In this piece, I want to briefly take us through a short journey that will produce, by the grace of God, a sense of direction in us and confidence in what God is able to do and He His capable of doing. Let us start our observation from Genesis chapter 1 verses 1-3, see what the Bible says, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.”
We have read these verses over and over, but we want to look at something about the earth that we happen to be in. God created the heavens and the earth, the earth is so big, but we are living on a portion of the earth as we speak. We are seating down right now on a location on the earth. And the Bible says that earth, it was without form and void and darkness was on the face of it. There was something about the earth that was not right; there was no form on the earth. There was emptiness on the earth and there was darkness upon it. God knew this situation shouldn't continue, so God did something about it. And God said, “Let there be light,” and the Bible says, “there was light.”
We are going to be operating in the dimension of our God by speaking not just light; but form, we will be declaring, not emptiness now, but fullness. It is now our time, turn. God said, “Let there be light and God didn't doubt Himself, “and there was light.” It is time for us to speak fullness upon the earth. And we will see another dimension where it concerns the women. But I'm being narrowed in this approach: I don't just want us to pray for women, but to pray for wives. Once you are not a man, you are a woman, but you could be a woman and not be a wife. So, the emphasis is on wives because we can’t pray for a woman to be fruitful and give birth to a child when the person is not married; that will be the same as if we are asking for an extra-marital affair.
So, our focus is on the wives. As we pray for the earth, for Nigeria, or your country, your city, you are praying that in your city there should be form and fullness, and there shall be light. And if you believe it, you will see it. This may be a time for a person to also speak concerning his or her marriage, you are not married yet, you are to speak form into that man or into that woman. You're speaking fullness into that man; you are speaking light into that man. Maybe the reason the man has not found you is that he doesn't have a form yet; maybe because he is feeling empty currently, maybe because the darkness has overwhelmed him. So, it is now your turn like God declared to say, ‘concerning the man that I'm supposed to marry, I speak light, I speak fullness into him. Do we understand now?
Genesis chapter 1 verse 26. But before we go to verse 26, for those of us that are familiar with that Scripture, from verse nine that the name of the earth was reechoed again, the Bible says, “And the dry land appeared” because God told the seas to gather together, and the dry land outside the sea appeared and God called the dry land earth. From that moment, God began to speak to the earth as if the earth has ears to listen. God began to speak to the earth as if the earth is a personality to God. To all humankind, we see the earth as something we can step on. We see the earth as a thing we can have, deal with, or use. But God was speaking to the earth, and each time that God spoke to the earth, the earth answered God, it responded to God, it did as God desired.
You will discover from verse 11: the Bible says, “God said, “Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth”; and it was so.” Why was it so? Because as God said “let the earth bring forth, the earth heard God and the earth decided to respond to the word of God.” As God said it, that was what the earth did. If you continue, you will see many places where God spoke to the earth about what to do, and the earth in obedience responded to God. All of us are witnesses to the reality that from the day we were born to date, we have never found a situation when we are begging the earth to produce grass or trees.
Have you wondered who plant these trees and grasses? We don't know, but we know the earth is faithful. We are going somewhere. In Genesis chapter 1:26, the Bible says, “Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” Before this time, God was the one speaking to the earth. God was telling the earth to bring forth, God was doing everything. At a point, God said, “Let us make man in Our image, according to our likeness” what does it mean? Let this new creature, let him do the things we do; let him behave, the way we behave, let him produce in our manner.
So, if God is required to speak to the earth to see things on the earth; it is now on us to speak to the earth, if we want to see anything. So, you do not blame the state of lack to lack itself, but you blame it on your inability to speak to the earth to produce things that you require or need. Do you understand? You and I have a responsibility from God to do to the earth what God does to it. Hallelujah!!!
Let us read further from verse 28: “28Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” God has created man and God has blessed him. And the blessing is: “be fruitful.” Very soon we may look into how God made man. We are aware of it but we will be reminded again. In the making of man, God said, “Man,” that is the male and a female man that have come together to become one in marriage, He said, “Be fruitful” it is a marital issue.
So, the first blessing of God upon man is “Be fruitful.” The question is “Be fruitful” where? The answer is: to be fruitful upon the earth. “Multiply” multiply where? Multiply on the earth. He then said further, “Fill the earth,” because the question is: how will you fill the earth that you have not been fruitful on and you have not been multiplied on? It is because your fruitfulness took place on the earth, your multiplication took place on the earth that is why you filling the earth will become a reality. And if you don't fill the earth, you can't get to the point that you will subdue the earth. That's what God said: “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it.” “Have dominion over all the things that move on the earth and fly over it.”
Let us jump now to Genesis chapter 2 and we will read from verse 5: “Before any plant of the field was in the earth and before any herb of the field had grown. For the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the ground. But a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground.”
As far as the earth was concerned, rain was an essential thing. The earth required the rain to bring forth. For the earth to bring forth, Bible says: certain things had not grown on the earth. So, there was no fruitfulness so to say. Why was God reluctant to cause rain on the earth? Because there was no man to till the land. I don’t know maybe we will soon get to the point where we will realize that as it was for the earth, so it is for women in marriage. Maybe you are saying, “why is it that I'm not fruitful?” It may be that God has withheld your fruitfulness because there is no man to till you. Let us use another word for “tilling”, to “tend” you. Although it is not just about the women, our focus is on women and the land. So, the Bible says there was no man to till the ground and so, God didn’t cause increase.
So, there is a responsibility on a man to till the ground for God to send rain upon that land. Now, should that land be your own land, should it be the city that you are living, the country where you are living; while you are complaining that God has not bless your country, you are moving from recession to recession, you are moving from debt to debt, you're complaining there is no growth; but God is saying, “But there is no man to till the ground,” there is no man. So, what do we have? The Bible says “but a mist went up from the earth and water the whole face of the earth.”
Let us now go into the nitty-gritty of our conversation. In Genesis chapter 2:7, the Bible says, “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being.” What God has said to us in Genesis 1:26-28 is just to introduce us to what God really wanted to do. In Genesis 2:7, God really did it. And how did God make man? The Bible says, “And God formed man [brother Gboyega Adedeji] from the dust of the ground,” but He didn't leave him like that, “and God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,” and that is the only reason he has become a living being. So, if God should withdraw the breath, then Bro. Gboyega will just be someone that was taken from the earth.
Look at this, if you make bread from flour, and flour from wheat, is bread, not wheat? Whatever rule or law that governs wheat, is it not going to govern the bread? If we look at the example of rice again, whatever rule that governs rice, maybe you have a seed of rice that you have cooked, you cannot exclude that food from the law that governs rice because the rice was taken from somewhere. So, you were taken from the earth; and whatever rule governs the earth practically governs whatever God used to make you. As the earth has been commanded to bring forth herbs, and vegetation, do you know that all of us have not stopped bringing forth herbs and vegetation since we were born? Check your head, when a child is born, he is even born with vegetation. People have vegetation all over their bodies, the same way, grasses grow on the earth, do you not have something growing on your body?
Now, there is something I am helping us to understand. There is something that was taken from the earth that was used to make you, do you understand? So, if God was speaking to the earth, and the earth was listening to God, and was producing according to the will of God; that means when God speaks to you or into your life, your life or you as a person must hear God. Your body; every organ in your body must hear God, and do the things that God wants you to do. So, if God spoke to the earth, and God has made fruitfulness a reality on the earth, for you there must be fruitfulness also. Since God took from the earth in the making of man, there is a very serious implication that what happened to the earth can happen to us.
Before we go on, let's just look the Genesis chapter 3 from verses 16 downward, and there is something I want to talk to us about from there: “To the woman He said: “I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; in, pain you shall bring forth children; your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” Now, you have read this portion over and over, and you hardly dwell there. Initially, God said, “Be fruitful, multiply, replenish the earth: fill the earth and subdue it.” And when God spoke to the earth, ‘and the earth was eager to bring forth; the earth didn’t struggle to bring forth. So, as it was for the earth, it was supposed to be for the woman. She was not supposed to have sorrow and pain when she was conceiving or delivering, but because of what Eve and Adam did, judgment came. God said, “I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; in pain, you shall bring forth children.”
So, no matter how little it was before, it will increase. If we think our mothers go through pains in the labor room, divide their pains by proportions, maybe that's what they would have had. It says: “I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; in pain, you shall bring forth children.” What was supposed to come easy, come cheap, is now coming with pain. He said, “Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” Now, if you understand that God judged Adam, the serpent, and Eve, we should understand that what God meant was also a judgment. “You as the woman, you will desire your husband and then he will rule over you.”
Did we remember where we were coming from, especially from Genesis 1:26? God said: Let us make man in our image and according to our likeness, let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the cattle, over everything that creeps upon the earth and the earth.” There was a time God said, “Fill the earth and subdue [rule] it.” So, what God said to man, which also applied to the woman because the blessing came on the man and woman at a point, there was now a judgment that was tailor-made for each of the individuals. It was as if God said, “I've told you and your husband to rule the earth, but now your husband will rule you.” I don’t know if we understand what is going on?
17 Then to Adam He said, “Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it: “Cursed is the ground…” I don’t know if we notice what was happening? Out of the ground God formed man. In the beginning, God blessed the earth. Don't forget what happened in Genesis chapter 1 from verse 1 downward. The Bible says, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form [void] and it was dark,” then God addressed it. The earth started producing things. God was speaking to the earth and it was bringing forth. It got to a point that God had to use a little part of the earth to form man. So, God cannot take something that is cursed to form the man that He wants to make the ruler over everything.
So, the land, the earth was blessed at that time. But because of what happened in Genesis 3, the Bible says God said, “Cursed is the ground for your sake.” So, if man was not there, the land will remain blessed. So, it was man’s action that brought a curse upon the earth. Now, when God was speaking to the woman, God said what He said. But for the man, God continued: “In toil, you shall eat of it all the days of your life.18 Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the herb of the field. 19 In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for dust you are, and to dust, you shall return.”
Can you see what God was dealing with? Before we separate ourselves from the earth, God said, “For dust you are, and to dust, you, are returning.” Now, let's focus on where God said “cursed is the ground for your sake and in toil you shall eat from that ground.” Many of us are living in places on the earth today, and we are complaining, “I've been in this land, nothing seems to be working,” remember God said, “curse is the ground.” So, if the curse must be reversed, you need to take a responsibility under God to speak restoration to the land; to speak healing into the land, to speak blessing to the land. So, a land on its own does not just open up to you.
Now, see what God said, “For your sake curse is the ground.” So, remove yourself from the equation, and land will be okay. That's why we don't struggle to find a forest on the earth. They just grow; trees grow on their own. Plantations grow on their own. Palm trees, they just grow. But the moment you say, you need them, you want to survive on them; that's when they start misbehaving; like another law is working against you. You are sowing, but you’re not reaping the required harvest. Do you still remember what happened to Isaac? He got to a land and wanted to sow, he dug well several times, but the people of the land rose in opposition until he got to a place where he found rest and nobody rose against him anymore.
At another time, due to the famine in the land, he wanted to go to Egypt, but God said, “Don't go to Egypt,” and when he sowed in the land that year, he reaped a hundredfold. When you hear famine, is it that there is no earth? There is earth. What usually triggers famine is simply lack of rain. You don't talk of famine when there is an abundance of rain and the blessing of God rests upon the land. Do we remember that in ancient times, when there is famine, people will start raising offerings to gods, and they start raising festivals. They will say they are looking for rain, they are looking for blessing, they want to be fruitful.
Now, it is important for us to realize that it is because of us as men that the earth is subjected to a law that works against its fruitfulness. So, it is now our responsibility to say, “I stand in the gap for my land, I stand in the gap for my wife.” You saw what happened in verse 16 that we earlier read. God said, “I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; in pain, you shall bring forth children.” Really, it is the women that do the work that the earth does for us. When you plant a seed, you go home. Some irresponsible farmers may even plant seeds and never come back until the day of harvest, and they may still find something — it depends on nature. That's why you could see an irresponsible man who would impregnate a responsible woman, but abandon her only to come back three, four, or five years later to claim he is the father of the child.
So, wives, our mothers, they play a role on the earth that is similar to what the earth does. So, that is why we are going to be praying for wives and our land. Perhaps, if you were not in the life of that woman, she might have moved forward than this; maybe the reason she is in trouble is because of you. So, why are you complaining that my wife is not fruitful? There is nothing she's doing that is working; it could be because of you. It is now time for you to arise, and speak over your wife. It is time for you to arise and speak over your land. In Genesis chapter 25, we are aware that Isaac got married to Rebekah. Let's read from verse 19:
“This is the genealogy of Isaac, Abraham’s son. Abraham begot Isaac. 20 Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah as a wife, the daughter of Bethuel the Syrian of Padan Aram, the sister of Laban the Syrian. 21 Now Isaac pleaded with the Lord for his wife…” And this is how some of us will plead with the Lord for our land, for our nation. Isaac pleaded with the Lord for his wife because she was barren…” A barren is a person that has not given birth; is just like the earth that has not produced trees or that have not produced fruits. Do we understand? And the Bible didn’t say that was it. See what happened.
The Bible says: “And Rebekah his wife conceived…” As if as soon as he spoke to God concerning his wife, God heard him immediately, and God responded. So, why are you the one complaining that your wife has not given birth to a child for you, in the years of your marriage? Have you taken on the responsibility of pleading on her behalf to God? When God was speaking to the woman, “I would greatly multiply your sorrow” but when you want God to intervene; you want your wife to be fruitful, you want your wife to be productive, because God said, “I seek godly offspring” you take on your role as a man, and you speak light, you speak fullness, you speak form into your wife.
So, that is the prayer point. You are praying for your wife and praying for the land. Pray for your land, don't complain you don't have money in your bank, pray for your land. This is an opportunity that you have to determine your own life. Isaac sowed in the land. The benefit of sowing in the land for him didn't come to other people. It came to him. He was the one that God blessed. He was the one that sowed in the land. And he was the one that reaped in the land, in the same year, a hundredfold. So, the Lord will be blessing us. The Lord will be commanding us to sow, but we are not sowing on the land that is cursed. You're going to be declaring the blessing of God. You're going to be asking God to bless your land. And you're going to be saying, “Lord, bless my wife”, and the Lord will hear us in the name of Jesus.
Amen.
