Good Morning!! I am pleased to have been asked here to speak to you today. This week's topic is one the devil would MUCH rather you didn't hear as it unmasks him and his leadership role in churches of today! It really ought not to take more than five or six hours to cover... I'm kidding! We'll not cover everything only a very small deception so we should be able to cut it back to maybe three hours.

We are going to explore a little bit this morning on the question "Why is my body of any importance?" Most churches tend to be under the opinion that the human body is something repulsive, obscene, needing to be hidden away to be decent, discusting, ugly, pornographic, and I'm sure you have heard several other descriptions of human body. Have you heard anything like this? Yes, I'll bet you have, and likely most uttered by good upstanding church folk! Where did they find these descriptions? Why do they feel good about using these insulting terms on their fellow man or even themselves? What are these descriptions doing to your concept of yourself and others? What about what it is doing to God's church? Would it surprise you to learn that these types of thoughts and descriptions are actually anti-God? It really should not! Most everyone of use who have attempted to read the Bible have usually made it at least past the first three chapters! I want you to take a look at verse 7-10 of Genesis 3, Now, who do you suppose caused Adam and Eve to feel like this? Notice this is also a question God wanted to know the answer to! verse 11 Also we need to check back into chapter 1:26-31 for what God thought of what He had done. Lets see, God fashioned and shaped man BY HAND in His very own image, male and female and called what He had done "very good". Who is it that would say it was not so good or even bad? Aha!, The serpent! Notice that satan framed the questions he used on Eve in such a way as to suggest God was NOT good or fair! He still does this, that ancient serpent called the devil and satan. The devil made war on God and as result, also on all of God's works! It should not come as any kind of surprise to any of us, yet it does, that satan is the only being which benefits by man's thinking that God's image in which we were made, is repulsive! The devil has caused us, like he did Eve, to be ashamed of our God,His works, and anything which looks like Him! perhaps you have noticed, we have fallen into a habit of making sure anything pertaining to God is shielded from view. We continually think bad of all that God created including man! Somehow we are under the impression that making sure God's image is never seen in this world will make life better for us! Now you know why! You discover that some of these so called Christian groups are really lightly disguised hate groups! What they truly hate is God's image! Now wait a minute you say. Surely not! Well let me ask you a question, can you truly love someone and make all these degrading remakes about His character or likeness? No, you can't and the devil knows it! The devil has corrupted your thinking into thinking like Eve that God is really not very good and neither is He fair! I'm going to shift gears here a little bit and ask a very serious but puzzling question. I've asked this question for nearly forty years now and it STILL causes some thought.

"We were ALL born with an image of God; what have you been doing with yours?"

God uses the body often in reference to things of His, in order to give us an understanding. He calls His church a body! His church is called the body of Christ with Christ Himself as its head! Why is it called that? In order that it be covered up? Removed from view? See, satan would have you think about this body in rather the same light as you do your own! God is not ashamed of His own image at all! God fashioning man in His own image was one of the GREATEST gifts given to man! And we tend to disregard it! As an angel, satan was NOT fashioned or created in God's image no matter how beautiful he was otherwise. It is likely this little thing is what irritated satan in the first place! It could very well be why he wanted to take the place of God! He felt himself more beautiful than God! God however used the body as a example as it should be well known to us! We should know how our body works and who it resembles! Yes, like our image of God with which we were born, the church also bears His likeness! Because of this, it is attacked in quite the same manner as you are. Ever notice when you are in a large group of people, people will exclaim in loud voices that they are a Seahawks fan or a Cowboys fan, or maybe even a fan of some movie star! Ask the same person if he is a Christian and you'll get a murmur, garbled and muffled as to "yes, I am" in the smallest quietest voice possible! See, because of our feeling about the body, even the body of Christ, we feel it to be somewhat shameful! It has been ingrained in us! We are ashamed of His body, the church just as we are our body, His image! We do what we can to make sure this body is never revealed to our fellow man! As Christians, it is a duty of ours to declare God and Him crucified! How can we do that if we feel there is something dirty about His image? See, it spoils your witness to others just as well as makes you mumble and avoid answering direct questions! Are we feeling like Peter? Denying Christ? Luke 22:54-62 Perhaps we need to reacquaint ourselves with His image and learn to be proud of it!

How about the fact that your body is called a temple of God in the Bible? 1 Cor 6:15-20 Why would God use this description? Does this mean to you that you should be ashamed of it? ...maybe throw tarps over it to hide it from the view of "decent folk"? Is it striking you yet just how illogical and how truly anti-God our thoughts are and have become from listening to the leadings of satan. Adam and Eve lost the Garden because they accepted satan's leading, what are we in danger of losing? Is it not our very lives? Now I know that some of you have heard people saying that nudity is a sexual sin. It is interesting to hear back from all the Nudist organizations that nudity has nothing whatsoever to do with sex! Well of course not! Even earlier in this chapter stating at verse 9, it talks about sexual sin. Notice that sexual sin refers to that which is done INSIDE the body? It is the joining of your flesh to another! This indiscriminate joining is not what the body is for. This joining described is indeed a contamination of the body and of course satan approves! Anything to disgrace the image of God! Ever notice in movies, yes, I know you watch them!, that the film implies the stars are having sex with everyone they meet and sometimes even before they have found out the name and we declare the movie "funny" or "cute". What happens if there is any non-sexual nudity shown? Oh! now the movie is discusting and children ought to be protected from it! Do we notice anymore that we can watch hideous scenes of people being shot to death, blown apart by bombs, hacked apart by chainsaws, wood chippers, axes, and this is rated as a genreal movie, but show one naked person walking in the garden and it is now at least an R or more likely an X rated movie? Do we really have our priorities straight when things can be thought of in this manner? I want to know what you think God might think about having His image ridiculed in this manner? Next week we are going to show a few Biblical examples of just what God may think! For this week though we are just going over in our minds just how often we have followed the devil's leading in this regard. Perhaps it is something we ought to take back to Him in prayer and have Him clean out satan's words! Tell Him you want to follow only His way and His will and put satan behind you. Also you might ponder this week on just what you think you will be wearing in heaven. We know for sure there will be NO man made items there, even that suit or fancy dress you are buried in will be burned off you before you are allowed to enter! God uses the word restore a lot when talking about man. It is most probable that we will once again wear exactly what we wore in Eden! Some of you already know just how marvelous it feels to walk in a garden here on earth but there we can go everywhere! Won't that be GREAT?!! God will restore us to what He originally created! Perfect and without sin!

May God be with you each day and lets joyfully look forward to going home!

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