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Welcome to the Daily Blade. The Word of God is described as the sword of the Spirit, the primary spiritual weapon in the Christian's armor against the forces of evil. Your hosts are Joby Martin and Kyle Thompson, and they stand ready to equip men for the fight. Let's sharpen up.

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All right, welcome back to day three, as we do a deep dive on God's intention for man in the garden, chapter 2, verse 16,. And the Lord, god, commanded the man, saying you may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die. The second thing that God gave the man was a will to obey. The first thing that God gave him was work to enjoy. Now, one of the things I want you to see here is that there's technically, in the Garden of Eden, there was no like worship service. But the way in which a man was going to worship God, two of the three things was one in his will to obey or in work to enjoy. Secondly, is in his will to obey.

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Now, what's going to happen in chapter three of Genesis is the enemy is going to show up on the scene, and every single time that lying serpent shows up he always tries to get us to question the word of God, the work of God and the worth of God. And the first thing that he's going to say to Eve in Genesis, chapter three, is this did God actually say you shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? And the answer is that is not what God said. God said you may surely eat of every tree in the garden, but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat. You see, the NIV translates it this way you are free to eat of every tree. You see, the NIV translates it this way you are free to eat of every tree. You see, the enemy constantly wants us to try to put our own wants and desires above the precepts of God, and the reason is because he wants to kill, steal and destroy everything that God wants to give us. You see, if you look at God's posture before the fall of man in Genesis 1, 2, and 3, what you're going to see here is God is not into rules.

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God is into relationship. That God creates Adam. He breathes the rule of life into his nostrils. He is in a face-to-face relationship with Adam. That God walks through the garden in the cool of the day with Adam and Eve. He was into relationship, not rules.

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In fact, in Genesis 1, 2, and 3, what you're going to find is there's a whole bunch of thou shouts. There's only one thou shalt not. The only thou shalt not is don't eat of that one tree, because if you do, it will kill you, and I love you enough to give you that warning. But there's a bunch of thou shouts that God is going to tell Adam, like we talked about yesterday, subdue and cultivate. Later he's going to tell Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply. That was a command of God, that God came up with the idea of sex for procreation and recreation.

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In the covenant of marriage we serve a good, good God. But what happens is the enemy comes along and he wants us to believe that God's not for us, he's against us. And but what happens is the enemy comes along and he wants us to believe that God's not for us, he's against us. And so what happens is we have this will to obey God. That's what he gave to Adam and yet when sin enters, it gets corrupted. And here's the thing about obedience to God. It's not simply about right and wrong. Right and wrong will never sustain you.

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In John, chapter 10, jesus says that the thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy. And then Jesus says I'm the good shepherd and I have come, that you may have life and have it abundantly. So let me explain this when it comes to your obedience to what God says is right or wrong, it's so much deeper than right and wrong. You see, every single time we hear the voice of the good shepherd and we do what he says, especially when we don't understand it or don't like it, it always leads to life, and life abundantly. And whenever we listen to the voice of a stranger, what we're doing is we're listening to a thief who only wants to steal, kill and destroy.

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So this world says there's a certain way to do money and sex and power. And then the Bible says no, no, no, no, no. There's God's way of doing money, sex and power. The world says more is mine. The Bible says it's all God, so bring your first and best to him. And when we obey Jesus, there is life here. And when we listen to the ways of this world, it baits us down a path and then laughs at us when we go there. Take sex, for example. The Bible says that sex is for married people and marriage, according to the scripture, is one man, one woman, one lifetime.

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And then we have the audacity to look at God and say God, what do you even know about this? I know better than you do. We stiff arm God, we reject him and we do what we want, and it burns our world down. It leads to death every single time. So the thing that God gives to man in the garden, before sin ever enters the world, is this a will to obey. And when we obey god, it leads not only to glorifying god, it leads to life, and life abundantly, and it leads to our own flourishing. So god gave adam three things in the garden, all under the banner of worshiping him. He gave him work to enjoy Talked about it yesterday. He gave him a will to obey. That's what we covered today. Come back tomorrow to hear the third thing that he gives to man.

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Thank you for listening to today's episode Before you go. If you want to help equip other men for the fight, share this podcast around and leave us a five-star rating and review. Stay sharp.