Speaker 0: Hello, and welcome to Victory Briefings where we use the word of God for a victorious life. Today, I'd like to talk a little bit about the kingdom of God. I wanna remind you that the ministry of Jesus is centered and summed up in these words, the kingdom of God is at hand. His whole purpose was to rescue and redeem man to his original realm and divine order. We become stronger and more grounded when we understand the kingdom of God.

Paul tells us that the kingdom is not eating and drinking. So it's not ritual or performance based, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Romans 14 verse 17. Now the logical starting point when we study the kingdom of God is the Bible's opening verse. Here, we introduce the sovereign of all the universe whose realm, reign, and regency are described at the outset.

Here's where we meet God. Genesis one verse one. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Wow. The scope of his rule is his realm, which is transcendent.

It not only includes the entire universe, but it exceeds it. He existed before all creation. He expands beyond it. And since he has begotten it, he includes all that it is. The power he uses to rule is his reign and is activated by his words, which is his will.

By his own will, he creates, decides, and designs. By his word, he speaks creation into being. And by his works, his spirit demonstrates his unlimited power. Now the authority to rule, what we call his regency, is in his preexistence and holiness. He was there before creation in the beginning.

God has sovereign rights over all creation. He is the creator. His purpose in creating things good reveals his holy nature that is complete and perfect. It is his right to be creation's king. All kingdom power and authority flow from him.

He is author and owner of all. Now we come to man's delegated dominion in Genesis one twenty six through 28. Then God said, let us make man in our image according to our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over the cattle and over to all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. Verse 27.

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 the every living thing that moves on the earth. Dominion is a verb meaning to rule, to have dominion. This Hebrew word conveys the notion of exercising domain over those who are powerless or otherwise under one's control. It is related as the exercise of authority by the priesthood in Jeremiah five thirty one. It's by the slave owners, over the slaves in Leviticus 25 verse 43.

And it's used as supervisors over the workers in king first Kings nine twenty three and by a king over his kingdom in first Kings four twenty four and five verse four. Theologically significant is the use of this word to identify people's god ordained relationship to the created world around them. Genesis one twenty six and twenty eight. Before he created man, god had a plan to delegate to him dominion over all the earth. Man's power and authority to rule is part of God's purpose to make man in his own image and likeness.

Genesis two verses sixteen and seventeen says, 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 in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. Notice the Lord God commanded Adam. Although the Lord gave Adam freedom of choice, he also gave him a command.

The creator is superior to creation. We still have a freedom of choice, but the only smart choice is to obey God. The choice of doing God's will is always better than being separated from him, which is the result of disobedience. This is saying that man's power to reign in life will go only as far as his faithfulness to obey God's word. Romans six sixteen in the New Living Translation says, don't you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey?

You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can be or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living. Adam and Eve didn't die physically the day they ate of the forbidden fruit. Adam lived for nine hundred and thirty years, according to Genesis five five. But Adam and Eve died spiritually the instant they disobeyed God. That is evidenced by their actions and words.

They immediately became fearful and ran from God. You shall surely die, it says. The Hebrew wording of this verse is interesting. The word which is translated die is used twice at the end of this verse. Man's spiritual death was immediate, which led to physical death, which was progressive.

The word death in the Bible never describes a ceasing to exist. It always indicates separation though. Physical death is where the spirit and soul separate from the body. Spiritual death is where our spirits become separated from God's spirit. Romans six twenty three makes it clear that the wages of sin is death.

Just as the Lord told Adam here, death means spiritual and physical. Since all have sinned, all have to die spiritually and physically. But God is a good thing to read in in Romans six. Praise God that He loved us so much. He sent His son to die in our place.

John three sixteen. All the judgment and all the judgment and justice demanded was placed on Jesus so that we could pass from death unto life. Now before the fall, which is recorded in, Genesis one thirty one, it says, then god saw that everything he had made and indeed it was very good. So the evening of the and the morning were the sixth day. We need to recognize the difference between the original order of man's environment, on earth and what it became as a result of man's fall, the curse, and eventually the flood.

Isaiah 45 tells us though that the earth was not created in vain. Creation turned and fell with man. It was man's sin that put thorns on roses. The agricultural, zoological, and geological, even the meteorological conflict of the earth should not be attributed to God. The will of God is not manifest in confusion, death, and disease, and discord, and disaster, any more than it is manifest in human sin.

The world today does not reflect the kingdom order that God originally intended for man's legal right on the earth. And when we know this, we should not attribute to God's will or to acts of God characteristics our world that are characteristics of our world that are results from man's sin. God never made a mistake. Paul tells us in his letter to the Romans, the whole creation is standing on tiptoe eagerly awaiting the revelation of the sons of God. That's Romans eight verse 19 of the Phillips translation.

I believe that God sees the curse as a temporary frustration. The next two verses says in the NIV says, for the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will be delivered will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. Paul is saying that creation not only is waiting with attentive and earnest expectation or looking forward. The neck stretched out and a head thrust forward for something, but but that it is doing so because it is linked with man. Creation had no choice but to fall with man.

When God's plan of salvation for people is completed and the children of God experience their glorious freedom from sin, Satan, and the physical decay, then creation itself will be liberty liberated from bondage of decay. Then all things will become new according to Revelation 21 verse five. Click on the link to watch a video, legal stewardship of the earth. And don't forget to subscribe so you won't miss upcoming briefings. God bless you, my friend.