These questions can help facilitate a deeper understanding and discussion of the key themes and messages from the episode.
David [00:00:02]:
As I said last week, a couple weeks ago, I was praying and asking God what he wanted me to share with you. He said, let my people know they are blessed, the blessing is theirs. They have been blessed. They are blessed and they ever will be blessed. You know, our father, God, is a God of blessing. His blessing flows from his love for us, his children. You don’t have to earn it. You don’t have to deserve it.
David [00:00:36]:
You simply have to believe it and receive it. Say this with me. Today I am blessed. Blessing is mine here and now. And that is true. Blessing is yours here and now. Today. You don’t have to wait till you get to heaven and step into eternity to experience God’s blessing.
David [00:01:05]:
However, the enemy does come against us to keep us from walking in the fullness of God’s blessing. Many times, as John said, and as Jesus said in John 1010, the thief only comes in order to steal, to kill and to destroy. The enemy wants to steal from you. He wants to kill your dreams and hopes and aspirations. He wants to destroy you spiritually, mentally, physically, in every dimension of your life. But Jesus said in this verse, I came, that they may have life and enjoy life and have it in abundance to the fullest till it overflows. That’s from the amplified translation. The heart of the Father is he wants us to have a full, overflowing, blessed life.
David [00:02:09]:
And that’s why Jesus came. We saw last week that the word blessing means prospered by God. And that word prosper means to advance, to make progress, to succeed, to be profitable. God has empowered us to advance, to make progress, to succeed and to be profitable in all that we set our hands to. When God blessed Adam and Eve, he empowered them to do this. He empowered them to advance, to make progress, succeed and be profitable as they were going forth. To be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth, to subdue it, to have dominion for every area of life, every dimension in their life. And this is true for us a lot of times when we hear that word prosper, we think it’s all about money, all about finances, but it’s not.
David [00:03:12]:
That’s just one small part of it. God, when he comes to prosper us, he comes to bless every dimension of our life, spirit, soul, body, financially, socially, relationally, personally, professionally, family, all of our relationships. God wants this for us in every dimension of our lives. And so we come today to drill down further into this. Because by doing this, by advancing, making progress, succeeding and being profitable. In doing this, we are being fruitful and multiplying. We’re filling the earth. We are subduing the earth, using all of its vast resources for the service of God and Mandev.
David [00:04:09]:
And we’re having dominion. By doing this, we’re stepping into our realm of responsibility, our place of authority, power and influence. We’re being all God created us to be. One of the key things which was a part of the blessing was the power to be. We saw this last week and talked about it in Genesis 128 declares, and God blessed them and said be. And we stopped right there and discovered what that word be means. It means to exist as to live, to have life. It is the character and quality and capacity within one to exist as who they were created, to exist as to be all they were created to be.
David [00:05:04]:
Your being flows from within you, out of your core existence. This is also known as your spirit. When God blessed them, he placed within them the capacity to be fruitful, to multiply, to fill the earth, to subdue it, have dominion. He empowered them to advance, to make progress, to succeed and profit in all of these areas. The blessing, as we said last week, the blessing is the power to go. Be. The power to go exists as the power to live, to have life. We also saw that this blessing wasn’t just for Adam and Eve.
David [00:05:59]:
This blessing spoken over Adam and Eve was and is a mandate for all humanity for every generation. It is still active and operative within mankind today. We are still to be fruitful at multiply and fill the earth, subdue it and have dominion. We are still to advance, to make progress, succeed and profit. And we see this confirmed again in Genesis as we look into chapter nine. And that’s where we’re going to focus today. Genesis, chapter nine. The flood is coming, gone.
David [00:06:39]:
Noah has honored the Lord and did all he said. They have released the animals from the ark and he and his family have come forth from the ark also. And Genesis nine one, and this is from the amplified, says this. And God pronounced a blessing upon Noah and his sons and said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. Have you heard that before? The very same thing he spoke over Adam and Eve when he blessed them. He is speaking the same blessing over Noah and his sons, their family. Then he repeats it again in verse seven. He just doesn’t say it once, he repeats it again.
David [00:07:30]:
Genesis nine, verse seven, says this and you be fruitful and multiply. Bring forth abundantly on the earth and multiply on it. The Lord was affirming to Noah and his family their power to be. Their power to be fruitful. To multiply, to fill the earth, their power to advance, make progress, to succeed, and be profitable. Today let’s drill down into the meaning of each of these expressions of blessing. We touched on this a little last week, but today I want to drill down further into it. Be fruitful.
David [00:08:20]:
There are five key definitions here that define what it means here in the Hebrew, to be fruitful. Number one, to be fruitful is to grow, to increase, to bring forth, to cause something to be. And this is taken literally or figuratively. And so God wants us to be fruitful. He wants us to grow, he wants us to increase, he wants us to bring forth, he wants us to cause, to be. And we have that power within us to be fruitful. The second characteristic of being fruitful is the quality of producing fruit in abundance, its productiveness, its fertility, as the fruitfulness of the land. And so God is saying to us, bring forth fruit in abundance.
David [00:09:22]:
Now he’s speaking this about our ability to bear children. We’re going to see that again here in a moment, but our ability to bear children. But he’s also speaking of fruit that comes from the trees. Part of what Adam and Eve was assigned to do was tend the garden, to bring forth fruit from the trees in the garden, and to do it in abundance, be productive with this. We all have the capacity within us to be productive, to cause things to come, to be in the areas that God has called us to work in, and where our realm of responsibility is. And then being fruitful, it’s a quality of fertility. So the land around us is fertile, and we can nurture that land. We plant seed in it, we nurture it, we water it, we fertilize it, and boom, a harvest comes forth.
David [00:10:24]:
We can do that same thing in our families as we produce children, and children are birthed to us, and grandchildren and great grandchildren, and on and on and on, generations go. We have the capacity to be fruitful. The third characteristic here is the quality of being prolific. We can be prolific at this, producing many young. And so here we are again, many, many, many young. And I was thinking about this the other day, and I started counting this up, and, and my mom is, she’s 87 years old, 88, and, but she’s seen five generations come forth in our family. And I, a couple of our, her great grandchildren are at a place to where they could get married and have their own kids. So she very well could see in the next few years her great great grandchildren.
David [00:11:31]:
Now, if you go back and you count her mom and dad, she will have seen six generations. And then if you count all, all of our, her brothers and sisters, the aunts and uncles, the cousins and nephews and nieces, if you count everybody in our family, we’ve grown from just a couple people to close to 100 people right now, if not more. And that’s the ones I can remember and count. So we’ve been prolific. We’ve been fruitful, we’ve multiplied. We produced many young. But this also can be spoken of figuratively. And what we do as we minister to others, as we train those around us, as we disciple those around us, we can be just as prolific.
David [00:12:29]:
We can produce many young in Christ. That’s a part of what the, the ministry of reconciliation is all about, is going out and introducing people to Jesus Christ and having them come into relationship with him. So that’s another way we can be fruitful and produce many young. The fourth quality here, or the fourth characteristic, is the quality of productiveness of the intellect. It is the fruitfulness of your brain. Now, I don’t know if you’ve heard this, but research shows that our brain has the capacity to learn something new every second of every day, 24/7 for 300 years, you haven’t even scratched the surface on what your brain can learn and remember and contain. 300 years, they say, by what they can measure. Today, the only reason we stop learning and growing is we choose to stop.
David [00:13:44]:
We choose to stop learning and growing. So we have the capacity within us to be productive mentally, in our soul, our mind, will and emotions, and to be fruitful there and keep learning and growing every day of our life. Then the fifth characteristic of fruitfulness is this. It’s exuberant abundance. And exuberance means pouring forth abundance. It’s producing plenty. It’s the overflow of abundance. And so it’s just flowing over and over and over.
David [00:14:26]:
God has given us that capacity to be blessed and walk in abundance and overflow in abundance. You say, well, why are we not doing that more? Because what I said before, I’ll say it again sometime today, we simply haven’t believed it and received it and walked in it. It’s simply walking in faith, knowing and expecting that God wants to bring abundance from you in some way. He’s designed you for that. Hallelujah. We are a fruitful people. We were created to be fruitful. All right, so this speaks to four key areas of focus that I’ve identified here.
David [00:15:19]:
And so we’re fruitful in bringing forth children, number one. Number two, we’re fruitful in learning and growing, personally. Number three, we’re fruitful in being productive. Number four, we’re fruitful in increasing and being abundant, exuberant abundance. And so those four qualities God has spoken into us and put within us, and we can learn to walk in that and express it as we go forth in the earth and engage with those around us, we are fruitful. Say that I am fruitful. I am fruitful. Hallelujah.
David [00:16:03]:
Glory to God. Glory to God. I am productive. I produce much more and more and more. Hallelujah. That’s what God wants for you. The second thing here, God said it to Adam Eve, then he said it to Noah and his sons. And this is for all of us.
David [00:16:23]:
This mandate is still active and operative today. Be fruitful and multiply. This word multiply here in the Hebrew means to increase. And whatever respect you have, the capacity, the power, the potential within you to increase in every area of your life, whatever respect, name it, you can increase in it. It means to bring in abundance. And so when we multiply something, we come in abundance. My family has grown abundantly and is continuing to grow. Hallelujah.
David [00:17:02]:
And it will continue to grow through the generations. Praise God. That’s another thing that multiply means. It means to enlarge, to get bigger. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. We’re going to see this later. Ever since the beginning of time, we have gotten bigger.
David [00:17:21]:
Mankind has grown and gotten bigger. It means to excel in our fruitfulness. Hallelujah. We’re going to excel in it. We’re going to be more and more and more and more. It means exceedingly. Multiply means exceedingly. It means to make great, to become many, to grow and increase in number, to extend, to expand, to make more by production.
David [00:17:52]:
So the more productive we are, the more we are fruitful, the more we multiply. And it’s kind of what we see in seed time and harvest. And I remember my uncle, they would go out, he had a huge farm. They’d go out and plant corn. And so that one little seed goes in the ground. Up comes a corn stalk, and on that corn stalk would be two or three ears of corn, and each one of those ears of corn would have close to 100, if not more, kernels of corn on each one. Wow. Wow.
David [00:18:31]:
One corn stalk more than 100 fold return right there. And so we can be more productive and increase and multiply, just like seeds do seeds multiply. And so the other thing it means, it means to increase, to enlarge, to extend and expand our fruitfulness. And so we want to be multipliers in everything we do, we want to multiply. We want to be more. God called us to be fruitful and multiply. Hallelujah. Thank you, Lord.
David [00:19:12]:
Thank you, Jesus. We have to remember this. God is a God of increase. You agree with that? I’m sure you do. And we are made in his image and likeness. So he has placed within us the capacity to increase our life, to be fruitful and multiply. You know, since being born, I have multiplied my understanding, my skill in communication, my skill in numerous things, music and all kind of different things. And I’m continuing to grow and learn.
David [00:19:55]:
And so I’m taking this to heart. The Lord said I could learn something every second of every day, 24/7 for 300 years, for all the days of my life, I’m going to continue to learn and grow and be better. And as I said last week, this covers every dimension of our lives. The Lord expressed this to Adam and Eve. He expressed it to Noah and his family as we’re seeing and his heart as we see. As he’s talking to Noah, his heart is still for all of us to go forth, be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue it, take dominion. It’s still the same mandate as it was with Adam and Eve. Now the Lord is talking to Israel in deuteronomy 28.
David [00:20:58]:
And he’s talking about all these blessings. And so Deuteronomy 28, two six says this, and all these blessings shall come on you and overtake you if you shall hearken unto the voice of the Lord your God. Blessed shall you be in the city, blessed shall you be in the field. Blessed shall be the fruit of your body, the fruit of your ground, the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your kind and the flocks of your sheep. Blessed shall be your basket and your store. Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out. That pretty much covers it all right there. Everything.
David [00:21:47]:
Remember, we said blessed means prospered by God, which means the power to advance, make progress, succeed and be profitable. So in one way, this could read, you will be empowered to advance, make progress, succeed and be profitable in the city, in the field, and the fruit of your body, with all your cattle and creatures coming in and going out, you will be empowered to advance, make progress, succeed and be profitable. All of life is included in this. You are blessed. You have the capacity within you to go be all of this. Go be fruitful, go multiply, go fill the earth. Go subdue the earth and use all of its vast resources for the service of God. And man, go, have dominion and stand in your realm of responsibility and your place of authority and power and influence.
David [00:23:01]:
You are blessed. Now then, the Lord tells Noah and his sons to replenish the earth. And that’s from the King James version. It says replenish. There. A lot of other translations say fill the earth, because the word replenish in the Hebrew means to fill, to be full, fullness, abundance, overflow, populate. Now, I want to mention something here. Every time we look at whether it’s be fruitful, multiply, replenish, fill.
David [00:23:38]:
That word abundance keeps coming up. God is a God of abundance, and he wants his abundance to work in us and through us, with us and for us. Hallelujah. So we’ve seen in our world, in many areas where we filled the earth, we’ve brought fullness and abundance. We’ve seen overflow, we’ve seen it in our population. And so let’s take a look to look at that. In Deuteronomy, the first chapter, Moses is talking to Israel about what God has done for them, how he has blessed them. And in Deuteronomy, chapter one, verses ten and eleven, this is from the amplified again.
David [00:24:22]:
The Lord, your God has multiplied you. And behold, you are this day as the stars of heaven for multitude. May the Lord, the God of your fathers make you a thousand times as many as you are and bless you as he has promised you. Wow. Think about that. Think about this. When Joseph brought his family to Egypt, there were 70 people that came into Egypt. They were there 430 years.
David [00:25:02]:
When they left Egypt and Moses led them out, 3 million people began this journey to the promised land. 3 million. They were fruitful and they multiplied. In fact, that’s one reason one of the pharaohs saw them multiplying, said, if we don’t do something now and put them into servitude, they’re going to outnumber us and they’re going to take over this land. And so that’s why they enslaved them like they did today on planet Earth. They estimate there are 15 to 20 million jews worldwide. They are still multiplying, and they will continue to multiply. You see, God’s original blessing is still working today.
David [00:25:57]:
So let’s look at how mankind in general is done. Let’s just go back 50 years. 1974. This time in 1974, our world population at that time was 3.996 billion people on this planet. 50 years later, as of Monday, July 22, 2024, we are 8.1 billion plus. Wow. So in the last 50 years, we have doubled. And then some we are being fruitful and multiplying.
David [00:26:40]:
This is just one area. This is just in bearing children and bringing others into this world. In this one area we are being fruitful, multiplying and filling the earth. The blessing God spoke over Adam and Eve and then Noah and his family is as much active and operative today as it was then and it ever will be. This is such a huge blessing and thing for us to see. As guides, we are blessed. This is God’s heart for us in bearing children, but also in every other dimension of our lives. Now there is one other aspect of blessing Noah receives that we all need to understand because we all share in it today in some way.
David [00:27:36]:
And to see this, we have to go back to Genesis six to gain some insight here. Genesis six five eight. This is in the new King James version. Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and he was grieved in his heart. So the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
David [00:28:33]:
And that’s Genesis six eight. This is the first time we see grace mentioned in scripture. And that word grace there means favor. It means acceptance, goodwill. The blessing of favor and acceptance came on Noah. So why did Noah find grace in the eyes of the Lord? Genesis six nine tells us this is the genealogy of Noah. Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations. Noah walked with God unlike the rest of the world and all their evilness and all they were doing, Noah chose to walk with God.
David [00:29:32]:
Noah chose to be just, which means to be righteous. In doing so, Noah pleased God. And this brought the blessing of God’s favor and acceptance on him and his family. As a result of this, God promised safety for Noah and his family and all the creatures that would come with him into the ark. Noah continued to walk with God and to do what the Lord commanded him. And we know the end of that story. Noah continued to walk in the blessing of grace, favor and acceptance with the Lord. He built the ark and he came out after the flood and it all dried up and continued to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.
David [00:30:30]:
The blessing of grace was added to the blessing that God had already declared over mankind. And was declaring again over Noah and his children. But along with that came the blessing of grace. God’s favor. God’s favor is a blessing. God’s grace is a gift. In Ephesians the second chapter, Paul tells us that as Christ followers, we have received the same blessing of grace. Ephesians 2810 here in the amplified says, for it is by free grace God’s unmerited favor that you are saved, delivered from judgment, and made partakers of Christ’s salvation through your faith.
David [00:31:26]:
And this salvation is not of yourselves, of your own doing. It came not through your own striving. But it is the gift of God, not because of works, not the fulfillment of the law’s demands, lest any man should boast. It is not the result of what anyone can possibly do. So no one can pride himself in it or take glory to himself. For we are God’s own handiwork, his workmanship recreated in Christ Jesus, born anew, that we may do those good works which God predestined and planned beforehand for us, taking paths which he prepared ahead of time, that we should walk in them, living the good life which he prearranged and made ready for us to live in Christ Jesus. When we received him as our Lord and Savior, we received the blessing of free grace, unmerited favorite we didn’t have to buy it, we didn’t have to earn it. We didn’t have to do anything to deserve it.
David [00:32:48]:
It was unmerited favor that came to us. It is God’s free gift to us because we are among the chosen, the accepted, God’s elect, and we are blessed not only to go forth and be fruitful, but we are blessed with his favor and his acceptance. God loves you. He accepts you. He accepts who you are, and he surrounds you with his favor every day. What a blessing. What a blessing. Because of this blessing, this blessing of grace, this blessing of favor, Ephesians 210 is a reality for us right now.
David [00:33:41]:
We are born anew in Christ. God’s handiwork and workmanship created in Christ. That’s who you are, that we may go do those good works which God planned beforehand for us to do. God has good works for you to do, great works for you to do. He has paths prepared for us that we should walk in them. He’s already made a way. He knows where you need to go and how you need to get there. He wants you to live the good life which he prearranged and made ready for you to live.
David [00:34:19]:
And all of this is ours because of the blessing, grace. His unmerited favor. Ephesians 210 shows us we all have within us the power to be all that God created us to be. The question is, who are you being with the blessing God has given you? It’s a good question to think about. Journal about it, pray about it. Who are you being with the blessing God has given you? God has so much more for you. A part of walking in the fullness of the blessing is believing it and knowing that it is yours receiving it. That’s one reason I know.
David [00:35:13]:
The Lord instructed me to minister on this topic. His blessing. He wants you to know his heart for you. As we see here in his word, there is no question. He has blessed you. He has blessed us all. We are blessed. The writer in psalms, chapter five, verse twelve says it this way.
David [00:35:44]:
He gives us this promise. Psalm 512, new King James version. For you, O Lord, will bless the righteous with favor. You will surround him as with a shield. You are the righteous because you see Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior today. God blesses you and with favor he surrounds you as with a shield. You’ve got a shield of favor all around you, just like Noah found grace, favor and acceptance with the Lord. As you walk with God, God’s favor will surround you like a shield.
David [00:36:34]:
So you can declare today I am blessed and highly favored. In fact, God has blessed you to be a blessing. That’s right. You walk in your blessing and you bless others. In the process, he’s empowered you to encourage and empower others doing the good works which he has planned for you to do. You are blessed. Say that with me. I am blessed.
David [00:37:11]:
Hallelujah. The favor of my lord. God surrounds me like a shield. I am blessed. Hallelujah. Bow your heads in prayer with me. Father, we come and give thanks to you for all that you’ve done for us throughout the centuries. From the beginning of time, you’ve declared your blessing over mankind.
David [00:37:39]:
And then for those of us who choose to walk with you and become one with you, you’ve given us the gift of grace, the gift of your favor, the gift of acceptance. We are a favored people. Hallelujah. Thank you for loving us. Thank you for choosing us. Thank you for blessing us more and more and more and more, we give you praise and glory for it all in Jesus name. Amen. All right, so go have a blessed week and be a blessing wherever you go.
David [00:38:23]:
Sister Conia is coming right now with a closing word in prayer.
