1. POWER OF LIFE

By Pastor Peter Tan


Lets look at the book of Hebrews chapter 6:5 And have tasted the goodness of the word of God and powers of the age to come. We speak about the powers of the age to come and the wonders of the things of heaven that some times in this life we glimpse at different degrees. We are on our way to heaven and it will be good to know some of the things that are in heaven. Like the Psalms say even on this earth we partake of some of heaven’s glory and benefits.
This morning we want to look at the power of life. One of the things of heaven is there is no such thing as death, decay. The things that we so commonly know on this earth will one day fade away. If you were to take a walk in the botanical garden and see all the beauty of the scenery around, yet if you observe closely you can find some flowers that have withered away. Some leaves have passed their point of usefulness to the plant and is now dropping off. You would come across death somewhere along. And we are so used to the fact that when we pick flowers from the garden and put them in a vase in your home, you will only have it last for a short time.
Marietta Davis in one of the truths of heaven in the book “Scenes Beyond the Grave,” speaks about how the children in paradise pick the flowers. And they didn’t have to put it in a vase because there is life there. There is no death. Then they brought it to one of the mansions and they just kept the flowers on the ground. And the flowers got embedded in part of the ground in the house and they remain permanently there forever and they never die. Nothing in heaven dies. There are no old people there in heaven. Nothing there shows any sign of aging. You ask, “Are there children there? Yes there are. The little infants that go to heaven they do grow and they reached what I call perfection and that’s it. They remain in perfection. If you were to see your loved ones who had gone there before, if they had died in their old wrinkled bodies, when you go there they are in their prime of their life. No sad faces in heaven. There is no death. There is no sorrow. Heaven is full of life.
We know that once upon a time God created the earth like heaven. There was no death on this earth. We need to think about heaven in heavenly terms. Don’t think about heaven in earthly terms. In Gen. 1 when God first made the heaven and the earth. Verse 3 then God said let there be light and there was light. And God saw the light that it was good and God divided the light from the darkness. God call the light day and the darkness night. So the evening and morning were the first day. Now day No. 1 there was still no sun created. Day and night doesn’t have the same reference that we have today. Day and night in a sense of a division, darkness and light. Remember there was darkness all over the earth. The darkness came because Satan fell. Satan fell long before man was created. Then God said let there be light. The darkness was driven off. You ask, “Why is there still darkness? It is because Satan is still around.
Verse 6 God said let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters and let it divide the waters from the waters. God made the firmament and divided the waters, which were under the firmament from the waters, which were above the firmament, and it was so. When God first created the earth there was a canopy of waters above the earth and a canopy of waters surrounding the planet earth. In fact scientists have analyzed that there is more water than land. The land is there not because we have one third land and two third water. The land is there because the land is all clumped together and pushed up like little mountains and plateaus above the waters. If all the land were a complete circle the water will surround the earth. So there was just water and no land yet and above it there was a canopy of water. The clouds above the earth water were vapor. And above we do not know what it was like. Probably it was a canopy of glass-like kind of water. Before the flood conditions were like that. The earth was like in an air-conditioned state. If you look up it was like a big shield of glass of clouds or whatever form it was in. It was only in Noah’s time the canopy of water was broken down. So today we talk about the ozone layer and the ozone hole. Long ago in Noah’s time there was a breaking up of that hydrogen dioxide which was water above the earth. In Noah’s time the water that was above there was broken and it came down. For the first time the sunray and radiation came and penetrated the earth. The earth that we know before Noah and after Noah is a different world. Today a rainbow is quite a common occurrence. There was no such thing as a rainbow before Noah. So you can imagine it’s a different type of weather condition.
Then there was evening and morning in verse 8 and that was the second day. Verse 9 Then God said let the waters under the earth be gathered together into one place and let the dry land appear. Scientists today have realized that there is a theory of the drifting of the continents. Today they realized that all the continents of the world were one piece of landmass. The bible already shows forth that there was one piece of land. If you look at the map of the world you piece together the continents of the world. Today they have discovered the continents are still drifting but in a very small sense. So there was a dry land just one piece of dry land appeared. And God called the dry land earth and the gathering together the waters He called sea. And God saw that it was good.
Now is the 3rd day. Verse 11 And God said, “Let the earth put forth vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, upon the earth.” And it was so. On the 3rd day God made the trees, the plants and the vegetation. Verse 14 “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to separate the day from night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years.” Then verse 16 God made 2 great lights. Now the sun and the moon were brought forth on day number 4. Scientifically you have a problem because plants and trees survive by the sunlight. And the sun only came on the fourth day. How did the plants survive? They survive because of God’s life. The plants in heaven function from the life of God. Which is why there is no decay and everything that God made function by God’s life.
Even in the book of Genesis one when God created the heaven and the earth later in the other days you see He create all the animals. Every one of those animals was not created to eat. Eating was a mere pleasure and enjoyment. In heaven if you don’t eat for 1000 years you still be fine. In heaven you don’t need food to survive. Do you realize that when God first created the Garden of Eden and Adam and Eve, they didn’t have to eat to survive? Life came directly from God. And when God created Adam and Even they could have lived for 1000 years and they look exactly like the day they were created. Today people are looking for the fountain of youth, the Shangri-la where they can exist without death. All these were once man’s original state of being.
What happened was this. In chapter 2:15-17 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to till it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may freely 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 they you eat of it you shall die.” Adam partook of sin together with Eve. The very day they eat some thing happened. That life was cut off. Suddenly they could not see the glory any more. Which is why they discovered they were naked. Before that they were filled with the life of God, which comes out through them and becomes like a glory upon their life. The garment of glory instantly disappeared. What happens if you got trapped on an island with whatever is there? Although you are civilized, educated, what would you do? You will make use of what is there. All you have on the island are 3 coconut trees and 1 bitter gourd plant. Now you never love vegetables. What would you do? You fast, you hate coconuts and you hate bitter gourds. On the second day you began to have second thought. By the third day I will assume you will be going after the coconut first leave the bitter gourds to the last. After some time the coconuts were not producing as fast as it was being consumed. The supply could not meet the demand. Then you have only one other food left - the bitter gourd. You will make use of what is there to survive. And when all have been consumed you begin to look around and you found oysters around the rocks things that you hate, although for some of you when I speak of oysters your saliva drops. Its funny when you mention food one man’s meat is another man’s poison. Then you began to look at the sea around you. You began to make use of what is there to survive.
Now what happened when Adam and Eve fell? They were cut off from the supply of God’s life. So now the plants get to survive. You know what they have is only the germ of life. And if the plants don’t think of a way to survive, supply thinks. Only the past 10 to 20 years they discovered that the plants do fear. But they have the germ of life. And to preserve that germ of life the plants look around. It is the same with the animals. They didn’t know a thing. I presume there was a lion walking half way while Adam and Eve were about to eat the fruit. Imagine if Adam and Eve felt naked what did the lion felt like. I wonder what the lion felt while walking half way and suddenly the glory departed. The whole animal and plant kingdom felt some thing. Suddenly for the first time the lion felt the pang of hunger because the life was no more feeding that body.
Do you know that the pangs of hunger come as a result of the spirit of death? In heaven you don’t have physical hunger any more. Then for the lion it was also like the plant. Everyday he got to look for food to preserve life. For Adam and Eve they are subjected to this carnal world where each day is the preservation of the life that is there. From the time you are conceived as a one cell living creature biologically you need nutrition. God only gives the germ of life. What happened to this world? This is the spirit of death at work. In heaven there is no death on earth now death exists. Do you know that death comes in many ways and many forms? Hunger is a part of the death process.
If Jesus did not come we are still in that stage. And here is where the New Testament truth comes in. There is a form of life that is available for those who are His. He calls that eternal life, the life of God. The life of God can flow once again into us. The eternity can begin in our spirits. So we have in us that spirit life that God gives. In II Cor. 5:17 Therefore, if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come. There is inside each one of us eternal life. Jesus says for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son whosoever believe in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. And this life that He gives doesn’t begin in heaven. It begins now the day we accept Him. We have passed from death to life.
Turn to Jn. 5:24 Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My Word and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life; he does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. Now eternal life begins in our spirits. Life is imparted into us. What happens now? There is a battle between heavenly nature and the old earthly nature. That begins a battle between your flesh and your spirit. If we learn to yield to eternal life now let it flow out from us we will have more and more of the heavenly life right now on this earth. People here and there who had known God and the heavenly life penetrated them to a certain extend. People who have had their ages reversed like Sarah. Look at Heb. 11:11 By faith, Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered Him faithful who had promised. That’s Sarah receiving God’s life. We know she was old. She was past the age to bear children. But when she allows faith to work in her life, that life that came through the spoken word. Although they were not born again they don’t have eternal life dwelling in them. But yet the eternal life had an effect through the words spoken into their lives. And when they believe that word eternal life had an instant effect on them. And Sarah received strength she received life. And her body and her womb got started again not an old one but new one. Things began to happen as they walk the walk of faith. I don’t think that was instantly. I believe that as we exercise faith and believe in God’s spoken word some thing was happening in Sarah’s womb.
And Abraham he was old but he also received strength. And when God appeared to Abraham and said Abraham you will have a son next year he was 99 years old. Sarah was 10 years younger. Abraham went to Gerar. King Abimelech looks at Sarah and whistled. Can you imagine anybody doing that to a ninety-year-old woman? Think about what Sarah must have looked like. When Sarah was ninety years old she probably looked like a teenager. It is because of the power of life that was given to them. And every thing in heaven contains that special life.
We read about Elijah when he was discouraged the angel cook him some special food. And when he partook of it, it lasted for 40 days and 40 nights. He was a biological man like us. His body still would normally need food. Let me tell you when you get into that life, the old life that we are so used to all the laws of sin and death just stop. Moses was up on the mount of transfiguration for 40 days and 40 nights. We were told that we couldn’t last 3 days without water. Moses lasted 40 days and 40 nights twice in fact three times including the one where he interceded for them. How could he do it? He has stepped out from the old wall into the other dimension of the original state of man. For a moment of time in the presence of God his body draws life from the presence of God. And he came as strong as he went up. Moses walked and walked down saw all the sins and immediately there is no mention that he ever ate food. When he saw them sinning he went on his knees and went before God for another 40 days and 40 nights that makes 80. And then he went up again after he made the 2 tablets another 40 that make 120 days if he didn’t eat between those times. That’s impossible in the natural. It’s because he moved over to the other realm the life of God. There have been man and woman who have tapped on that from time to time. And it’s not some thing automatic. You need to realize that the life is there and be able to tap on that.
Lets look at some laws on tapping that life and drawing on that life. Turn to the book of Genesis and notice that there are 3 trees. One is called the tree of knowledge of good and evil. I have always looked at it carefully and I wondered why is it that when they partake of knowledge of good and evil that they die. If they had partaken the tree of life they would have lived eternally. Was it that God did not want them to partake of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil at all? Or was He just testing them. Think very carefully if God created heaven every thing would have been tested in heaven including the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Why is God so against that tree? Is it that He doesn’t want us to partake at all? There is no definite theological answer for that. But its my personal opinion there is not so much because God is against but its because there is a time to partake it. There is a readiness before you partake of the things of God. And here is a big key in principle, where the knowledge we partake exceeds life within us it can kill us. Let me give a natural example. Do you teach children 4 year old 5 year old how to put together electrical circuits? Or do you wait until they know safety and other common safety rules before you teach them? You will wait until they are of age then you teach them. Knowledge becomes dangerous when it exceeds one’s ability in life to handle it. That’s the natural truth. Now bringing it forth to the spiritual side. Have you noticed why God reveals things a bit at a time? Its life is in us can grow even if we are perfect. There are different measures of this life of God we grow into. Personally I believe that Adam and Eve needed to mature in the life of God before they are ready for that.
Let me give another example. If young people do not understand principles and socially and you give them the liberty to make their own decision. You think that’s not dangerous? Of course it is. Would you give your 15 year old the liberty of a 25 year old? You would not. That extra right and responsibility can kill them. They cannot handle that freedom. So you train and you bring them up a step at a time.
Another natural example would you give a 7 year old a thousand dollars to handle. You won’t. You would rather give them that when your children had grown 25 then you know they can handle that amount.
Now here is a spiritual principle here. Where the knowledge exceeds the life it becomes destructive. Life must grow first before that knowledge. In I Cor. 8 here he is speaking in regard to the idols and the partaking to the idol food not at the ceremony but just somewhere in the markets or where. This is not permission to eat idol food. This is a decision of one’s wrestling when you live in a city where literally every food stalls are worshipping idols. So how do you handle such thing? When you visit a friend you don’t know whether those food have been offered or not. Because Paul in the same book clarifies in chapter 10 in verse 20 and 21 that he don’t have fellowship with people who worship idols with that idol food. But then he also says this is his principle behind that when you are out in the market in verse 25 and you buy meat and you are not sure what has happened to this meat. He says take it asking no question. But when some one tells you this is idol food for the sake of that person who tells you, you don’t take it. In that context remember chapter 8 is not permission to eat foods offered to idols.
I Cor 8:1 Now concerning food offered to idols we know that all us possess knowledge. “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. Now love and life are proportional. When you increase in life you increase in love. The amount of life you actually have eternal life in you is proportion to the love you have for people. If your love is not enough it’s because your life is not enough. For eternal life is love.
In Rom. 5 it says in verse one Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have obtained access to this grace (which refer to this life of God) in which we stand, and we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God. Verse 5 And hope does disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. That’s the love of God. Love and life are proportional. When we lack love for people it’s because the eternal life in your life do not have enough strength.
Now in I Corinthians is a clear-cut case and he calls the person who couldn’t handle it. He says that person in verse 7 is weak. However not all possess this knowledge. Not everyone has that knowledge that idol food partaken accidentally will not harm him or her and will not bring him or her into demon possession or bondage. You don’t catch a demon just because you eat in a place where the people offer idol food and you don’t know anything about it. Nobody can charm you because they pray over the food and give it to you to eat so that you will listen to them. You have power over all those things when you have knowledge.
But it goes on to say in verse 7 But some, through being hitherto accustomed to idols, eat food as really offered to an idol and their conscience being weak. Now he recognizes that there are the weak ones and the strong ones. The weak ones have no knowledge. Their only knowledge and consciousness are idols. The strong ones have knowledge and their conscience is fine. Now Paul says that the correct stand is the strong one. But he says because a person is weak he could not handle that knowledge. Which part of him is weak? The conscience. What is the conscience? The conscience is part of the spirit mind. The conscience that has the life of God is weak. His eternal life is weak. Therefore he cannot handle that knowledge.
Now he leaves us in limbo. Do we leave things as it is in I Cor. 8? How does a person who is weak become strong? Strengthen that conscience. Let life comes in. Then one day there is a cleansing and an imparting process. The physical blood in our bodies cleanses and impart. Removes oxides waste, carbon dioxide and give oxygen. And when the life of God comes it removes and it imparts. And through time that life grows then that person can handle that knowledge. See when the knowledge goes beyond the life it becomes dangerous. Which is why Jesus said do not cast pearls before swine. For then they will turn and destroy you and not only that they will also actually destroy themselves. Understand how to handle some of the things of God. Which is why people who walk close to God seldom talk about the things that God showed them because not everybody can handle it. If God does not see fit to reveal then its because that person is not ready for that revelation to handle it.
Now what can be done about it? In the bible Hebrews 9 and 10 there is process of growth between chapter 9 and 10. In chapter 9:14 How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, purify your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? Do you notice what He purifies you from? From the spirit of death that works in your life. There is a battle between the spirit of life and the spirit of death. Understand this truth that when the spirit of life is on you no sickness can touch you. And we are talking about the heavenly life that born in our lives. If dead works are present it produce death. But the life removes it.
And he continues in chapter 10 verse 22 Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Sprinkled from an evil conscience. That’s subject to the law of sin and death. We are constantly on this earth subject to either life or death. Colossians one says we have passed form death into life.
There are 2 main keys on tapping this law. One is Prov. 18:21 Death and life are in the power of the tongue. Through our words we subject ourselves either to life or to death. Death and life flows through the words, words we hear and words we speak. How did Abraham and Sarah receive that life? They spoke. His name was changed from Abram to Abraham. Her name was changed from Sarai to Sarah. And Romans 4 says that they were like God calling things, which be not as though they were. And the life flowed into them and transformed them.
No. 2 death or life flows through our thoughts. In Romans chapter 8:5-6 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh; but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. To set the mind on the flesh is death. Now you know why a lot of Christians are ending up sick? Sorrow is a part of death, which is why when you enter into heaven there is no more sorrow. Now here are those words that you must listen carefully. Death doesn’t come when you die physically. When Adam and Eve received death into them they lived on for 900 over years. But God says that in the day you eat it you shall die. In the day they ate of it death started operating. They started aging and the process of death was set in motion. Many times Christians think that the spirit of death only works when a person is about to go home. You live in the world that is a wrestling between light and life and the death and sin. You don’t die just when you die physically. The moment you set your mind and thought on the things of this life and on the carnal things you have already died on your inside. It’s only a matter of time before your physical body follows. Every sickness, every disease, and every destruction that the enemy uses to steal, kill and destroy is done through the power of death. This is why we got to watch our words and our thought life carefully. Paul even calls that in II Cor. 10 the bondage, the stronghold that will strangle you. The moment a person has a sickness death is operating. You need to be able to learn to tap on life. We have to choose between death and life a.
Some Christians unknowingly are allowing death to gain the upper hand in their lives. Paul says to be carnally minded is death. Right away you are allowing death to begin operating when you allow hurts, wounds, sorrows, bitterness and all negative things in your mind. Which is the reason why biologically and in the natural when a person is not mentally positive he is more liable to get sick. Because death is already operating its easier. Light attracts light in the spirit world. Do you know that magnet have no attraction force on you if you don’t have iron feeling on your inside? If you have nothing in your life like Jesus says Satan has nothing in me, there is no magnetic pull between the two. But the moment you have those germs of the enemy operating in your life in your thought and in your word, death is operating in you. That includes idol worship. Be careful what you say. Be careful what you think. Those are the 2 lines that divide between death and life operating in your life.
Turn to Rom.8 now verse one of chapter eight is obviously has to do with your conscience. Verse 10-11 But if Christ is in you, although your bodies are dead because of sin, your spirits are alive because of righteousness. If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to you mortal bodies also through His Spirit who dwells in you. He gives life not just to your spirit but also to our mortal bodies. Now that life can grow so strong in you on your inside. It can overcome all the things in your mind and in your body and it can even come out from you life to touch and remove death from other people’s life.
Turn to II Cor. 4 to show the battle that is taking place every time a person ministers. See the words you speak either contain death or life. The thoughts you think either contain death or life. These 2 great battles are going on with the spirit of life against the spirit of death. In verse 6-7 For it is the God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. But we have treasures in earthen vessels, to show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in way, but not crushed; we are perplexed but not driven to despair. Look at that - there is a battle between life and death. They are pressed on every side but they are not crushed because there is a power of life in them. It’s just like Beethoven’s nice symphony called the Ode of Joy. In this symphony you hear the different sounds, and all the instruments try to drown it until in the end every instruments carries that joyful tune. It’s the story of joy. Every thing tries to crush it but it wants to live. In the end it conquers.
The life of God is powerful. Paul says in II Cor 4: 8-9 We are pressed on every side yet not crushed; we are perplexed, (that is in the mind) but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down but not destroyed. I mean this is the material that is made from eternal life.
Verse 10. Always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus. (You see the old nature must be struck a deathblow. Look at your old man as having died in Christ) that the life of Jesus also may be manifested (not in our spirit alone, not in our soul but) in our body. Paul looks forward to immortality.
Verse 11-12 But we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake (preaching the gospel is the ministry of life versus death; as we bring life to the people, the devil is seeking to steal and destroy) that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So then death is working in us, but life in you. Now that looks like a puzzle. He is talking about this eternal life that is so powerful it could just absorb death and cancel it and go on working. So as Paul preached to the group of people who were experiencing death, there is the power of life working in him.
He comes to them and the death that is working on them he brings it onto himself and he is not afraid of death. Verse 12, So then death is working in us, but life in you. He completely absorbs it and then let his life transmit it out. He took death and give out life. And he continues to live. He didn’t take life and then he was finished. But he lives forever more. He rises again because death cannot conquer eternal life.
The same Paul says that works but the life comes out even more. Because he says, verse 13, And since we have the same spirit of faith according to what is written, “I believe and therefore I spoke.” Remember what you say is important. What you say releases life. Verse 14, Knowing that He who raised up the Lord Jesus will also raise us up with Jesus, and will present us with you.”
Look at verse 16 Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing (and subject to all these things he says) yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. Is your inward man renewed day by day or is it crushing you? Verse 17-18 For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things that are not seen. For the things that are seen are temporary, but the things that are not seen are eternal. The word eternal means age lasting.
Most of us read verse 16 and stop there. Paul was looking for the resurrection life. In chapter 5 he continues. For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation, which is from heaven.
I want you to see how it sounds in the Greek, reading from Chapter 4 verse 16 to 18 and then from chapter 5 verse 1 to 4. Wherefore we are not losing courage. But and if as is the case our outward self is progressively decaying, yet our inward self is being charged into a new kind of life, fit for the new spiritual existence into which we have been ushered in salvation. And constantly being conformed to the image of the Lord Jesus day by day. For our momentary light affliction is working out for us more and more surpassingly and eternal heavy world of glory. While we are not contemplating the things which are seen but the things which are not seen, for the things which are seen are temporary but the things that are not seen are eternal. Chapter 5 verse 1 to 4 For we know that in our house of this present tent life on earth is taken by a building from God we have a house not made with hands eternal in heaven. For in this tent we are groaning, longing to be clothed in addition with a house which from heaven. Seeing that also having been clothed we shall not be found naked and disembodied spirit for indeed we being in this tent are groaning being weighted down because we do not desire to be unclothed but clothed with a heavenly body in order that death which is mortal may be swallowed up by this life.
That is why Romans 8 went on to say that all creations wait for the manifestation of the sons of glory. This life which is coming out through our soul. And our physical body will bring you the heavenly presence, health and prosperity. For Jesus says that I come that you may have life and more abundantly. When you have this life on your inside nothing can stop you.

Source : www.eaglevision.com.my
Email : spiritword@bigpond.com