LABOURING FOR THE LORD
(week 22/11)
Olubi Johnson
Proverbs 23:4-5 KJV: Labour not to be rich: cease from thine own wisdom. (5) Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? for riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away as an eagle toward heaven.
Here the scripture tells us not to labour to be rich: in other words, we should not spend all our strength and time trying to acquire more and more material and financial wealth; because physical riches do not have eternal value and can disappear suddenly by physical disasters or death.
What then should we labour for?
We should labour to enter into God’s rest:
Hebrews 4:11 KJV: Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.
God’s rest is a spiritual condition in which all satanic distortion and destruction have been removed or reversed by the power of the Holy Spirit.
This is similar to God’s rest described in Genesis when God restored the earth to habitable state for man after it became without form and void because of Satan’s rebellion.
Genesis 1:1-2 KJV: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. (2) And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
Genesis 1:31 KJV: And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
Genesis 2:1-2 KJV: Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. (2) And on the seventh day God ended his work, which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work, which he had made.
It is instructive to note here that something happened between Gen. 1:1 when God created the heavens and earth and Gen. 1:2 when the earth became without form and void.
What happened was a satanic rebellion that caused God to withdraw His sustaining power (Heb. 1:3) causing a destruction of a civilization on the earth that Lucifer (Satan) was in authority over. This destruction caused the earth to become without form and void and physically uninhabitable.
Satan’s (originally Lucifer (Is. 14:12)) initial and perfect creation and subsequent rebellion and destruction is described in
Ezekiel 28:11-16 KJV: Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, (12) Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. (13) Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created. (14) Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. (15) Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. (16) By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.
The King of Tyrus described here is Satan operating through the human prince of Tyrus: no human king was a created cherub (angel) that had been in Eden the garden of God before Adam was ever created.
His removal from being the anointed cherub: anointed angel (messenger) that covered the earth (that provided the spiritual covering and power that ruled the earth) resulted in the earth undergoing a destructive and chaotic process resulting in the earth becoming without form and void. This incident revealed to Jeremiah is recorded in
Jeremiah 4:23-26 KJV: I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light. (24) I beheld the mountains, and, lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly. (25) I beheld, and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled. (26) I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the LORD, and by his fierce anger.
No one knows how many millions or billions of years ago this incident took place and for how long the earth remained in this chaotic condition before the renovation of the earth and the creation of Adam and his race about 6,000 years ago as recorded in Gen 1:3-31. Consequently, scientific evidence that the earth is billions of years old and containing fossils of animals and men which are thousands or millions of years old is not contrary to the revelation of scripture. There was a pre-adamite civilization here on earth that was created similar (though lower) to men, like Lucifer who had physical bodies. However, after the destruction of the earth because of their rebellion, God’s wisdom and power was withdrawn from them and they gradually deteriorated in their physical form and knowledge before dying physically and leaving the evidence of their physical bodies and civilization in the earth that we see today in fossil remains and archeological findings. It is these rebellious angels and spirits (Jude 1:6; 2 Peter 2:4) that are now demons and wicked spirits in heavenlies warring, under Satan’s command, against God’s people and His purpose (Eph. 6:12) on the earth.
In our article next week, we will see how to labour to enter into God’s rest.
