Pastor Kent Christmas | Thorns | March 13, 2024

Pastor Kent Christmas Podcast www.regenerationnashville.org

If you’re hungry for the power and presence of god, get ready for the Freshfire Conference presented by pastor’s Kent and Candy Chris April 11 through 14 with special guest, Jensen Franklin, Samuel Rodriguez.
Tony Suarez, Doctor Hans Hess, and pastor Kent Christmas.
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be. Alright. Well, let’s get into the word of the lord today.
Um, we’re gonna go back to if you’ve heard my ministry for any time, I deal a lot with, uh, the first few chapters of Genesis, and that’s where we’re gonna start with today.
And, uh, we’re gonna pick up where god has, uh, addressed the failure in the garden.
First, he he curses the serpent, and then he pronounces, um, the penalty on Eve.
And, uh, I wanna pick up with Adam And this is in, uh, Genesis chapter 3 in verse 17.
And he says to Adam, because you’ve hearkened to the voice of thy wife, and you’ve eaten of the tree, which I commanded these saying, thou shall not eat a bit.
He said, cursed is the ground for thy sake, and in sorrow, shot thy eat of it all the days of thy light.
And thorns also on thistles shall it bring forth to thee and thou shall eat the herb of the field?
Last verse, in the sweat of thy face, most most, uh, versions say in the sweat of thy brow, um, thou shall eat bread till thou return it to the ground for out of it.
It was taken in dust thou art and dust thou shall return.
So there are several key things here that I wanna bring your attention to.
And, uh, I I just stumbled on this.
I pray all the time, Lord will give me insight to the word.
And I think I have found a thread that that kinda goes through the old and the new testament.
Before, uh, Adam and Eve sent, the ground brings forth, uh, a hundredfold.
There’s there’s no devourer in the garden.
Uh, that brings up if we could have seen what kind of fruit and plants were in the Garden of Eden, it would be incredible.
It had to have been steam.
Um, it was, you know, aga plant, and it just a huge, uh, fruit And, uh, of course, you know, they weren’t meat eaters then.
God did not create the man to to eat meat.
It was until after sin that man became a meat eater.
So Adam is living in the Garden of Eden where the ground is blessed. That’s what I wanna say.
The ground is blessed. And when something’s blessed, it brings forth abundance.
So when he sins, god begins to talk to him.
And the first thing he says to him, he said, The ground is now going to be cursed because you ate of the tree that I told you not to eat up.
So there are there are several key things here. The tree is key.
Um, the curse in the ground is key is key.
And he says from now on, you’re still gonna plan in the ground, but he says it’s not gonna bring forth abundance.
It’s gonna be restricted and what it brings because there’s a curse on it.
And he said, uh, because of this curse, it’s on the ground, He said, your labor that you’re gonna have to put into.
He says, it’s gonna cause your forehead, your your brow, He said it’s gonna be so intensive that sweat will now break out on your brow.
So before the curse, There was no labor. Man did not sweat.
And when you go back through the scriptures, and this is why the lord tells a high priest, You gotta wear linen garments when you come into the holiest of Holy’s because, uh, sweat was a sign of man’s labor.
And in the presence of god, we cease from our own labor. And there’s a whole Bible study on that.
So, uh, he tells him he says, Uh, your ground is cursed.
And, uh, verse 18, he tells us what the curse is.
He said, the curse of the ground is thorns and thistles are now gonna come out of it.
And it’s gonna choke what used to come out. It’s gonna restrict it.
He said the thorns are going to be the curse on the ground.
And he said, because of the thorns that are on the ground, he said, now you’re gonna have to labor to try to bring forth any kind of harvest out of the ground.
And he said it’s gonna cause you to sweat.
Now I wanna go to Matthew, uh, chapter 13, and This is the parable of, uh, the the the the, uh, the sower.
And, um, the lord is speaking and, um, he he this is he starts off.
He says, Here, you therefore, the parable of the sword. This is verse 18 of chapter, uh, 13.
He says, if anyone here the word of the kingdom and understand if it not, then come at the wicked one and catches the way that which is sewn in his heart.
This is he which received C by the wayside. Um, verse 22.
He also that received it seed among the thorns. Is he that heareth the word?
And he said the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word and he become untruthful.
Later on, the the disciples asked the lord for the interpretation of this.
And, He tells him he said that.
He said the the the the devour that is going to be in the ground when that seed is sown.
He says, he calls it the deceitfulness of of riches and the cares of life.
And he said, they’re gonna choke out the harvests.
So, In in this in this setting, we we’re dealing with something that is coming against your harvest.
There’s a devourer lose. And and this parable lord said the devourer is that people who hear the word of the lord He said the thorns in their life are the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches.
He said that is what chokes out the word of god.
And, boy, we are in an hour Uh, the Bible says this.
It doesn’t say money is the root of all evil.
It says the love of money is the root of all evil. And there’s lots of people.
They’re not in sin. It’s just that the cares of life. You know what that is?
That’s your own labor where you’re working so hard just trying to make ends meet.
And then there’s the other people who they’re so blessed um, that their wealth has deceived them into thinking that I don’t have to be committed to Christ or sold out to Christ But both of those, the lord says, are likened to thorns.
Now remember in the book of Genesis, the lord says, what is going to restrict Adam’s abundance because he’s now in sin is thorns.
So we’re dealing with, uh, the fact that the cares of life and the pursuit a well.
The pursuit of riches chokes it out.
Now I wanna, um, I wanna go, uh, to the book of Malachi, and this is a this is a familiar portion of scripture in Malachi chapter 3, And verse 9, he says you are cursed with a curse.
In verse 10, he says, you gotta bring all the tide into the storehouse that there may be meat or there may be abundant in my house, improving out their say at the lord.
If I will not open you the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to contain it.
Now that right there says if there’s not room enough to contain it, there’s no devour There’s no curse loops.
So the lord says, if there is a curse on your life, there’s a way to reverse it.
In verse 11, he says, he’s talking about now.
If you will do what I tell you, bring your tide into the storehouse, he says, I will rebuke the devourer for your sake.
And this is what he says. When I rebuke the devourer, Remember, it’s in Genesis. It’s in Matthew here.
The lord’s talking about that the thorns or the devourer, that thing that chokes out the blessing the abundance of gone.
He said, not only will I rebuke the devourer, but he said, No longer will the fruit.
He will no longer destroy the fruit of your ground and neither shall your vine cast its fruit.
Before its time in the field.
So the lord is declaring here in the last book of the Old Testament.
He’s Because he starts out in the first book, he said there’s a curse on the ground because of sin.
And he said it’s a devourer and it is thorns. They’re they’re gonna grow up.
And and when you plant something that used to bring abundance, he says it’s no longer gonna do that.
Then he says that that thorns in that parable was just the cares of life when we’ve been reduced to our own labor.
We don’t have the faith in god give us our blessing or the pursuit of wealth that distracts us from god.
He said, that’s thorns. That’s part of the curse.
Now in Malachi, the last book in the Old Testament, he goes back and he’s dealing with the curse.
And he said, This is how you can break the curse.
He says, and this is how the devourer will not destroy the fruit.
He says, bring the tithe into the storehouse. And so I’m not teaching on giving today.
I’m not teaching on tithing because, I’m a huge believer in tithing, and I do believe that this is the first purpose of Malachi is.
He’s talking about this. He says, I will be rebuked the devourer.
Now in Isaiah, Not every theologian has this particular paradigm, but many do.
And I believe this is what it’s talking about.
In Isaiah, uh, chapter 6 verse 13 says, but yet in it shall be a tent and of it shall return and shall be eaten as a teal tree or a terrible tree.
As an oak whose substance is in them and when they cast their leaves.
So the holy seed shall be the substance thereof. Many scholars, and then I am of this persuasion.
This verse is talking about Jesus. And Uh, it’s very interesting here that he calls Jesus 10th.
People say, well, you know, I don’t know why why we give a 10.
First of all, god will never ask you to do something that he’s not already done himself.
Ties rebukes the devour. It breaks the curse.
And Adam, he he wasn’t a tither.
Uh, you know, that curse was never lifted off of him.
The the ground today and the natural ground still has curse on it.
This is why god will make a new earth when he makes a new heaven.
But when god got ready to have a new creation spiritual creation, the seed of that new creation was Jesus Christ.
Uh, John 3 16th says, for god’s love the world that he gave has only begotten son to whosoever believe in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
And one verse says this, uh, Christ is the first fruit of many brethren.
So when god wanted a harvest of sons and daughters.
He tied Jesus. He gave his best. He sold him into the ground.
And this verse is talking about Jesus as a tithe, and he calls him.
He says, um, he said he’ll be eating like a Terabit tree.
Um, when you go back to the scriptures, trees are so important.
It all the very first sin that man had start with eating the wrong tree.
Uh, he ate he didn’t eat of the tree of life.
When Jesus comes back, who is the last Adam, his purpose is to come back and to reverse the curse, break the curse that was on man from Adam sin, from the first Adam.
So, uh, it’s it’s also very interesting here because, terabif.
It’s called the Valley of Terabif. And this is where David killed Goliath.
And what what was that victory about?
The Bible says that David took a sword, uh, which is a type of the word of god, according to Efission 6, and he cut the head off of Goliath.
And if you heard me a while back, I preached a message on this that the, uh, place of the skull where Jesus was crucified was about the head of Goliath because David carried the head of Goliath to that valley.
And so, it’s it’s interesting here.
And when he’s talking about Jesus’ 10th and being sold, it’s in the same place where David cuts ahead off of Goliath.
Now I wanna wrap this up. I wanna bring this together.
Um, in John chapter 19, And I think you’re gonna like this. John chapter 19.
Uh, every gospel except Luke tells this.
In in John chapter 19, uh, verse 1 pilot, therefore, took Jesus and scourged him And the soldiers weaved or they plated a crown of thorns, and they put it on his head and they put on him a purple row.
Everything about Calvary was breaking the curse off of man.
First thing that did was the blood that was shed from the lamb of god rolled away the curse of death off of you and I because of Adam’s sin.
Um, the second thing that happened was Uh, it was breaking the power of sickness and, uh, and disease off of us because a calvary Jesus was beaten.
And the Bible says, by his stripes, we are healed.
But another thing that it did Remember now when Jesus or god is talking to Adam, he said the the ground is cursed with thorns.
And he said, it’s gonna affect your brow.
He said, uh, the labor is gonna bring 4 sweat out of your brow. So what does Jesus do?
He is the Bible calls him the tree of life That if any man believeth on Jesus Christ and confesses him as Lord and savior, then he say And so when we accept Christ and we dedicate our lives to him, we are eating of the tree of life.
We are taking in. We are eating the Teribath tree. We are eating the 10th.
We’re eating the tithes of god. And Jesus allowed them.
They didn’t realize what they were doing, but when the enemy walled that crown of thorns, you know what they were doing?
They were taking symbolically the curse of the thorns that had been put on men in the garden of Eden and, oh, they put it on the head of Jesus.
And when they put it on the head of Jesus, you know what took place the curse of thorns was broken off of us.
And this is what I wanna tell you by the spirit that when you take in Jesus Christ, And when you symbolically, by giving of your tithes and your offerings, you’re eating of the tree of life, And when you do that, then prosperity comes back to you.
And the power of the devourer is rebuked off you.
This is why Malachi said this He said, if you will enact the principle of tide, and he said, I will rebuke the devourer.
What is he saying? He I’m gonna rebuke thorns that have destroyed your harvest and your abundance And so this is why Jesus had to have a crown of thorns is because one of the final acts of Calvary was that when they put that crown of thorns on the head of Jesus, the curse of thorns was broken and no longer do the cares of life and this pursuit that takes our energy, the, uh, of riches, chokes out the harvest of god in us But god is saying that there is a blessing upon us now.
So I wanna encourage you to under stand that Calvary did something phenomenal for us.
That Malachi and ACCEP principle carried over into the new testament.
And so tying is not just about giving a tenth.
It’s about you partake of the authority of what Jesus did at Calvary and you break the devour off of your health, off of your life, off of your finances, off of your labor, that no longer by the sweat of your brow, do you have to try to make ends meet?
Well, praise the lord. I hope this has, um, been an encouragement to you.
Uh, I was excited about bringing them with this one to you. Um, I’ll see you next week.
For more information about Kent Christmas Ministries International or regeneration Nashville, go to Kent Christmasdot org, or regeneration nashville.org.