Paul Tripp: It should be a phenomenal comfort to us to know that God is a God of revelation. He's a God who speaks. And the minute He created Adam and Eve, He started doing that, and the whole of the history of the story of redemption, God is speaking; God is speaking; God is speaking.

Kate Crowley: Welcome to Right Here, Right Now, and today's program from Paul Tripp Ministries. Join us as Paul connects the transforming power of Jesus Christ to everyday life. Now, here's Paul Tripp.

Paul Tripp: The Bible is made up of all kinds of literature; there is historical literature; there is poetic literature; there's apocalyptic literature; there is didactic or teaching literature; and the particular form that Genesis 1 takes is the form of a poem. And I don't know if you've noticed it or not, but Genesis 1 almost has a cadence to it. Yes, you heard me right; it's got rhythm to it.

God creates something, declares it's good; it's evening and morning, the first day. God creates something, declares it's good; it's evening and morning, the second day. God creates something, declares it's good; it's evening and morning, the third day. God creates something, declares its good; it's evening and morning, the fourth day. You could almost rap Genesis 1 (don't worry; I won't try).

But then when you get to about verse 26, "Errr, errr, err. . ." the rhythm breaks because God does something so amazing, so important, so fundamentally life-shaping, that the rhythm has to break. Yet what God does is at the very same time, so normal, so mundane, so totally every day, that we can read Genesis 1 over and over again and not recognize the significance of this moment.

Without this moment, you would not believe the things you believe. Without this moment, you would not live the way you live. Without this moment, you probably wouldn't be listening to this program. Without this moment, life as we know it would fundamentally be different than it is. The rhythm of this amazing passage breaks because God is about to do something that will alter it all. That thing defines your life. You are totally dependent on this moment. What did God do that was this important?

Music: "A Satisfied Mind" by Bob Dylan

Once I was winning in fortune and fame
Everything that I dreamed of to get a start in life's game
Suddenly it happened, I lost every dime
But I'm richer by far with a satisfied mind
When life is over, my time has run out
My friends and my loved ones, I'll leave, there's no doubt
But one thing for certain when it comes, my time
I'll leave this old world with a satisfied mind

Kate Crowley: This is Right Here, Right Now. And there is more on "The God Who Speaks" from the series, "Back to the Beginning," from Paul Tripp.

Now, Paul has a book on the power talk called, War Of Words, and it's available at Paul's website, paultrippministries.org. While you are there, you can check out other resources designed to help you live your life in the grace that God provides. Again, that's paultrippministries.org. Right now, here's Paul Tripp with more Right Here, Right Now.

Adam and Eve in a Perfect World

Paul Tripp: Now, I want you to open the door one more time and look in on Genesis 1 with me. Look in particularly at Adam and Eve. Yes, they really were perfect people; and yes, as hard as it is for us to imagine, they really were living in a perfect world; and yes, almost impossible to grasp, they were living in perfect relationship with God. You can't help but look into this scene and say, "Wow, I wish my world was this orderly. I wish my world was this simple!"

You see, we live in a world that has been so completely complicated by sin that it's hard for us even to imagine what the world originally was like. Nothing in our world is as nice as it was meant to be. Nothing operates just as it was created to operate.

I just got back from India, a place where you can visibly see the damage of sin. You can't help but look around and see the utter brokenness of humanity as you see so much suffering and so much poverty, so much hunger, so much disease, and say, "Wow, has this world been broken!"

Nothing has escaped the damage of sin. Nothing has escaped, nothing! We really do live in a world that's broken. And, so when you see the untainted beauty and simplicity of the world as God created it, you can't help but be filled with sadness.

Yet, even though Adam and Eve were living in that pristine, newly created world, they were still people in desperate need. Although perfect adults, they simply didn't know what they needed to know in order to live as they were supposed to live in order to be and do what they were supposed to be and supposed to do. They were perfect, but they lacked understanding.

And so immediately upon creating them, God comes to them, and He does something so phenomenal it's hard to grasp that it actually happened. Are you ready? Have I built up enough suspense? Have I peaked your interest?

God comes to Adam and Eve, and He talks to them. You say, "Paul, that's it? That's the phenomenal thing you were talking about? That's what is supposed to have changed everything? I just don't get it. I just don't understand why it's so important?"

Let me say it this way, "If the first four words of the Bible, 'In the beginning God...,' are the four most important words ever written, then these three words, 'And God said...,' are the second most important."

You see, think about the scene; think about Adam and Eve, newly created in a newly created world with huge responsibility to God, to one another, and to the world, yet they didn't know what was going on. They were dependent; they were needy, and God comes and talks to them. The second most important phrase in Scripture is this phrase, "And God said." Do you know why?

Music: "Traffic In The Sky" by Jack Johnson

Words of wisdom all around
But no one ever seems to listen
They're talking about the plans on the paper
Building up from the pavement
The shadows from the scrapers on the pavement
It's enough to make me sigh
But that don't seem like it would make it feel better
The words are all around but the words are only sounds
And no one ever seems to listen, instead they'll say
Well how could we have known?
I'll tell them it's really not so hard to tell, na na na
If you keep adding stones
Soon the water will be lost in the well, lost in the well

Reading the Bible Without a Spiritual Monotone

Paul Tripp: I think that we often read the Bible with a mental spiritual monotone. You know, here's how it works--we're so familiar with its content that we weave the words through our brains with a la-la-la approach. And because we do this, it's very easy to miss the import of things that God has purposely recorded for us.

For example, when you read about God talking to Adam and Eve, you can read it as just another mundane conversation. But if you do, you've really missed the point entirely. Think about what was happening there.

Adam and Eve are in the garden as newly created, adult human beings, but they don't really know who they are; they don't really know the meaning of life; they don't really know the purpose for their existence; they are perfect, but they are needy and dependent.

And God knows something about Adam and Eve that you've heard me talk about before. Because God is the one who created them, God knows that Adam and Eve will not figure out these fundamental perspectives about their existence by themselves. They will not arrive at basic life truths by means of investigation, research, and discovery. They will not come to understand what the world is about, who they are, and what they are supposed to be doing by research and experience.

So the Lord of lords, the great Creator King, the eternal and Almighty God, who holds the world in place by His power, comes to Adam and Eve and talks to them. You bet that this is more than a conversation over the fence between two neighbors. No, this is God actually speaking to people in order that they would understand what they need to understand in order to live as they were designed to live. This is God talking, and with the words, "And God said," the biblical story and the nature of human life takes its direction.

It is an amazing thing to understand that God who made and rules the universe is not silent. He's not just a God who does amazing things. No, He's actually a God who says amazing things as well. And why does He stoop to speak to us; why does He take the time to ever address us with the words of human language that we can actually understand?

Because He knows that we will never understand what we need to understand; we will never know what we need to know in order to be what we were created to be and do what we were designed to do, unless He speaks to us. God speaks! God speaks! God speaks! And He has spoken to us in His most expansive, and comprehensive, and fundamental form in the Word that He has given us.

That means there really is hope of knowing; there really is hope of understanding; there really is hope of being wise; there really is hope of being sure; there really is hope of making right decisions and taking right actions; there's really hope of understanding who you are and what you are supposed to be doing; there really is hope of having answers to the most necessary and fundamental questions of the human existence.

You see, why is there hope for all those things? Because God is not just a God who acts; God is a God who speaks, and in His communication, there is wisdom to be found; in His communication, the secrets of the universe are unfolded to us.

You see, the world you live in, and I don't know if you've thought about this, but the world you live in is not a gigantic puzzle for you to figure out, and you spend all of your life looking for a couple missing pieces so that the whole picture of the whole puzzle will be filled out. No, that's not what life is about. Life is not like a crossword puzzle, and you're hoping that all of the words will fit where they're supposed to fit so the whole thing will make sense.

Life is not like a big math problem to solve so that you can get all the numbers in the right column, properly calculated, so you get a sensible answer at the bottom--that's not what life is like it all. You see, the universe is not a huge mystery for us to be solved. The universe we live in is rational and has meaning because there's a God in the center of it who is the ultimate source of wisdom and knowledge.

Sure, there are huge mysteries to be solved, but everything we need to know has been kindly, and faithfully, and comprehensively communicated to us by God in His Word. There are answers because God really does speak. God is and He is not silent.

Now, for any of us who have ever been confused, for any of us who've ever had big questions, for any of us who have ever laid in our bed wondering things about life, for any of us who have not known what to think or do next, for any of us who have found ourselves in situations that are way beyond our knowledge, way beyond our understanding, way beyond our wisdom, it should be a phenomenal comfort to us to know that God is a God of revelation.

He's a God who speaks, and the minute He created Adam and Eve, He started doing that. And the whole of the history of the story of redemption, God is speaking; God is speaking; God is speaking because He understands that we were never designed, we were not hardwired to figure it all out on your own.

The universe is not a huge mystery to be solved. There are answers, and they are available to us because God speaks. God is and He is not silent. You can know, and you can know for sure because the One who made it all, speaks. Are you ever confused? Find rest--God speaks!

Music: "The Word of God" by Big Tent Revival

Out of the mouth of the holy
Onto the page I read
Voice of the great provider
Everything I need
Shelter in time of fear
Tellin' me God is here
This is the word of God
Open your hearts, believe it
This is the word of God
Humble yourself, receive it
Listen, try and understand
You hold it in your own two hands
The one and only master plan
The word of God

What It Means That God Speaks

Paul Tripp: Maybe as you have been listening today, you've been a bit confused. Maybe you've been listening, and you've been thinking, "Paul, I'm just not sure what you mean when you say that God speaks. I don't know about you, but I don't hear the voice of God whispering in my ear. What are you talking about when you say, 'God speaks'?

"

Well, permit me to give you an explanation. Although God did come to Adam and Eve and speak to them in audible words that they could hear and understand, God doesn't speak to us in that way anymore. Now you may be tempted to think, "Wow, I wish God would do that for me." But the fact of the matter is that what God has done for you is much, much better. You see, God now speaks to you through His Word, the Bible.

Now immediately, that gives you two things that Adam and Eve did not have. First, that gives you a volume of Biblical knowledge and understanding that would've literally blown Adam and Eve's minds. Adam and Eve would gladly sit at the feet of anyone who has had knowledge of the content of the Word of God.

Second, you have a written resource that you can go back to again, and again, and again, and each time you return, you grow in knowledge and character. Each time you return, God produces changes in your heart and in your life.

You see, God has done something much better for you than occasionally visiting you with audible words. God has given you a masterful Book--a Book that chronicles His origin to destiny work of salvation and in so doing, tells you everything you need to know about Him, the world, yourself, the meaning and purpose of life, your job, your work as a human being, what is important and what is not, a basic framework for living, and what the end of it all is.

All the most significant facts of facts of the human existence are addressed in this masterful origin-to-destiny Book. God has given you His Word, carefully constructed by Him over thousands of years, telling us just exactly what He knew we would need to know about Him, about life, about ourselves, about the beginning and about the end in order to live as we were meant to live.

It's a masterful Book. It is amazing in its content. And, although God doesn't whisper in your ear anymore, He talks to you in powerful and wise ways through His Word. You see, you can really know and you can really be sure because the God who made it all has spoken to you clearly and comprehensively in this masterful Book, the Bible!

(Music Interlude)

Paul Tripp: Are you listening to God talk? Now, don't confuse me again. I don't mean are you sitting on a park bench waiting for God to give you the next set of audible directions so you can know what you are supposed to do next. What I mean is--are you spending time getting to know God, getting to know yourself, and getting to know the Word, the world, by spending time getting to know your Bible?

In a dramatic moment of wisdom, love, and grace, God broke the verbal silence of creation and spoke to Adam and Eve, and He speaks to you today; His Book speaks to your questions of identity; His Book speaks to your quest for an inner sense of well-being; His Book speaks to your quest for wisdom; His Book speaks to your fear and your joys; His Book speaks to your questions of meaning and purpose; His Book speaks to your world of career and finances; His Book speaks to your world of friendship, marriage, and family; His Book speaks to your private struggles and secret sins. His Book speaks to it all--it really does; it really does.

In His Book, you will find truth, and in His Book, you will find life. You see, there really is hope for us because God really does speak; His words give wisdom; but they give more than that. His words bring life! The question is right here, right now; are you listening?

Kate Crowley: God's promise, a gentle reminder from Paul Tripp on Right Here, Right Now. Paul has been continuing a series called, "Back to the Beginning." And be sure and tell a friend where they can hear these words of hope on the radio or online when they visit Paul's website.

Now, sometimes it takes the proper tools to help dig out God's grace. You can learn more in the book, War Of Words. In this writing, Paul Tripp examines the importance of mastering godly speech. That's War Of Words. Log on to paultrippministries.org, all one word, paultripp, spelled T-R-I-P-P, paultrippministries.org.

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Monday, dealing with conflict, you won't want to miss it. I'm Kate Crowley, and on behalf of Paul Tripp Ministries, I want to remind you that, in Jesus Christ, there really is help right here, right now. Have a great weekend.