, you know, I want you to be productive. I want you to take dominion. But He gave him something to do that. But then He also gave him responsibility. It says in verse 15, and why don’t you read, Aaron, verse 15 through verse 18.

“Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man saying, of every tree of the garden, you may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat. For the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. And the Lord God said, it is not good that man should be alone. I will make him a helper comparable to him.”

Right? So he, he made a help, that word mate, it’s an old English word in the King James, means sufficient for him. I believe some of the greatest authority on earth was when a husband and wife come together in agreement, we find great authority. And so here, God, you know, made man in his own image, gave him authority, gave him dominion, told him to be productive, told him to have dominion. Gave him, you know, the tools that it took to do that, gave him every herb bearing seed, every animal bearing life, things that reproduced and have dominion, then placed him in a beautiful garden. And then we see not only did He do that, but He gave him a help sufficient for him. So he wasn’t just by himself trying to do this. Why don’t, Aaron go ahead and read verse 21 through verse 25.

This says, “And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam and he slept and He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh in its place. The rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, He made into a woman. And he brought her to the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

And so here, when God created man, He created them, you know, gave him authority, gave him dominion, gave him a beautiful place to live, gave him, you know, things to carry out. His calling, to be productive and have dominion. And then gave him responsibility, you know, dress the garden and keep it. I want you to take care of it. I want you to protect it.

Mm-hm.

And then He gave him a help sufficient for him. He wasn’t just by himself doing this. And, you know, and when He made man and then brought woman to him, made, took of his rib and made this woman, brought her to to Adam, it says they were naked and they were not shame. So where does shame come from?

Shame comes from the devil.

Yeah, it comes from sin. Shame entered when sin entered. And sin means to miss the mark, or to transgress what God said to do. And so we’ve all sinned, we’ve all missed the mark, but we’re gonna come back and see, you know, how even though man sinned, immediately, when man sinned, that God set the plan of redemption into action. You know, the Bible says that Jesus, in Revelation 13:8, is the lamb slain from the foundation of the world. So even before man sinned, God had a plan for his redemption, for his forgiveness, for his freedom. And so we’ll talk about that in the last half of the broadcast. So stay tuned, we’ll be right back. Blessings. Friends, I’m so glad you’ve been watching today. We’ve been teaching on the subject of redemption and who we are in Christ. This is some of my best teaching. In fact, I got a revelation of this over 40 years ago in Andrew Wommack’s meetings, when I was just a child and it revolutionized my life. And I believe if you get a revelation of who you are in Christ and what happened in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, it will literally transform your life. And so we have a lot of great teaching on redemption, what Jesus did for us in his death, burial, and resurrection, and who we are in Christ. I encourage you to get this teaching. I believe just like it transformed my life, it will transform your life. So get on the internet, give us a call. We’d love to hear from you. Thank you so much, and God bless you richly as you lie His word first place. Praise the Lord friends, we’re back. And we’ve been sharing on redemption. We’ve been talking about creation, how God created man, gave man authority, gave man dominion, gave man ability, gave him every herb bearing seed, gave him every animal that had life, things that reproduce, gave him, you know, put him in a beautiful garden, gave him a beautiful wife, gave him responsibility. He was to dress the garden and to keep it. But in this, you know, garden, Satan came, right? Now, a lot of people, we said, are mad at God. A lot of people that claim that they don’t believe in God are really mad at God because something they think God’s done when ultimately, if you know the author of evil, Satan is the author of evil. The devil is the author of evil. And so Aaron, go ahead and read in Genesis 3:1-6, about how Satan came and deceived Eve. And then Adam ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil too.

It says, “Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field, which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, has God indeed said, you shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden. God has said, You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die. Then the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die, for God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you’ll be like God, knowing good and evil. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, she also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.”

Okay, so when you look at this, a number of things happened. The first thing the devil did was got Eve to begin to question the word of God. You know, when you come to this understanding that the word of God is my final authority, and I believe God’s word above every other word, you’re getting in a place where you can operate in authority, where you can operate in dominion. But a lot of people don’t have that understanding, that the Word of God is the truth. The Word of God is the final authority. You know, Jesus said, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will endure forever,” in Matthew 24:35. In John 17:17, He said, “Thy word is truth.” Praise God. We have the truth of the Word of God now. So he began to question the word of God, and then he really got Eve to misquote the word of God, to twist the word of God. And she said, you know, God has said, you shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge good and evil, which he did say, but neither shall you touch it lest you die. Which He didn’t say. So got her to add to the Word of God, right? He twisted the Word of God, got her to add to the Word of God, and then he came and outright contradicted the Word of God. So this is how the devil works. He doesn’t come out in the beginning and outright contradict the Word of God. Right? He gets you to question the Word of God, then he’ll add something to it, twist it up a little bit, and then he comes and contradicts it. So, and you know, the devil doesn’t really have any new tricks, he’s got the same bag of tricks. He does the same thing over and over. When you see this temptation, and he outright contradicts the Word of God. He said, God knows that in the day that you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, your eyes will be open and you will be as gods, knowing good and evil. They were already made in the image of God. They were already given authority, given dominion. And Satan came and outright lied to them. And when you look at this, what this really is talking about, and we have a terrible problem with this in the world today. It’s a lack mentality, a victim mentality. And Adam and Eve were made in the image of God, given authority, given, you know, what it took to have dominion, given ability, given responsibility, placed in a beautiful garden. And the devil said, well, you know, you’re not like- He lied to them! And they bought his lie. And actually Eve was deceived. She was deceived. Adam knew what he was doing. But we see that it says, when the woman saw that the tree was good for food when she, that it was pleasant to the eye. So it was the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and it was desired to make one wise, the pride of life. She took the fruit thereof and ate. Now she was deceived. But the Bible tells us in the book of Timothy that Adam was not deceived. He knew what he was doing. So Adam was the one that ultimately was responsibility, you know, responsible for this. Now, the first thing that you see happen when God comes after this, is Adam tries to blame his wife and says, the woman you gave me, ultimately blames God. And there are a lot of people that have a lack mentality, and ultimately they’re blaming God, and that is not leading you to a good place.

Yeah. It’s kind of interesting when the serpent comes here to deceive Eve. I was kind of talking to my wife recently about this, but the way that, you know, the devil deceives people, it’s very, it’s always very slight. He tries to mix truth with his deception.

Right.

And even the same way that Satan came to Jesus to tempt Jesus, you know, Satan was quoting scripture to Jesus and he was quoting truth to Jesus, but he was doing it in his cunning, crafty way. You know, Jesus didn’t fall for it, obviously.

Right.

But, the devil didn’t just come out with just flat out blatant lies, you know, he was very deceptive in how he comes to people.

Right.

And, you know, she saw, she just happened to be scrolling through Instagram and saw someone, and it’s just odd that it popped up on her screen, but it was someone who is like a Wiccan or they’re a medium. And they were talking about how there’s spirits that talk to her, and all these people were com- You, just see how many people are really lost in the world. Like a lot of people were saying, I’m so glad you let me know that there’s still, the spirits of people are still around. But she said, someone commented and said, well, where do, where does this spirit come from? Where, like, they’re asking about create, like people want to know. And God answers are in the beginning God created.

Yes.

You know, you have to know that God is a creator.

Yes!

If you don’t know him as a creator and as a good creator, you’re gonna fall for a lot of deception out there in the world. And a lot of people, a lot of people are very deceived today and falling for Satan’s tricks today.

And listen, I don’t want to know what any soothsayer says. I’m not gonna have anybody read my palm. I’m not going to, you know, go to any of this stuff that’s witchcraft. It’s strictly forbidden in the Bible. And there’s a reason. And some believers get mixed up. I had a girl one time, and she came to our church, you probably remember her, but she had been mixed up and, you know, been a prostitute. And she got born again, got saved, had two little girls, you know, the father of her daughters actually came to her house and shot his head off in her house. We had to do the funeral. It was a terrible mess, you know? But anyway, she got delivered outta all that. But while she was being delivered, she called in one time to 1-900-Dial-a-Demon. She had a $600 or $800 phone bill from calling these, you know, soothsayers on the phone. She had enough problems without that going on. Thank God, I told her, and she said, this person, you know, on the other end of that phone was quoting scripture to her. You know, the devil knows how to quote scripture.

Yeah.

But he messes it up and turns it around. It’ll mess- So, if you know somebody’s operating in evil spirits, if they’re doing any kind of this tarot cards, reading your palm, witchcraft in any shape, form, or fashion, stay out of it!

Mm hm. So I’ve heard that one of the fastest-growing religions amongst young people in the United States right now is the Church of Satan.

It’s terrible.

Satanism. There’ve been, there’ve actually been Church of Satan leaders come to the school board meeting here in school.

Yeah. We live in a very conservative area, a lot of believers.

Mm-hm.

But yet, you know, the devil is doing all he can. They’re trying to get every person they can to go and go the wrong way. And that’s just the way I’m not going, praise God. I made up my mind a long time ago, and I am not getting involved in any kind of witchcraft, so on and so forth. I’m not giving the devil any crack in my life that I know of.

Mm-hm.

You know, I’m not gonna give him a chance to get involved in my life in any way, shape, or form. Now after this happens, and we’ll have to come back this and share more tomorrow. But Adam sins, and Satan comes, or you know, God comes and says, Adam, where are you? And actually begins to speak, and speaks to the serpent, and says, you’re cursed, says the woman’s gonna, you know, have sorrow in conception. Now we’ve been redeemed from that, if you study the Bible, in the book of Timothy, but not only says Adam’s gonna work, and work is not a curse, but he’s gonna work, till the ground, and it’s gonna bring forth weeds and thistles and thorns. That’s the curse. But immediately, in the middle of that, God gives the first promise of redemption that we see in the scripture. And that is the seed of the woman will bruise Satan’s head, the serpent’s head, and you will bruise his heel. And so gives this promise of redemption, this promise of the Messiah, the promise of the redeemer. And so, you know, that curse comes in. And then when we read in Revelation 22, and we’ll have to get into that tomorrow, but we read, and it says, there shall be no more curse. So when Christ came, died on the cross, He redeemed us from the curse of the law. But when He comes again, He’s gonna redeem us from the total curse of sin. And the last enemy that will be destroyed is the enemy of death. So Aaron, go ahead and close us out, here.

Well, thank you so much for joining us. God is so good. If you’d like to call in for prayer, we’d love to pray for you. If you’d like to become a partner and help support this ministry, we’d love for you to become a partner today. Just give a call. Give us a call. We’d love to hear from you.

Blessings.

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