Satan is a copycat, he knows that God garbs His own with Christ (His righteousness); he (Lucifer) does not have Christ so he gives the only thing he has: unrighteousness. Adam and his wife were tele-guided to be arrayed in the fashion of demonic reasoning. It was faulty, so, God intervened with a Christ-like garment because they are useful to Him with whom we all have to do. “And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption” [Ephesians 4:30]. The word ‘grieve’ is lupeō (loo-peh’-o) ‘to distress; reflexively or passively to be sad’. Why and how is it possible for a mere man to grieve the Holy One who can just discard you? HE is stuck with you. God sealed your redemption with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The word ‘seal’ is sphragizō (sfrag-id’-zo): ‘to stamp (with a signet or private mark) for security or preservation (literally or figuratively)’; and the real reason is to set a seal upon, mark with a seal, to seal for security: from Satan (a proof of the fact of the saved being is togaed in the security of soteriology). The Holy Spirit’s grief stems from residing in a redeemed who dons Satan’s toga.

    Toga of Poverty 

The historicity of the earthly sojourn of Jabez made him a teacher of the word of God. His pedagogic disposition notwithstanding, Satan sewed him a most embarrassing coat of pauperism, “And Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, Oh that thou wouldest bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that thine hand might be with me, and that thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me!” (1Chronicles 4:10). Jabez detested parading himself in the ‘evil’ of ignominy. The ‘evil’ in this verse is: ra‛ or ra‛ah (rah) BDB Definition: ‘bad, disagreeable, malignant, unpleasant, evil (giving pain, unhappiness, misery) evil (hurtful) bad, unkind (vicious in disposition), wicked (ethically)’. Strong’s Definition: ‘bad or (as noun) evil (naturally or morally)’. Ra comes from ra‛a‛ (raw-ah’) Strong’s Definition: A primitive root; properly to spoil (literally by breaking to pieces); figuratively to make (or be) good for nothing, that is, bad (physically, socially or morally)’. And this is the chief reason, the objective of the enemy’s insistence on dressing up man: to make you and me a good-for-nothing. But Jabez lifted his voice (this is one thing Lucifer cannot stop you or me from doing) to the God of Israel or Jehovah. The evil he was wrapped in is found in the 9th verse, and in the word, ‘honourable’ which is: kabad or kabed (kaw-bad’): ‘to be heavy, that is, in a bad sense (burdensome, severe, dull) or in a good sense (numerous, rich, honorable); causatively to make weighty (in the same two senses)’. Harassed by the tortuous pangs of the labour room, his mother named him Jabez, meaning: ‘to grieve; sorrowful’. Jabez became a financial heavy weight, because verse ten concludes, “And God granted him that which he requested”, a proof that he had changed his appearance to an abundant role of the dominance of an enlarged sphere of his coast.

God’s clothing is righteous living through the One and only Jesus. The Devil’s wear is unrighteous, leading to hell. Secret societies, each one of them, has its own toga; do you realize that? Every religion will tell you not to forget to don its decreed form of clothing. True Christians will never give you a uniform with which to worship, and the reason is not far-fetched: Christ is our righteous toga! Amen.

God expects you to come to Him (to relieve you of the toga of Satan), like David did in Psalm 51, after he had seen the futility of parading himself in the toga of covetousness by which the second raiment of adultery desecrated him and culminating in the third donning, that of murder.

The poverty stricken widow of 2Kings 4:1-3 tore up her toga of impecuniousness when she approached Elisha, the appropriate person, who in Hebrew is ‘Eliyshuwa` (el-ee-shoo’-ah), which means: ‘God of supplication (or of riches)’. When Satan spread the attire of death on Dorcas, which means: ‘gazelle (a signification of beauty)’, her well-wishing friends brought their protest to God, via Peter, which in Greek is Petros (pet’-ros): ‘a (piece of) rock’ (a type of Christian, the only material God needs to build His own tabernacle)’; and with a replacement with the toga of God, life, more abundantly, welled forth.

Genesis 3:21, “Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them”. God, in delivering them, by extension, has delivered us from the wearing of a despicable raiment. If not for God’s merciful intervention, the entire human race would have been doomed to the toga of annihilation.

Read part 2 here. 

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