James chapter five, verse 17 says, "Elijah was a man with a nature like ours." He was subject to the human condition even as a powerful man of God.

There's no mincing of words in the word of God. And it tells us, "thy way, oh God, is in the sanctuary," so it's telling us there's a pattern of his way that we can learn and know from the sanctuary. Join us for an anointed message illustrating some valuable lessons the Lord has given us that help us walk in greater understanding as we journey through the tabernacle's significant and meaningful symbolism.  At Mount Sinai, Moses was instructed by God to build the tabernacle. And every detail needed to be followed precisely according to the pattern that God showed Moses because this pattern was a shadowy form of something greater that God wanted to teach us.

I felt the Lord invite us to consider the patriarchs and really how Jesus is connected to the patriarchs of the faith. After Jesus was resurrected, he met some disciples walking along the road and he said, " everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled and then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures."  What does it mean that He says "everything written about me in the law of Moses?" This is the first five books of the Bible, the Torah. He's not explicitly mentioned there, is he? Not directly, but he is between the lines, he is the word, and he is revealed in the Law of Moses. And we're going to be looking at , the Gospel according to Genesis.

How is it that we can't seem to model the reality of God the way the saints of old did?

" I find that I must write about something else, urging you to defend the faith. that God has entrusted once for all time, to his holy people. I say this because some ungodly people have wormed their way into your churches saying that God's marvelous grace allows us to live immoral lives." He's saying, listen, there are some people that have come into the body of Christ and they're defiling the church. They're teaching another Jesus Christ. They're teaching the hyper-grace that we have experienced in our society for so long, people have abused the grace of God and continued in their sinful ways. The Bible says that we are to be careful becasue these people are among the people of God, causing many to fall away.

John gives certain tests for how we can discover if we or other professing believers are true Christians. How do you know when you've really got true faith? He tells us about four tests that we can find in scripture.

these Corinthians, They were falling back into some of their old ways of thinking. And so Paul says, Dear brothers and sisters, when I was with you, I couldn't talk to you as I would to spiritual people. I had to talk to you as though you belong to this world or as though you were infants in Christ.

I had to feed you with milk, not solid food, because you weren't ready for anything stronger. And. Guess what? That's my own word, but it says, And you still aren't ready, you are still controlled by your sinful nature. You're jealous of one another and quarrel with each other. Doesn't that prove that you're controlled by your sinful nature?

Aren't you living like people of the world? When one of you says, I'm a follower of Paul and another says, I follow Apollos. Aren't you just acting like people of the world? After all, who was Apollos? Who was Paul? We are only God's servants through whom you believed the good news. Each of us did the work that the Lord gave us.

I planted the seed in your hearts and Apollos watered it, but it was God who made it grow. Paul is saying, essentially, don't you see that both are needed? If you're going to win people to Christ, it has to be simple and pared down to the essentials. But then, if you're going to grow in Christ, there has to be much deeper teaching.

You have to go on to deeper things, and it takes the simple presentation of the gospel to plant the seed, but it takes a much deeper rational presentation of Christian truth to make a person grow and be watered. Though all the time, it's only God who enables the whole thing to grow.