My Journey to Reality

FACT: Lucifer was the very first orphan in the universe!

Lucifer lived in the presence of the Father in a sinless state. He only knew Father’s love and the beauty of His presence. He was a majestic angel who had a special place in heaven itself.

My Childhood Shaped My Future, So I Thought…

I grew up in a small country town in NSW, devoid of a father’s influence. When I was 17 years old, I made a decision that I was not going to live with family anymore, so I joined the Regular Army. My reason: family and people hurt you. I thought if I could get away from family, aunts and uncles I could live free of pain.

I joined the army thinking that it would suffice for a relationship that I didn’t have with my father. I realised that the old saying, “like father, like son” had a note of truth to it. My father was a WWII soldier, and here I was joining the army. I really didn’t know who I was, so I thought I could at least notch out an identity in the army.

I gave my life to the Lord when I was 31 years of age, at a time when life for me could have easily ended. I could never remember a male figure actually embracing me in an attitude of love and so I would recoil when anyone wanted to express love to me. My conversion was powerful. My baptism in water was powerful. My baptism in the Holy Spirit was powerful, but I just couldn’t grasp sonship or that God was actually my REAL Father.

In 2001, I was at a conference in Canberra. The late Jack Frost was speaking, and I was glued to his every word as he unpacked the Father’s heart and His love for His children. I was sitting in the front row of the church, and Jack walked over to me, put his arms around me and held me as a father would hold a son. I had never had anyone do that to me, ever! He held me; I cried from the very depths of my being. Jack prayed a very simple prayer over me. He just asked God to be my Father and allow me to be His son.

I collapsed in his arms and wept, and wept, and wept. For the first time in my life I experienced the reality of Father’s love for me. I had been in ministry for some twenty years in various pastoral leadership functions and I had never experienced Father’s love. It was not a concept, nor was it a theology. It certainly wasn’t a doctrine—it was a manifest, demonstrated reality of Father’s love for me from His heart of sheer tenderness. I realised my need to be His son and for Him to be my Father. As I lay sobbing uncontrollably, all I can remember asking was, “Daddy, can I be your son and will You be my Father?” For me it was a matter of my desperate need to have a father and for me to know that I am his son.

Piecing It Together

I read John 14:18 and I suddenly realised that God had removed my orphan status and I was His son. In 2001 I knew I was, but a new anointing came upon that simple revelation. The anointing that came with that realisation was as powerful as I have ever experienced. I knew whose I was, at last. My Father created the entire universe! How neat was that, I thought to myself. Yet, Lucifer, Adam and Eve lost it all. What happened? Why? Why did the Father say He would not leave us as orphans? God was saying I was an orphan. No way! Orphans lived in orphanages, and so my historical lie was about to get pounded into reality by God’s Word.

It All Started in Heaven

Read Isaiah 14:12-19… from Bible

¹³ “But you said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, And I will sit on the mount of assembly In the recesses of the north. ¹⁴ ‘I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’ ¹⁵ “Nevertheless you will be thrust down to Sheol, To the recesses of the pit.

Here Lucifer is thrown out of heaven after iniquity was found in his heart. From being in the presence of the Father and His love, to being cast out from His presence and away from His love for eternity. Lucifer loses his identity. He undergoes a name change, and to make matters worse, he has no inheritance. Lucifer becomes an orphan. An orphan in his ways, his thinking, and his speech. His whole attitude is that of an orphan. He knows he cannot get at the Father directly, but he also knows that he can get at the Father through His children, the man and the woman.

The prophet Ezekiel, when prophesying to the King of Tyre references Lucifer’s demise. In Ezekiel 28:125-17 we read…

¹⁵ “You were blameless in your ways From the day you were created, Until unrighteousness was found in you. ¹⁶ “By the abundance of your trade You were internally filled with violence, And you sinned; Therefore I have cast you as profane From the mountain of God. And I have destroyed you, O covering cherub, From the midst of the stones of fire. ¹⁷ “Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; You corrupted your wisdom by reason of your splendor. I cast you to the ground; I put you before kings, That they may see you.” (Emphasis added.)

God placed Lucifer in his position in heaven and removed him from it because of sin, and that brings us to Adam and Eve. Lucifer was in the presence of the Father. He was there from the beginning, sinless, until iniquity was found in his heart. When sin was discovered, God the Father cast Lucifer out of His presence. I believe that Satan is the absolute essence of the orphan spirit and he is the very first fatherless one. When the Jesus says, “I will not leave you as orphans,” He is speaking about the degree to which one can live in the state of an orphan—this degree of the orphan heart is in all humanity. It is this that Father is coming to bring home. He’s coming to bring our hearts home to His love. He will not leave us the same way He left Adam and Eve.

Adam was fashioned by the Father’s very hands from the dust of the ground. Father breathed into His son’s nostrils and Adam comes to life in the presence of His Father.

Genesis 3 (the whole chapter) gives us the events of another who sinned.

A crafty serpent who said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?” 4 The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will NOT die! 5 “For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.

“Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” 12 The man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate.” 23 therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. 24 So He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life.” (NASB) (Emphasis added.)

The Trap Is Set

Adam, like Lucifer (before his demise in heaven), enjoyed the love of his Father in a sinless state. All Adam knew was the intimacy of relationship and the Father wanted him to enjoy that same relationship with Eve. Here we have in the garden, two of God’s own children in a love relationship with their Father. Father had given His son instructions as to what he could touch and what he could eat. He knew God’s instructions to him.

Genesis 2:16-17 tells us those instructions concerning the ‘yes’ and the ‘no’ factor. The LORD God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; ¹⁷ but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”  (Emphasis added.)

Satan now has his target set in his sights; Father’s children. And so he sets in motion his plan to have Adam and Eve fatherless and orphans like himself. We know that Adam and Eve sinned. They fell into Satan’s trap. I know what a trap is. I used to set booby traps for the VC in Viet Nam, and when I served as a Police Bomb Squad Commander I studied terrorist Improvised Explosive Devices (IED). The hallmark of a successful IED was to make it look totally harmless and inviting. I won’t go into specifics, just take my word for it. The terrorist or criminal takes care to make his device look attractive and harmless to its intended victim(s); disguising it normally in a clever external mask. It never looks dangerous. It looks like it is going to fill that simple desire that you have; curiosity.

Satan set a clever trap for Adam and Eve. I’m sure when they fell into that trap they didn’t think they were doing anything wrong. But the consequences were drastic for them both. You see the trap is there just to fulfil your desire. You put your hand in to take something that looks nice and harmless and BANG – your life is changed forever, or lost. In Vietnam the consequence was that you lost your life. I’m sure God’s children didn’t understand the consequences of what was going to happen to them for falling into the trap of the enemy.

Two mates that I served with in Viet Nam lost their life while trying to disarm a booby trap that had been set by the VC to kill Australian troops. The enemy is always about laying traps for Christians. Sadly, like Adam and Eve, many Christians fall for what looks innocent and harmless only to find they suffer the consequences of being baited into losing their spiritual life.

Adam and Eve eat from the tree they were forbidden by God to eat from. God then has to be true to His word to Adam. They now discover the meaning of the word “consequence.” Father, in an act of incredible love knows that the only way he can stop them from living an eternal life of spiraling down into utter degradation is to expel them from His presence. Genesis 3:23-24 gives us the picture clearly, “23 therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. 24 So He  drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way  to the tree of life.” (Emphasis added.)

Father knows that if they eat from the Tree of Life that their eternal pain and suffering is set in concrete. His only alternative is to send them out of the Garden, out of His presence. For them they would become fatherless, without identity and without an inheritance. Can you imagine the emotions that must have been flowing in them and in Father? As they are “DRIVEN” out (suggesting that they really didn’t want to go), they suddenly experience what it is to be an orphan. They are faced with toil and hard work; by the sweat of their brow they now have to notch out an existence in a landscape that is devoid of anything that were used to in the garden. Utter desolation now faces them. Put yourself in their shoes for a moment. You have only ever known pure love, tenderness and loving affection from your Father. You have never experienced a negative thought, word or act. For you, you live in a perfect paradise. You are tasked with populating the earth and spreading the Garden over the face of it, all the while living in Father’s presence, knowing His perfect love and being totally comfortable in His presence.

Then one day you encounter a talking serpent who invites you to do the one thing you were forbidden to do by your Father. Your Father’s authority is challenged, and for a mere moment you listen to your harmless looking adversary. As soon as your hand enters the trap your soul changes, and in a moment of time your whole world cascades from good to bad.

Not only that, your Father now banishes you from His presence, from that place of perfect love and acceptance. You will never ever experience His embrace or comforting words of affirmation ever again. Shame and guilt overtake you and your head arrives on your chest, sunken and now in a place of hopelessness, rejected by the One who loves you with a love that is without prejudice. To make matters worse your Father has to drive you away from His presence. He stations angels to make sure you can’t eat from the tree of Life. To make doubly sure, Father stations a flaming sword that covers every entrance or pathway to the  Tree.

Now lonely and afraid, fear of the future begins to overwhelm you. Your mind races trying to determine what you did wrong. Why was Father so harsh with you? You look across to your wife and you blame her for your predicament. She can’t lift her head to acknowledge your presence; she too is gripped by shame and guilt. One moment you both are in a perfect love relationship, and the next moment you are downcast, probably at odds with each other. For the first time in your life you experience the negative thoughts attached to your shame and guilt. Your world, your very existence is destroyed just because you were baited and fell for the trap of Satan, designed to bring you down to his level; fatherless and an orphan. He succeeds in his quest to get back at God the Father, and his trophy is that you are driven away from Father’s presence and out of the Garden.

As you turn and look back at the Garden, you see your Father, but you are now in darkness, unable to see clearly. Father is looking at you, His two children walking away, afraid, uncertain; going to die. What emotions must have the Father experienced? He loved them. He walked and talked with them. He breathed life into Adam’s nostrils with a life-giving kiss. He fashioned Eve out of one of his ribs, and now He watches as they enter a life of hardship and unknowns for giving into temptation. Father knows that they are orphans and that through Adam all mankind will become orphans. Orphans because our identity is not wrapped in what we do, or what reputation we have built for ourselves. Nor is our identity wrapped in what we have amassed in the way of assets or financial wealth. Our identity is in this one truth: we are sons and daughters of Father. He was Father when He created the universe. He was Father when He created Adam, and He is Father now and for eternity. He is Father! That’s why He says in John 14:18 “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” Father only has sons and daughters, he doesn’t have grandchildren. He won’t leave us in the state of being an orphan without a Father’s name, an identity or an inheritance. If that doesn’t encourage you then nothing will.

Each one of us, Christian or otherwise is an orphan, with orphan ways, orphan thinking and orphan speech. We all need a homecoming, to come back to Father’s house and live where He lives. Jesus says, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and make Our abode with him. (John 14:23 NASB) (Emphasis added.)

You see for me personally, I suddenly had a desperation to be God’s son and for Him to be my Father. I realised that parenting is learnt from parents. I can’t be a father until I become His son and learn fathering from the Father. Who taught me fathering? My mother did. It was a role she was never created for. My earthly father abdicated his parenting responsibilities elsewhere, raising six other children in a de facto relationship, never having been divorced from my mother. Those siblings are just as much an orphan as I was. Their birth certificates read, “Father unknown! Father may be known as…” As far as the world system of things is concerned, they are fatherless, orphans without a true name, without a true inheritance and without a true father. BUT, God is their real Father. The Father they have never known. He is the only one who can give them a true identity, a true name and a true inheritance that will all last for eternity.

I am an orphan no more, I am a child of God.

I know whose I am, what my name is, what my identity is and what my real inheritance is.

You know I never knew a father, and now Father uses me to tell others of His loving heart. When I was wounded in Viet Nam, it was the most lonely time of my life. There was no one that I knew around me to comfort me or reassure me. There were no visitors. Recovery was on your own at an R&C Centre in Vung Tau. Now I know this, having experienced His loving arms around me, He, Father wants to hug you, embrace you as His child and manifest His real love to you. Many of you have never had a father tell you how proud he was of you. You may never think that there is anything to be proud of, but your Father finds many things to be proud of concerning you. He wants to tell you how proud He is of you. He is NOT ASHAMED to be your FATHER!

It seems that for women, the little girl needed to be told how beautiful they were by their Dad. Father says to each of you, “You are beautiful and My own peculiar treasure. You are special to Me and I love you.”

Again Father says, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” Predictably the Old Testament’s last two verses give us a wonderful promise for the day and the hour we live in: “5 Behold, I am going to send you Elijah he prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the LORD. 6 He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse.” (Malachi 4:5-6)

The cross of Christ put an end to our fallen state. God has made the way back into the Garden marked clearly with the sign-post of redemption. Father used the blood of His Son to buy us back. How much did it cost Father? The life of His own Son, Jesus. Love is not one of God’s attributes, it is His very nature, it is what makes Him Father—HE IS LOVE!

“I WILL NOT LEAVE YOU AS ORPHANS; I WILL COME TO YOU.”