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[0:00] And today's session is going to be a little different, because even though it is related to prophecy, it might not appear to be prophetic at this point, but it will get there, and if we don't make it in this study, we'll make it in the next.

[0:15] And what we are going to consider is what the Bible calls the Shekinah glory. And this is a term that literally means the manifestation of the presence of God.

[0:33] The Shekinah is revealed many, many times in Scripture, both in the Old Testament and in the New. Sometimes it is a reference to the Shekinah glory when it simply talks about the glory of the Lord.

[0:49] That is reference to the Shekinah. We will see numerous places in the Old and New Testament where this surfaces and is implemented. It is kind of like, I guess you would say, it is kind of like a substitute for the actual, literal presence of God, which no human could abide.

[1:19] And we will try to explore why that is the case. But none of us here, including myself, have any idea at all as to what is involved with deity, with being the uncaused first cause.

[1:41] This is a sphere that is so far above and beyond any of our capabilities to imagine. We are just given bits and pieces of it because, frankly, that's all we can handle.

[1:55] And unfortunately, most believers don't even get the bits and pieces. But they are there for us to get. And exploring this subject of the Shekinah glory is one of them.

[2:08] So, for starters, let me put it this way. I am not a Trekkie. That is, I am not, I am not, not only am I not a big fan, I'm not really a fan at all of Star Trek.

[2:21] And I know it holds certain drama and entertainment and everything. And some people really get involved in all of that kind of space age technology that is mostly make-believe.

[2:32] But I do recall a quote, a famous quote, I think it was by Captain Kirk, that the program opens with, we are going somewhere where man has never gone before or something like that.

[2:44] Well, that's what we are going to do this morning. But we won't be using a starship to do it. We will just be sitting right here in Grace Bible Church. And what I would like you to contemplate with me for just a while is, before the beginning began, we are talking about the existence of this incredible being we refer to as God or the Lord.

[3:14] Or the uncaused first cause. And we are going back beyond Genesis 1. But you may ask, well, how can you do that?

[3:25] Because the scriptures really don't reveal all that much about before the beginning began. So how can we go there? Well, I must confess, much to my dismay, that you are going to receive this morning a portion of supposition, conjecture, a tentative kind of looking at some of these things.

[3:56] And frankly, on the surface, that does not excite me at all, because I would much prefer to have a black and white, thus saith the Lord, before me. So I know that I'm really on solid ground.

[4:07] So part, at least, of what I'm going to be sharing with you this morning, I must admit, is pure conjecture. I have tried to connect some dots.

[4:18] And I may have missed them a mile. But I'm going to put together a kind of scenario that I think the scripture supports overall.

[4:30] And I'll give you some reasons and some verses that led me to that conclusion. Most of you know that we've been privileged to minister here at Grace for about 45, 46 years now, something like that.

[4:46] But I must confess, and I do this with a certain amount of embarrassment, that I have never come to appreciate the reality of the Spirit as much as I have, perhaps, over the last five years.

[5:02] Of course, I've been familiar from the early days of my Christian life about the Holy Spirit and the ministry of the Holy Spirit and so on, being a member of the triune Godhead.

[5:13] But I'm not talking about the Holy Spirit. I'm talking about Spirit in general. And we are talking about an area with which we have very, very little familiarity because we are physical beings locked into time and space.

[5:33] We are limited there. But that which is spiritual is not confined by time and space because it has no materiality about it.

[5:45] It has no physicality about it. And already, we are in over our heads, aren't we? Yes, we are. So, what I am going to try to put together, partly by scriptural fact and authorization, and partly by conjecture, that will be admittedly some assumptions on my part.

[6:09] We want to look at this very origin of the Shekinah glory, or as some pronounce it, the Shekinah. And I don't know which pronunciation is correct because I know that even the Hebrew scholars have some disagreement among themselves as to how it is pronounced.

[6:31] And I do not have much expertise at all with Hebrew. I know someone says, Yeah, I know a little Hebrew. He runs a delicatessen on the corner.

[6:43] Yeah, well, all I know is a little Greek, and her name is Marvis. So, I just want you to think a little bit with me now about what Christ said when he talked to the woman at the well.

[7:02] And he made a tremendous statement that is often overlooked, but it's very, very significant. when Jesus said, God is spirit.

[7:19] And he didn't say, God is a spirit. I don't think that would be correct. But God is spirit. And they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

[7:32] And I think, on the surface, that simply means that God is an immaterial being, not confined by time and space, but is the creator of time and space.

[7:47] And that because God is spirit, he has fashioned man in his likeness and image by giving him something of himself, which is also spirit.

[8:07] And it is what he gave us that is spirit, which is also immaterial and on the inside of us. It is that part of our being that connects with God at the point of regeneration or salvation.

[8:25] God's spirit quickens or makes alive our spirit. And our spirit was alive to begin with. Because the body without the spirit is dead.

[8:40] So every human being has a living spirit. But, maybe a spirit that is not connected or alive to God.

[8:53] And when we are regenerated in that human spirit, that's the part of us that we refer to as being saved.

[9:03] That's what was saved. It wasn't your body. It was this spirit which is evacuated at physical death, goes to be with the Lord, and leaves a dead body behind.

[9:18] So, when Jesus said, God is spirit, I want you to think in terms of going way back now. Back before Genesis 1-1.

[9:32] No angels, no stars, no planets, no earth, no physicality, no anything that we could identify as substance or creation.

[9:44] Yet, there was this being we call God. This uncaused first cause. And the scriptures reveal that this person we call God is a singular individual who subsists in three persons.

[10:07] A father, and a son, and a Holy Spirit. However, the father-son relationship is not to be humanized because he is not a son.

[10:22] The son of God is not to God as the man is to his father. This is a physical thing and it is a human thing and we are talking about a being who exists on an entirely different plane than anything human.

[10:42] And we just cannot imagine what that plane is. Because once again, we are confined to the parameters of our humanity. None of us here, certainly myself included, have any idea of what the infinite, eternal being called God truly is.

[11:05] He just so far escapes us. There is no possibility of understanding that. And this is partly where the Shekinah comes in. So, of what was this being consisting of, if I can use the term consisting of, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

[11:28] Now, ordinarily, we think of a son being the product of a father who interacted with a female mother and produced a son.

[11:41] Dismiss that entirely when you're thinking of God the creator. This is merely a human thing and there are some parallels there, but there are some that far transcend anything that is parallel to it.

[11:55] And by the way, may I add that this is one of the great sticking points that the Muslim world has with Christianity because they have somehow gotten the mistaken notion that there was some kind of physical relationship, intercourse, between God and the Virgin Mary that produced Jesus, which of course is a completely erroneous concept in any way you look at it.

[12:27] So there's tremendous misunderstanding and when they say things like God cannot have a son and they're very adamant about that, you know, and many times, most of the time, they have never heard a Christian explanation.

[12:42] Matter of fact, most Christians have never heard a Christian explanation of this. So how could they possibly explain it to a Muslim? So in this being called God, there is that spiritual capacity, that immaterial, non-physical being, subsisting in three persons, all of whom are comprised by this same spirituality.

[13:13] There's no physicality there at all. Understand, if you will, that the only physicality involving the triune Godhead has to do with the incarnation.

[13:30] That is when God became flesh at Bethlehem in the person of Jesus. That's the extent of the physicality.

[13:41] So what I'm saying is, how did Jesus, well, it wasn't even Jesus, was it? He was always the Son of God.

[13:54] But he was not Jesus. He was not Jesus until Bethlehem. Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from his sins.

[14:06] So, before he became Jesus, and before he became physical and was incarnated, he was the eternal Son comprised of Spirit, dwelling with the eternal Father, also Spirit, and the Holy Spirit.

[14:22] So we have these three beings consisting of this triune nature, all of whom are spiritual. Are you with me so far?

[14:35] Okay. Now, keeping that in mind, I want you to go, um, so let's go first of all to Genesis, if we may.

[14:47] Genesis 18. Genesis chapter 18, and this is, this is a just fascinating, fascinating account.

[15:02] And I'm going to read it and comment along the way. It's one of my favorite passages. I hope I don't get carried away and take too much time with it, but it is a wonderful passage.

[15:14] this has to do with the promising of the birth of Isaac. And I want you to note in verse 1 of chapter 18, now the Lord, and would you look at the word Lord, do you not see it all in capital letters?

[15:34] When in your Bible the word Lord appears with all capital letters, that is an indication that in the original text, the Hebrew, this word Lord was Yahweh or Jehovah.

[15:53] Okay? And he appeared to him, that is to Abram, by the oaks of Mamre, while he was sitting at the tent door in the heat of the day.

[16:05] Abraham didn't live in a house. He lived in a tent. So that you could strike the tent, move it to another location, and follow the grazing for the animals, wherever the grass was and wherever the water was.

[16:17] So he is sitting at the tent in the heat of the day. And this is when the Lord appeared to him. Now we're talking about Jehovah. We're talking about this God who is spirit, who is obviously for Abraham's sake, assuming a physical body.

[16:37] man. And for all practical purposes, he looked to Abraham as just another human being. Would not know at all that he's talking to the God of the universe.

[16:53] And when he lifted up his eyes and looked, behold, three men were standing opposite him. Now I want you to note something here that's a very minor thing, and I don't want to make more of it than what is really there.

[17:05] but there is no indication that Abraham saw these men coming. There was a time when in my mind's eye, I would have looked back on this text and thought of Abraham being at the tent door, and lo and behold, off in the distance he sees three individuals, and he's, well, looks like some strangers are coming.

[17:31] But the text does not allow for that. it simply says that when he looked up, three individuals were standing there for him. Where did they come from? One of the fascinating things about angels is almost every time they appear to a human being in the Old or New Testament, they seem to come out of nowhere.

[17:52] Nobody sees them coming from a distance. They are just there where there wasn't anybody before. And that's one reason that just about everybody that sees an angel is scared to death because it's within close proximity and they just looked that way just ten seconds ago and there was nobody there and then all of a sudden bang, there's somebody standing there.

[18:17] Whoa! Where'd you come? And this is why I'm convinced the first thing angels usually say is fear not. It's okay. Don't be afraid. Now in this case, these three individuals are just standing opposite from seemingly out of nowhere.

[18:33] And when he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them. So there's some distance between them. He ran from the tent door and he bowed himself to the earth and he said, my Lord. Now would you look at that word, Lord?

[18:46] It's spelled differently, isn't it? Small letters. It is a humanizing Lord and it simply means the usage of the word that acknowledges a supposed superiority of someone.

[19:00] It's almost like our calling someone sir or ma'am or something like that. But it is not associated with the God of heaven, with Jehovah or with that Lord.

[19:12] This is a human Lord. And Sarah, Sarah will call her husband Lord, but she certainly isn't connecting it with deity.

[19:24] It's just a term of respect and keep that in mind the way it's spelled. He said, my Lord, if now I have found favor in your sight, please do not pass your servant by. Please let a little water be brought and wash your feet and rest yourselves under the tree.

[19:39] And it almost looks like a reverse thing here that these people are not asking for help, but Abram is kind of pushing it on them. And this has to do with something that we don't really appreciate, but it has to do with mid-eastern culture and their accommodating a stranger.

[19:57] They're considering it a great honor to even be visited by a stranger because that was an individual who would be able to bear news, give you information from wherever.

[20:09] You've got to remember there was no internet, no radio, no newspapers, no anything. They were all dependent on personal interaction for news and communication. So it was always exciting when a stranger came to town.

[20:22] And in these small towns in Israel, the townspeople would actually compete for the honor of entertaining this person and putting them up for the night just so that they could talk and fellowship and so on.

[20:35] So Abram is doing much the same. And they said, so do as you have said. And Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah and said, quickly, prepare three measures of fine flour, knead it, and make bread cakes.

[20:50] Abraham also ran to the herd, took a tender and choice cap. You can see he's going all out here as a host. And he has no idea of the real identity of these three people.

[21:02] They're just three men, as far as he's concerned, visitors. He took curds and milk and the cap which he prepared and showed it and placed it before them.

[21:14] And he was standing by them under the tree as they ate. And here we have angels eating. Here we have a physical manifestation of Jehovah who has assumed a human form and he is eating.

[21:37] Now I want to inject something right here. This Jehovah is none other than Yeshua.

[21:48] Yeshua. This is Jesus. And what we call a pre- incarnate appearance.

[21:59] This is before the incarnation in Bethlehem appearance. This is fifteen, seventeen, eighteen hundred years before Bethlehem.

[22:17] and the Virgin Mary. This is Yeshua assuming a bodily form with two others who are angels.

[22:37] So we've got none other than the God of heaven incarnated in a human form along with two angelic beings who are also in appearance as human beings and very often angels are taken to be human beings in the Old Testament and in the New.

[23:00] And we see that even at the resurrection of Christ when the women appeared to whom there were young men there they were referred to. These were angels but they looked like just young men.

[23:12] Let's read on. And they said to him where is Sarah your wife? And he said behold in the tent. She's always working.

[23:23] This is the woman's job. The men sit and talk while the women do the work. And he said I will surely return to you this time next year. Behold Sarah your wife shall have a son.

[23:36] And Sarah was listening at the tent door which was behind him. And I'm going to skip some of this because it is not germane to where I want to go. But notice in verse 12 Sarah says after I become old shall I have pleasure my Lord being old also.

[23:53] Who's she referring to? She's referring to Abraham her husband. She's saying I'm over the hill and so is my husband. And we're both too far gone to have babies. And then notice the word Lord in verse 13.

[24:07] You see how it's spelled? See the difference? This again is Jehovah Yeshua speaking. And he said to Abraham why did Sarah laugh saying shall I indeed bear a child when I am old?

[24:20] And let us move on if we may. Let's come down to verse 16 for time sake. Then the men rose up from there. And these are called men.

[24:34] Then the men rose up from there and looked down toward Sodom. And Abraham was walking with them to send them off.

[24:46] He's just being a good host. It's kind of like walking them out to the end of the property or whatever and saying goodbye. You know? And the Lord said, and this is Yeshua again, shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?

[25:03] And the reason he posed that question is because God had already established a very personal connection with Abraham back in chapter 12.

[25:16] And he is as much saying in a human-like kind of way that he doesn't think that it is well advised for good friends to keep secrets among themselves.

[25:28] So I'm going to tell Abraham what I'm going to do. Since, and the reason that I feel this way about it, he says, since Abraham will surely become a great and mighty nation, and in him all the nations of the earth will be blessed.

[25:42] For I've chosen him in order that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord, capitals again, by doing righteousness and justice in order that the Lord, capitals again, may bring upon Abraham what he has spoken about him.

[25:58] And the Lord, capitals, the outcry, he said, the outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah is indeed great, and their sin is exceedingly grave.

[26:12] Now, in essence, this is nothing more, I think, this is just a Wiseman opinion, but the long suffering of God was building for a long, long time.

[26:24] back earlier in Genesis, when the Lord looked upon the earth, and behold, it was filled with violence, and he decided to bring it all to a halt.

[26:37] God's long suffering had expired, and now it seems as though the same thing is happening here, only, of course, it's on a much smaller scale, but if I may just inject a piece of, what shall I say, opinion, take it or leave it, I am of the opinion that this area of Sodom and Gomorrah, though very, very small in comparison to the world that was destroyed with the flood, I think that it was the nature, and the extent, and the depth, of their sin, of this particular area, that God looked upon and said, that's enough.

[27:28] I think what we have, despite the denials of the modern gay movement, I think what we have here is a terrible, terrible abomination, as the scriptures refer to it, a perversion, which means that something is put to use that is the exact opposite of what it was intended for.

[27:58] That's what perversion is. It is the abuse, the use of something that is completely contrary to its original existence, existence, and we all know what this is dealing with, and I'm not going to belabor the point, but you are familiar as well as I am of the inroads that the homosexual community has made in our culture, and in Western civilization as well, how it has moved from something to be disdained and rejected to something that is in many respects even celebrated.

[28:49] And we'll see what God thinks of that. The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is indeed great, and their sin is exceedingly grave.

[29:03] And I'm sure that the pure eyes of the Lord looking upon the earth saw sin everywhere. Saw sin wherever he saw people. But when he looked at Sodom and Gomorrah, it was more than he was willing to tolerate.

[29:20] And you may ask me, why is it that God is willing to tolerate what's going on today? And my answer is, I'm not so sure that he is. Maybe we are closer than any of us know to the curtain coming down on our modern Sodom and Gomorrah.

[29:38] I will go down now and see, and this is an anthropomorphic kind of approach. God is assuming a form, a personage, an appearance that enables him to communicate with human beings so that they can understand.

[30:01] In other words, what this is is a condescension of the divine where he stoops, and I can't think of a better name, he stoops to come down to be able to minister to man in a face-to-face situation in a way that humans can understand and comprehend.

[30:19] And that's what we have here in this setting. And if not, I will know. And then the men, and they are called men, they are not called angels, but we know what they are.

[30:35] Now, the men turned away from there and went toward Sodom, while Abraham was still standing before the Lord.

[30:46] Now, these two angels have a mission. These are destroying angels. They are the angels who are going to be entertained by Lot and his family overnight.

[31:00] their two angels appearing as men, whom the townspeople wanted relate with sexually and impurely, saw them simply as new flesh in town, and Lot, in a way that is unthinkable, offered his daughters as a substitute, because he was under the Middle East compulsion of protecting those who were under the shadow of his roof.

[31:37] That is an old, old Mid-East thing that goes back that says the host is obligated to provide for and to protect even with his own life, those who come under the shadow of his roof.

[31:50] And that's exactly what Lot was doing, and that's why under pressure he went so far as to offer up his girls, which I think as a father would be unthinkable, but this is what culture does.

[32:02] So these men are angels, and they are on a mission. We will not engage the outcome of it, because I think it is very familiar to all of you.

[32:15] And I just want to skip over, if we may, to the end of the chapter 18, verse 13, and as soon as he had finished, that is, the deity Jehovah, speaking to Abraham, the Lord departed, and Abraham returned to his place.

[32:42] So, here we have what I believe to be a very clear, undeniable manifestation of deity taking flesh upon him before he would take real human flesh upon him.

[33:05] And I don't know what materiality these angels consisted of. All I know is they were able to eat and drink, and they looked like humans. and Yeshua took the same kind of a position, so you would think that there would be a physical body involved, capable of eating, digesting food, and everything just like we are.

[33:28] I don't know beyond that. That's just a speculation on my part. But now, having just presented this as one of a number of pre-incarnate revelations, of the deity before Bethlehem, now we want to go all the way back to Genesis 3.

[33:55] Okay? While we're still here nearby. Genesis 3.

[34:08] Genesis 3. Well, I'm sorry, let's make it chapter 2. Chapter 2.

[34:23] And this is the day of creation. This is the sixth day of the creation event. And we read that if I may skip much of this.

[34:39] We'll come down to verse 7. And then the Lord God, this is Jehovah Elohim.

[34:51] The word God, G-O-D, in the Hebrew, is Elohim. E-L-O-H-I-M. Elohim.

[35:02] Elohim. And it is used, oh my, I used to know the number, but I can't think of it anymore. I think of something like 1700 times in the Bible.

[35:15] And it is a reference to the deity as well. Sometimes the Lord God is used. You see, God, probably the simplest way to explain this is that Elohim, or God is what he is.

[35:37] He is God. That is his essence and character. That is what he is. But Yeshua, or Jehovah, is who he is.

[35:49] That is his personal name. And in the Hebrew, it is the Tetragrammaton, which refers to four letters in Hebrew, and they are virtually unpronounceable.

[36:03] They are something like Y-V-H-V. How would you pronounce that?

[36:14] Y-V-H-V. Now, the difficulty arises in that Hebrew, the Hebrew language, has no vowels.

[36:26] There is no A-E-I-O or U in Hebrew. Only consonants. And that is what we have with that Y-H-V-H. So, we anglicize it, and we put a couple of vowels in there, and it becomes Jehovah.

[36:45] Well, in Hebrew, there is no letter J. J. and they substitute for letter J with Y in the English.

[36:58] And that is how we get Yahweh beginning with a Y. It is a fascinating subject, this name study, but we must move on.

[37:09] So, we have got here both terms together in verse 7. Lord God, this is his personal name, this is who he is, this is what he is. What I am is man.

[37:20] that is what I am, man. But who I am is Marv. So, what God is, is Elohim. And every time you see in the Bible a word that has the E-L in it, either at the beginning or at the ending, it is the name of God.

[37:41] Whether it is Elizabeth, or El Shaddai, or El Nathan, and if it has a J or an A-H at the end of it, it is a part named Jehovah.

[38:03] And many, many of the Hebrews built the name of God into their children's names. Servant of God, or something like that. and when they had an A-H ending on it, like Isaiah, or Jeremiah, or Daniel, with the E-L on the end, all these fascinating things.

[38:22] Well, we must move on. Okay. Verse, where are we? Verse, verse 7. And the Lord God, Jehovah, Yeshua, Elohim, formed man of the dust of the ground.

[38:42] And this word formed in the Hebrew means to make, shape something from pre-existing material.

[38:58] material. And the pre-existing material was the dust of the ground. And as has been pointed out a number of times, and I usually point this out at burial sites, that it is not coincidental that the chemical composition of the human body is identical to the chemical composition of the earth, which indicates that we were taken from it and we returned to it.

[39:26] We're made of the same stuff and in the Latin, we humans are referred to as humus. Not very flattering, is it?

[39:36] Humus in the Latin means decayed vegetable matter. And that's essentially what we are. We're taken from the ground, made from the ground, earthy, and to the ground we will return.

[39:48] So the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground. This means that he made him from pre-existing material. And I get my Hebrew words mixed up. I don't remember if this is yatsar or bara.

[40:00] I think it's yatsar. Bara means when you use the word create, and I could be wrong about this, maybe they're just reversed, but I think bara in the Hebrew means to call into existence something out of nothing.

[40:17] That's the meaning of create. It means you bring something into existence that had no existence before. So God created the heavens and the earth, we are told, ex nihilo, which means out of nothing.

[40:35] Where did God get the material to make the sun and the planets? Did he go to a gravel pit somewhere, a universal gravel pit?

[40:48] Nope. He just brought them into existence as material substance that had no materiality before, and that totally, totally blows our mind, because we cannot get into this thing called creation.

[41:03] It's just beyond, that's all there is to it. But in addition to God creating out of nothing, he made things out of something, and that's using pre-existing material, and I think that's where the Yatsar comes in.

[41:17] And we are told here in verse 7 that the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils. Now the question is, does this mean what it says?

[41:39] I suppose I have developed a reputation for being a real literalist of the scriptures, but don't get me wrong, I have a great appreciation for figurative language in the Bible, which is not intended to be taken literally.

[41:55] And I think it is rather easily identifiable when we find that. Otherwise, I do really believe that we ought to take the scriptures at face value, and take it for meaning what it says, unless we have good reason not to.

[42:12] And I don't see any good reason not to. Here we have God breathing into the nostrils. Now, here's where some conjecture comes in.

[42:28] Alright? This is the supposition or the conjecture that I warned you about. Adam had nostrils.

[42:43] Okay? Did God have a mouth? And how did he breathe into his nostrils?

[43:02] Granted, he could have done it from afar. He didn't have to physically touch him, but the expression that is used here really sounds like a hands-on thing, or maybe a mouth-on thing.

[43:21] I don't want to try to be dramatic and over-literalize this, but we're all familiar with this thing called senior moment.

[43:35] Help me out. Thank you. Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. And what do we think about that? Well, what we think about it is it isn't terribly inviting, but in some cases it can be life-saving.

[43:54] So, what we have here, in my humble opinion, granted, I may be wrong, wouldn't be the first time, I think we have the appearance of a Christophany, a pre-incarnate appearance of Yeshua in the creative act, tie it in, if you will, with Colossians 1 and 2, He created all things, by Him all things consist, tie it in with Genesis, tie it in with John 1, in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God, all things were made by Him, without Him was nothing made that was made.

[44:39] this is clearly referencing Christ the Son, as a Creator. The Father is Creator, and the Spirit is Creator.

[44:54] All members of the Godhead are active in creation, and they're all there in Genesis 1. God, in the beginning, created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void. Darkness was upon the face of the deep.

[45:07] Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters. Here we have the Son of God, active as well. So, if my assumption is correct, we have a pre-incarnate in the same way that we did in Genesis 18, except this is in the beginning, this is further back, and He fashions, He molds Adam.

[45:35] What did He use for a model? Are you telling me that the God of the universe is engaging in Plato with the earth, and that He is forming a human being?

[45:50] That is exactly what I'm saying. How did He shape him, and how did He decide in what form to make him, and why did He give him two arms rather than four?

[46:03] why didn't He give him a tail? And why didn't He give him just one big eye like a cyclops? Why did He make man as He did?

[46:20] And may I suggest, and I realize this may sound kind of far-fetched, but to me, it makes perfect sense. We've already seen His appearance in His Christophanies.

[46:32] I think this was a form, this was a physical human form that He decided to take when He presented Himself as a hands-on kind of creator.

[46:54] In other words, the model that Yeshua used from which He made Adam was Himself.

[47:10] This Spirit being, God, took upon Himself, transferred Himself into what we know that looks like a human body with one head, two arms, two legs, two eyes, two ears, all the rest of it.

[47:28] That's what He was, and that's the way He made Adam. And when the Scriptures refer to Adam as being made, it also refers to him as being created.

[47:41] So, which was He? Adam was both. He was created out of nothing, and He was made out of something, out of the dust of the earth.

[47:52] and this spirituality that Adam possessed was lacking in this body that God had created.

[48:11] And I'm fully aware that I am being terribly, terribly literal here, very hands-on. And I may very well be wrong. It doesn't have to be this way.

[48:23] God could have, from afar off, simply just brought Adam up out of the ground, just like what we would call magic, you know, only would be real.

[48:35] He could have done that. He didn't have to have a hands-on kind of thing. But I am suggesting that this is precisely what happened. and we are made of the dust of the earth and God formed this body.

[48:51] And don't ask me about the organs and the circulation and all of that and how he cared for that. All I know is Adam was made by God possessing all of these things.

[49:04] But here is this lifeless body that has just been formed by God made out of the dust of the earth and I don't know how that dust of the earth was transferred into skin and bones and all the rest.

[49:21] I have no idea. I'm just suggesting that this is what he was, what he made himself and he made Adam after him. And when the scriptures say that Adam was made in the likeness and image of God.

[49:40] and most scholars, even better Hebrew scholars, say that the image and the likeness is a literary tautology.

[49:53] And a literary tautology is the employment of two different words that mean the same thing. And they are of the opinion that likeness and image is a tautology.

[50:10] And you can see the similarity between them, can you not? Between likeness and image. But I am suggesting that it is not a tautology at all, that that too is to be literal.

[50:24] And that Adam was made in the likeness and image in that he was given a body and that provided his image and he was given a spirit and that provided his likeness.

[50:49] He is like God in that he possesses a non-material spirit that enables him to connect with the deity.

[51:03] So, when we are told that God formed man of the dust of the ground, that provides for his physicality and he breathes into his nostrils the breath of life.

[51:23] Wow! He animated Adam. Here is this lifeless body and as James tells us, chapter 2, I think it's verse 17, the body without the spirit is dead.

[51:45] It is your spirit that animates your body and when your body dies physically, the spirit doesn't have anything else to do.

[51:58] The spirit is out of work, doesn't have a job anymore. So, it leaves the body and for believers it goes to be with the Lord. Here, God gave Adam his spiritual capacity right along with his physical capacity and when God breathed into the nostrils of Adam he put something of himself in that body.

[52:35] That is amazing. And what it was of himself that he put in there is something that we are at a loss to really define because it is spiritual, it is immaterial, it is not subject to laboratory analysis, you can't weigh it, you can't measure it, you can't see it, you cannot verify it, and this is precisely what leads most in the scientific community to deny that it even has objective existence.

[53:02] But the Bible insists that it does over and over and over again. So, all of this is a manifestation of God in the beginning, and when he became a living being, and some translations render this, that Adam became a living soul.

[53:27] And we have, over the past few years, repeated again and again, that we do not have a soul, we are a soul.

[53:37] and our soul is made up of the material, physical, and the immaterial. And these two together comprise the totality of your personhood.

[53:55] And when we die physically, our personhood is divided, is interrupted. we become, what shall I say, we become a disembodied spirit.

[54:14] And it is that disembodied spirit that goes to be with the Lord at death. And I wish I knew what happened after that, and other things that are going to transpire, but I don't.

[54:28] so, we are both created in our humanity, and we have something of the God factor in us.

[54:45] And when that is awakened and ignited, it connects us with the deity in a spiritual way, and we call that salvation.

[54:58] And these bodies that die will once again be renewed through a resurrection, and this is just admittedly mind-boggling stuff, is it not?

[55:12] But I've gone on and on, and you didn't interrupt me once, and you certainly could have, and maybe you should have, but I suspect that there may be a plethora of questions or comments.

[55:26] Marvis, I've actually been struggling with this whole thing for a while because of what we're studying in children's church, and I struggled with, because it said we are made in the image of God trying to explain to the kids what that meant.

[55:45] It's hard enough explaining to adults. Well, I came to the point of, and this is really what I think it is, that what God breathed into us is the ability to know right from wrong.

[55:59] Because if you look at verse 19 in Genesis 2, it says, out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky.

[56:11] So they were made out of the ground too. The only thing, then I look back at, because on a different day, the creatures from the sea were made, well, the birds were made that same day too, but you just speak those into existence, it doesn't say that they were formed, you know, it doesn't say.

[56:30] Right. All the marine life. Yeah. And as far as we know, there is a greater abundance of marine life than there is anything else. Right. Yeah. And then I was arguing with myself over here on that verse 8, it says, the Lord planted a garden toward the east in Eden and placed them in, you know, and then it said, out of the ground the Lord caused to grow every tree that's pleasing to the site and good for food and tree of life and da-da-da.

[56:54] And I thought, then I started thinking, man, that takes a long time for you to plant stuff and have it grow. But you kind of answered a question because it says, the Lord God planted it.

[57:05] So that's Jehovah. That's not the pre-incarnate Jesus who I think was in the garden when Adam and Eve, you know, when he said, hey Adam, where are you?

[57:18] I think that was Jesus. So this is, God spoke that into existence and went, and they just grew. That, rather, you know, that could happen in a 24-hour day versus otherwise I'm thinking there's no way that could happen in a 24-hour day.

[57:35] And I'm trying to explain this to three-year-olds. Well, I admire your muck here. So, it's a little, it's been tough, but you've answered some of my questions, I think.

[57:52] Okay. In a roundabout way, we got there. But, you know, that's why I'm still, I'm like, okay, did he make the cows and the dogs and the cats and the wolves and the deer and all of that by breathing into them but not putting into them the knowledge of right from wrong versus just called into existence the marine life so forth.

[58:15] Yeah, that may well be. And as far as the breathing into the nostrils, we do not have any indication that God breathed into the nostrils of a moose.

[58:27] Yeah, but it does think we're running from the ground. Yeah, man is the only one of whom it is said God breathed into his nostrils. In fact, it's almost as if the scripture makes a point of that because there's no reason to believe that that happened with any other creature.

[58:45] Yes? I wonder if he just didn't breathe in the knowledge of God into man where he didn't with the animals. Yeah, that's what I was with. That was they wouldn't have known that until they ate the fruit.

[58:59] Right. That may very well be. I don't know. I don't know with any detail exactly what it was that he breathed. It appears to me that what he breathed into him was the very essence of life.

[59:17] This thing we call life. And by the way, do you have any idea how difficult it is to define life? I think we've got it down to a science with stethoscopes and with flat lines and things like that, but it's not that simple.

[59:33] Life is extremely complicated, very complex. even a single cell is unbelievably complex.

[59:44] So we've got, every time I get into stuff like this, I get embarrassed and appalled all over again at my ignorance and how much I do not know.

[59:56] And it's just, it's stunning. It's stunning. And woe be unto the person who thinks they've really arrived and really got handled. They don't have any idea how far away they are, really.

[60:09] It's amazing. This is just a thought. When he made us like players, and then he personally breathed into us, to me, that's kind of saying, I want intimate relationships.

[60:26] Well, that's about as intimate as you can get. Right, exactly. And, you know, he had hands-on, so to me, it just shows how, we are so very special, because he wants that with us.

[60:40] Nothing else that he created was, did he have that hands-on, intimate interaction? That's good. Yeah.

[60:50] I appreciate your thoughts there, Melissa. That's good. And, you know, what we're talking about here, and looking at this literally, I want you to keep in mind that the main reason that God gave us his word, the main reason we have this revelation called the Bible, is for information.

[61:15] It is that we might know things that we otherwise could never know. The Bible addresses so many issues that the world finds to be totally beyond them and above them.

[61:31] There are no human explanations at all. And, the Bible has to be intelligible.

[61:42] It has to be capable of being understood because you cannot respond to something you cannot understand. An intelligent, response requires an understanding of the text.

[62:01] And, I am suggesting that this is very straightforward, very literal, very hands-on, very understandable, because it was intended to be.

[62:14] And, yet, there are still those who come along and say, you can't take that literally. Okay, well, for Pete's sake, how are you going to take it, and what are you going to do with it if you don't take it literally, just like the text says?

[62:29] I mean, more and more, I find that when the plain sense makes good sense, seek no other sense. And, some who are overly impressed with their intelligence insist on spiritualizing something like this, and they go way beyond what I think was ever intended.

[62:49] we find a great, I think there is a great intended simplicity in the Bible. And, I'm not denying its complexity because it's got plenty of that, too.

[63:03] But, there is a lot of simplicity here. Other comments or questions? Kim? Yes.

[63:15] I don't know.

[63:27] I don't know. I don't know. I do know that, curiously enough, the Bible uses the very same word for wind, air, spirit, and breath.

[63:47] All four of those words are translated with just one word in the Greek. And, it's the word pneuma, from which we get pneumonia, and pneumatic, etc.

[64:01] Having to do with air, or wind. By the way, that's one I left out. Wind is also pneuma. And, this wind, or this air, has life-giving principles in it.

[64:19] One of which we call oxygen. And, you're not going to, this is the only thing that is more critical to our being than water. And, that's air.

[64:29] water. And, God breathed into Adam. I don't know if somehow in that immaterial breath, and I guess if you analyze breath, it isn't immaterial, it is still physical substance, and that's evidenced on a cold winter day.

[64:50] When you breathe out, you can see your breath. Well, that, even though it's like a vapor, it still constitutes materiality. It's still something that can be seen and measured and weighed and so on.

[65:05] Mike? It would seem that this breath of life that God gave men had to include, excuse me, had to include the electrical impulse that our bodies run on.

[65:25] How that became also true of the animal life, I don't know, but he certainly gave it to men because without it, you don't know.

[65:38] Absolutely. There is a charge there of electricity. Your body runs on electricity, and your brain runs on electricity. It's fascinating to consider that your body operates a lot like a machine, and it generates its own electricity.

[66:00] You eat food, this is amazing, you eat food, and you digest it, and the organs of your body has a way of processing that food and turning it into energy, and your brain runs on electricity.

[66:21] You are in your own body a manufacturing machine, and the food that you put into your body is what the body uses to generate energy and electricity, and all I can say is, isn't evolution wonderful?

[66:40] my word. Let me just add this, and then Mike, hold your comment for just a minute. Remember when Jesus was on the cross, one of those seven sayings, he said, Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit.

[66:59] And he breathed his last. He had inhaled, and then he exhaled, and he never inhaled again.

[67:10] He died. The spirit departed. That's the James 2 thing. The body without the spirit is dead. And when Elijah brought back to life the son of the Shunammite woman, I think the text says there in Kings that his spirit returned unto him, and he was alive again.

[67:39] He was dead, dead. But Elijah performed that miracle and brought him back to life. And remember when Jesus went to the house of Jairus' daughter, where Jairus' daughter was dead, and he said, she's not dead, she's just sleeping.

[68:01] And they laughed him to scorn, and sleeping is a word that's a euphemism for dead. And he said, our friend Lazarus sleeps, oh, well, he's dead.

[68:13] And then Jesus said, now you'll understand, Lazarus is dead. He's dead. But he went to that Jairus' daughter, and he said, I say unto thee, Tabitha, ride.

[68:26] And her spirit returned to her. And she rose, and he said, give her something to eat. You've got to love it. You've got to love it. Anything else?

[68:39] Mike? Yes. Sorry, I forgot you. Yes. It seems to follow then that when the body dies, that breath of life, that energy that God imparted, goes with the spirit.

[68:51] It would seem so, yes. You see, the real life is this spirit thing. That's the thing that animates us and keeps us alive, and we don't understand, I don't want to get into this because there's too much about it that I don't know, but I do know that the spirit somehow animates the body, and that there is a connection, but this connection can be broken, and something happens there that I don't understand, like with paralysis, and things like that, what's going on.

[69:25] This is a mind thing, and I think the Bible requires a distinction to be made between the brain and the mind, and we know, we know a whole lot more about the brain than we do the mind.

[69:45] we know almost nothing about the mind, but you know, the Bible never uses the word brain, but it uses mind over and over and over again, as a man thinketh in his heart, and the word heart in the Bible is almost synonymous with mind, and I don't quite get that, I don't quite understand that, because we always think of the heart as being the blood pump, and yet, you know, listen, this is amazing, I've talked to some thoracic surgeons, and some of them, many of them, in fact, I think, are just mystified about the heart, even though they are able to open the chest and go in and do what they did with me, and make four bypasses, they are mystified about this human heart, and one surgeon said, you know, he said,

[70:48] I've been working with the heart for years, and so and so, and he said, in some ways, it almost seems like the heart has a mind of its own, and isn't that amazing, I mean, does certain things, and he talks about when they take someone off of, they stop the heart beating, because you can't operate on a throbbing heart, they stop the heart, and they put you on the heart-lung machine, it bypasses and everything for you, and he says, and when we get everything reconnected to the heart, it just takes off, it just starts beating again, almost as if to say to the blood, where have you been?

[71:32] I've been waiting for you, and when the reconnection is made, the heart just starts beating. Now, that isn't always the case, sometimes, I ask the doctor that operated on me, I say, what do you do if it doesn't start up automatically?

[71:46] He says, well, we just put the paddle on it, shock it, massage it a little, it starts back up again, and sometimes we may have to do it a little longer, but usually it just kicks in and starts again by itself.

[71:59] It's just as if when the blood hits it, it knows what it's supposed to do, and it just starts pumping. How do you get to it? I don't know. That's amazing. And the psalmist says, surely we are fearfully and wonderfully made.

[72:11] So, all we've done this morning, and I apologize for none of this really being a prophetic theme, but I promise you that it is connected to the Shekinah, and we will develop that next week, or next month, now that we've got a foundation for it.

[72:30]  So,