The Way of the World

(This is chapter 4 of the book The Way of Sonship: Anointed to Overcome)

Paul says in Ephesians 2:1-3 (KJV) “Also you—being dead in the trespasses and the sins, in which once ye did walk according to the age of this world, according to the ruler of the authority of the air, of the spirit [life’s breath] that is now working in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all did walk once in the desires of our flesh, doing the wishes of the flesh and of the thoughts, and were by nature children of wrath—as also the others”. When Adam chose to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he grasped equality with God, within his own psyche or heart making himself like the Most High. In English, the word suffocate is from the Latin “suffocare” which meant to choke or deprive of air. The breath or Holy Spirit of God’s fatherhood was choked out of him. This was the foundation of the world; this was the Fall. Everyone who was ever born or ever will be born, apart from Jesus, was in the body of Adam when he sinned and became “as god”. Paul in his letters describes the result of the Fall as “the flesh”. Within ancient Hebrew culture, the flesh would be a life that is lived completely devoid of the grace, blessing, or anointing of God. The families of the earth or ground that God promised to bless with the blessing of Abraham in Genesis 12:3 was in Hebrew the “adamah”, the corporate body of the sons of Adam or men.

The first murder was committed by Cain, Adam’s firstborn son whose ego was his own first-love, in effect the first son or inhabitant of Babylon. Cain was a tiller of the “adamah” or ground that had become cursed because of sin. By the sweat of his brow, Cain worked the ground of his “earthy” personality to bring God an admirable offering. In the pride of his heart and in the realm of his own life, he considered himself to be “as god”. Cain imagined that his offering, the work of his own hands, was admirable and worthy of praise. The word respect comes from the Latin “respecere” which means “to look again”. When God saw Cain’s offering and the pride of his heart, God did not respect, or look again at what Cain had offered. God could see that Cain drew his sense of identity, significance, value or worth from the “sweaty” work of his hands rather than from the unmerited grace and love of God. God gave Cain the opportunity to humble himself and repent in order to receive God’s blessing. However, Cain refused and instead remained incensed by the curse of rage. God warned Cain that the curse of sin was crouching at the door of his heart waiting to pounce. Cain ignored God’s warning. He passed “I am as god” judgement upon his brother Abel by murdering him. Cain was the firstborn son, or first fruit, born upon planet Earth. Cain never repented from what he had done. Instead, he left the presence of the Lord and his heart departed into the land of restless wandering where the fire of his incensed rage at being disrespected was never quenched, and the worms of his thoughts of revenge never died. His behaviour in life will one day become his inheritance in resurrection. Paul said in Romans 11:16 that if the first fruit is holy, so are the branches. Within ancient Hebrew culture, the first fruit was the foretaste of the totality of the whole. Everyone that is naturally conceived shares the same “unholy” nature as the self-admirable “I am as god” Cain although it is usually hidden. Indeed, Abel, the brother of Cain, shared in the same life’s blood that came from Adam. The blood of the murdered Abel cried out to God for vengeance. It was the pride of this very same self-admiring fallen human nature that crucified Jesus, but the blood of Jesus speaks better things than the blood of Abel: love, mercy, and forgiveness for those who crucified him.

Those who live like Cain, those who reject the blessing of God and follow the ways of this world are called the sons of Belial. In Hebrew, the word “Belial” means someone who is idle, unproductive, lazy, rebellious, un-correctable, unbelieving, empty, worthless or destructive. The sons of Belial are enslaved to the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life that comes from eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. These three things bring great conflict within the breathings of their personality (or soul). By far the most powerful is the pride of life, but like a tightrope walker on a high wire, the balancing act is to satisfy the lust of the eyes and the cravings of the flesh without falling from the perch of puffed-up performance orientated conceit by being exposed as the play-acting hypocrites that by nature they really are. Their noses can become so stuck up that they become completely blind to everything except themselves. They are somebody important or special, they are admirable, no-one or nothing is more worthy. Their self-saving “I am as god” heart attitude is, “if I cannot do it, it cannot be done and if I cannot win it, it cannot be won, if I do not deserve it I cannot receive it”. In their unbelieving and self-suffocated heart, they do not know what true love actually is, they confuse love with admiration, acceptance, praise or being worshipped by others. As such, in many circumstances of life, their “I am my own saviour” heart attitude is, “what do I have to do to make them love me”.

The sons of Belial are subject or enslaved to the environment in which they live. When things are a comfy bed of roses, they shake their heads in disgust at the evils that they see around them, thinking in the pride of their “I am as god” hearts that they far better than that. However, in a hostile climate it is difficult for them to maintain the pretence that they are superior. In times of hunger when others have plenty and offer to share their food with them, they would rather starve than be seen as beggars. In times of sickness, they hide away or disguise their pain, being unable to be seen weak or inferior in any way. In times when they are mistreated or wronged, they keep their emotions or feelings of weakness to themselves, locking away who they really are in a pride-poisoned prison. The real person that God loves and created them to be lives in the isolated darkness of solitary confinement and never sees the light of day. In the presence of those who are greater hypocrites than they are, they would rather prostitute themselves on the casting couch of play-acting superiority and mutual appreciation, towing the praise-me party line in order to avoid the risk of their pride being disrobed and dishonoured, condemned as inferior or worthless in their dungeons of disgrace. In times of brokenness, betrayal, abuse, beatings and violation, their pride takes false responsibility, blaming themselves for the dreadful wrongs that were done to them. They feel that they deserve such mistreatment, hating themselves in an attempt to find a peace that they can never find within themselves. They live in isolation and loneliness in the hope that no one will ever discover the appalling shame that they wrongly believed that they caused when in this particular case it really was not their fault at all. Their pride forces them into presenting an outward image of superiority and success but in fact they are restless wanderers upon the earth. As they continue to follow the ways of this world, the spirit or breath of the prince of the power of the air is at work within their personalities. Their enslaved “I am as god” hearts increasingly rage with an inferno of cravings, lusts and pride because that is what the devil is like. Outwardly they attempt to present themselves worthy and acceptable, but in their dreadfully unhappy hearts, their worms do not die, and their fire is not quenched. They are depraved and continue to unwittingly establish as true the devil’s lies and in themselves, they can never be free.

Paul describes this kind of behaviour as the works of the flesh. The flesh is the absence of the grace, blessing, anointing, life’s breath or Holy Spirit of God’s fatherhood, and the presence of a different breath or spirit that emanates from words of lying breath spoken by the father of lies. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 3:3 “for yet ye are fleshly, for where there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not fleshly, and in the manner of men do walk”. In Galatians 5:19-21 (KJV) he says “Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envying, murders, drunkenness, reveling, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God”. Those that live like that are subject to a different life’s breath or spirit. They are following the ways of this world by doing the word or works of the breath of the prince of the power of the air. Behaviour in life will become inheritance in resurrection. People who live like that cannot inherit the kingdom of God because their pride-poisoned hearts are already filled with the lying breaths of the father of lies. These are the sons of disobedience, and one day they will be called by God to account for the way in which their diabolical partnership with the father of lies inspired them to behave.

Although the fallen human heart was blinded to God and also to the devil, it became like a seed bed into which God’s blessing or the devil’s curse could be sown. Even though they do not know or acknowledge Him, in His great love, God sows his kindness, blessing and love into people’s hearts. God only sows good seed, but people can choose what kind of seed to sow. They can choose to sow blessing by being loving, kind, merciful, and they reap what they sow. People can choose to sow bad things by hating and taking advantage of others in many different ways, and they will reap what they sow. It is a divine law. People can be inspired by the blessing of God to sow to the Spirit the good things that God gives even though many are blind to Him, or they can agree with the devil and be inspired by the devil’s curse to sow the bad seed of moral infidelity and unfaithfulness to God. In Acts 28, the Apostle Paul was shipwrecked off the Island of Malta. The people there showed extraordinary kindness to Paul and his companions. Such kindness was a result of God’s blessing even though they did not know it at the time. It says in Genesis 6:5-6 “And Yehovah saw that abundant is the wickedness of man in the earth, and every imagination of the thoughts of his heart only evil all the day; and Yehovah repented that He had made man in the earth, and He grieved Himself—unto His heart”. This happened because the descendants of Cain consistently and wholeheartedly rejected the blessing of God and instead, in order to satisfy their lusts, embraced the curse of the devil. This cursed behaviour unwittingly invited the lying words or evil breath’s or spirits of Satan’s curse into their hearts. Noah found grace and favour in the eyes of Yehovah God; he walked humbly with his God and had allowed the blessing of God to turn him from his naturally wicked ways. It is people’s bad behaviour that grieves the heart of God and makes him angry, the bad behaviour that comes from arrogantly rejecting His blessing by choosing to do that which is morally wrong. What people sow in life, these are the things that people will reap. Jesus is absolutely clear, sowing “behaviour” in life will become inheritance in resurrection. He will reward everyone according to how they lived their lives. Jesus’ reward will be based upon whether or not they chose to live in blessing by being a blessing or chose to embrace curse by becoming a curse (see Revelation 22:12). Jesus said in Luke 17 that at the time of Noah the people were eating and drinking, marrying and being given in marriage as Noah entered the ark of God’s blessing. Then God judged their wicked behaviour; the flood came and destroyed them all.

Whilst wicked behaviour is the natural state of the human heart, because of the love and blessing of God this is not the experience of most people most of the time. Humanity was originally created to have a relationship with God, but because of the Fall, this relationship was lost and replaced with a relationship with that which is good or evil. Just as God sent a fair wind to pass over the earth to cause the waters of God’s judgement to recede (see Genesis 8:1), in order to prevent the whole world from falling even further into the clutches of darkness, God brings his grace, or unmerited blessing to those who seek a relationship with what is good. Most people are inspired in some way by the breath or Holy Spirit of God not to behave like the sons of disobedience. God gives the grace of his goodness to the humble but opposes the proud. It is those with arrogant hearts who willfully choose to do wrong and have their consciences seared as with a hot iron that grieves the Holy Spirit and prevents God from working within them to accomplish His good purposes. God withdraws His blessing from those who repeatedly grieve His kind and loving heart, and when this happens people have to face the natural consequences or curse that breaking the divine commandments of God inevitably brings. If this continues to happen after many loving rebukes, people will inevitably face their ultimate and eternal doom. That is why God said in Jeremiah 17:10 “I Yehovah do search the heart, try the reins, even to give to each according to his way, according to the fruit of his doings”. On the Day of Final Judgement, God will render or give back to people the fully ripe and harvested fruit of what they sowed into their lives and the lives of others as they lived in the “way” that they chose. This will become their own eternal inheritance, whether good or bad, blessing or curse. Behaviour in life will become inheritance in resurrection.

It says in Genesis 4 that Cain departed from the presence or “seeing the face” of Yehovah into the land of Nod or restless wandering. There are many who, like Cain, depart from God’s presence, continually reject the blessing of God, and prefer the curse of the devil. It says in Genesis 18:17-21 “And the LORD said, Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do; Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do justice and judgment; that the LORD may bring upon Abraham that which he has spoken of him”. The towns of Sodom and Gomorrah had grieved the heart of God. They had rejected the blessing of God and had consistently and purposefully seared their corporate conscience as with a hot iron by repeatedly committing grievous sins and continually doing what was morally wrong. The “outcry” against these cities was so great that God himself came down personally from heaven to “check it out”. The men of Sodom attempted to rape the angels of God who went to stay with Lot, Abraham’s nephew (see Genesis 19:5). Sodom and Gomorrah were completely destroyed by the fires of God’s judgement. This is a foreshadowing of the lake of fire or second death that has been prepared for the devil and his angels. Jesus said in Revelation 21:7-8 (KJV) “He that overcomes shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone: which is the second death”. Within ancient Hebrew culture, someone’s name was based upon their character, behaviour and life’s breath that came from their father. Cain murdered his brother out of jealousy and hatred. In His great love, God offered to protect Cain in the hope that Cain would one day repent. The last descendant or “son” of Cain was called Lamech who took the blessing of God’s protection for granted. He said to his wives in effect “Hear my voice wives of Lamech; I slaughtered a man who hurt me, I killed a young man would wounded me, if God avenges Cain sevenfold, truly He will avenge Lamech seventy sevenfold” (see Genesis 4:23-24). Lamech and all of the other descendants of Cain were destroyed in the flood.

Those who wholeheartedly partner with the father of lies, those who have become “hells angels” or messengers of Satan and have so rejecting the blessing of God that there is absolutely no difference between their behaviour and the behaviour of the devil himself, they bear his “name”. Just as the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah caused an “outcry” of grief and misery that reached the ears of God, the “outcry” that these people caused in life will be harvested from those they oppressed. God will then return it back to the perpetrators of the “outcry”; the grief, pain and misery will be poured into their hearts, full measure, pressed down and running over. Jesus will blot their names out of the book of life and the inheritance of these “sons of the devil” will therefore be in the lake of fire, the second death. There will be absolutely no mitigating circumstances or excuses, these are those who did evil for evil’s sake and wholeheartedly pleasured themselves doing that which was wrong. Having partnered in the devil’s pleasures in life it is only right they join the devil and father of their rebellion in his punishment, and they will only have themselves to blame. For those who consistently reject the mercy, forgiveness, and the grace of God, this is the natural way of the world.

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