Abraham’s Promise

So far, things don’t seem to be going very well, and Lucifer, the devil and father of lies seems to have the upper hand. Adam and Eve had originally been created with hearts baptised into the paradise of the blessing of the eternal life’s breath or Holy Spirit of God’s fatherhood. They had rejected the living word of God and by doing so had inadvertently embraced the curse of Lucifer, the father of lies. Their descendants did the same thing and the whole world had been filled with wickedness, Lucifer’s fool’s paradise. Everyone except Noah and his family and the whole of God’s glorious creation had been annihilated in the flood. After the flood one would have thought that people would have learnt that the promise of God’s blessing in doing what is right is far better than the deceptive promise of Lucifer’s depraved curse in doing what is wrong, but they hadn’t. God had told Noah that his descendants were to disperse and fill the whole Earth. This was because God knew that the sea levels were rising and that eventually, all the land bridges that joined the continents would be covered by the sea. This happened in the days of Peleg. In Hebrew peleg means a land divided by rivers or waters. The people refused to disburse and instead decided to build a city with a tower that reached into the heavens. This tower was for the observation and worship of the sun, moon and stars as demon gods, the formalised idolatrous religion of the state. The tower was called the Tower of Babel, and there, God confused people’s languages so that they had to disburse. As the people migrated into different parts of the world, they formed their own family groups or communities. As they did, they had to leave the more advanced civilisation of Babel behind them. They became more and more primitive; becoming hunter-gatherers rather than farmers and using flint and stone tools rather than tools made out of the metals that they were used to. As they did, they were aware that they were very much at the mercy of their environment. Instead of choosing to follow the true God like Abel by doing what was right, they partnered with the secret power of lawlessness that was at work within their prideful fallen hearts like the marvellous Cain to do what was wrong. They were inspired by the father of lies to imagine that the forces of nature were either in the control of gods or were the gods themselves. In Hebrew the word for gods is a pictograph that meant strong authority or the powers that be. Each community chose its own gods, gods which were demons in disguise, and also warlords, people like Nimrod mentioned in Genesis 10, to fight their battles for them. So called priests, clergy or god-experts emerged that claimed to be able to appease the wrath or curse of these gods and to ensure their blessing for a price. These priests were deceived deceivers who feathered their own nests and were appointed by the warlords to instigate religious ceremonies, incantations, prayers, offerings and sacrifices. They introduced depraved acts of sex and murder into the religion of their own orthodox tradition that deceived the people, satisfied their lusts but also increased the power that the warlords had within the community and Satan’s cursed stranglehold over their hearts and lives. Such cursed stranglehold became an increasingly established part of this religious community. Members of the community were duty bound to participate in the state religion instigated by the warlords and offer the required sacrifices. Such sacrifices often included the blood of babies and children, but the people had no choice. To refuse would be to risk divine displeasure over the whole nation state and so would have been punished most severely by the state-controlled priests. For example, in the nation of Ammon, the people worshipped the god Milcom or Molech. The priests of religion made statues of this sitting god with the body of a man and the head of a bull. Its arms were outstretched over a fire pit. They believed that their god or idol had given the life of the child but in doing so had become weaker. In times of famine or war, it was clear that the god needed to be strengthened, and they did so by sacrificing their children back to the god who had presumably created them. The place of sacrifice was called Tophet in Hebrew which referred to the beating of a drum. The beating of drums was orchestrated by the priests to prevent the parents from hearing the screams of their children going to their deaths in the fire pit in the lap of the gods. Such was the Satan-inspired religion of their state-controlled tradition. It was into this dreadfully cursed but highly religious culture that the promise of God’s redemption finally came to a man called Abraham the Hebrew. Abraham was originally called Abram. In Hebrew, the word Abram means high or exalted father.

Abraham is possibly the most important person in the Old Testament because it was Abraham who was the recipient of God’s promise of eternal redemption for the whole of fallen humanity. He was born in Ur of the Chaldeans about 4,000 years ago and about 250 years after Noah’s flood. It says in Genesis 12:1-4 “Now the Lord had said to Abram, Get you out of your country, and from your kindred, and from your father’s house, unto a land that I will shew you: And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless you, and curse him that curses you: and in you shall all families of the earth be blessed.  So, Abram departed, as the Lord had spoken to him”. In Hebrew the word for bless is a pictograph that means literally a gift brought on bended knee. It means to give the gift of the grace of unmerited or unearned favour. In Hebrew the word for curse means to spit on or show people disrespect. Fathers have both natural and spiritual authority over their sons. Both blessing and in many cases, all manner of evil curses pass down from father to son through the generational seed line. Abraham was sovereignly chosen by God and called out of his own naturally pride-poisoned cursed father’s house and generational seed line into the amazing grace or unmerited favour of being adopted into a Father-Son relationship with God. In Hebrew, those that were called out formed a congregation or assembly, the word meaning literally those that follow the shepherd in obedience. Imagine a little thorn bush called Spikey Hawthorn. Spikey lived in a cursed forest of thorns, his father is Hawthorn as was his father before him. Spikey didn’t like being a thorn bush because, like Cain, anyone who brushed him up the wrong way got pricked by his pride-cursed spikes. He couldn’t help spiking people because he got his naturally cursed thorns from his father and his father before him. Imagine that a great vine spoke to Spikey and said if he believed and therefore obeyed the great vine and left his Hawthorn father and the cursed forest of thorns and went to the vineyard, the great vine would bless him with the unmerited favour of wine and change him from a cursed Hawthorn into a blessed fruitful vine. The great vine would crush in the winepress anyone that pricked Spikey with their thorns, and all the Hawthorns in the forest would be blessed by the great vine with wine because of Spikey’s obedience that came from his faith or trust in the living words of the great vine. This is what God did for Abraham. Adam’s body was in effect Abraham’s house before Abraham was born. Abraham was in the house of Adam’s body when Adam sinned, and Abraham and indeed the whole of humanity except Jesus sinned with Adam. Adam was meant to bear sons in the image of God but because of his sin, he bore sons in the image or likeness of himself, and by default, potentially the devil. Abraham was no exception because he shared in the pride-poisoned nature of Cain, the original son of man. God appeared to Abraham and promised to change that. Abraham was given a conditional promise. He had to obey God by being called out of his father’s house, his people and the land of his birth and go to the land that God, as the Good Shepherd, would show him. If he believed and therefore obeyed, God would reverse the curse of the Fall within his own experience by blessing him with unmerited favour to make his name, character, personality or identity great.

God promised to give Abraham and his seed or sons the blessing of God’s unmerited or unearned favour, and the land of Canaan as their inheritance. In Hebrew, the word Canaan means literally to bend the knee, humiliate or subdue in shame. The Canaanites were demon worshipping inhabitants of the land who were like Cain, living evil and shameful lives. Their sins of cruelty and depraved perverted religious sexuality were reaching the limit as to what the amazing grace of God would tolerate. God promised to give this land of humiliation and shame to Abraham so that God could change the name of the land from shameful humiliation into the land of God’s promise. It says in Genesis 12 that Abraham left as God commanded, but that Lot, his nephew, went with him. God had not spoken to Lot. God had given no promise to Lot. Lot would have been far better off staying with his family. How do we know? Because of the way that Lot behaved. Lot was living under the umbrella or covering of Abraham’s blessing, not his own. In the beginning, Lot was a blessing to Abraham and so God blessed Lot and his flocks because he had promised to bless those who blessed Abraham. God blessed them both so much that the land was not able to support their huge flocks and herds. Unfortunately, the herdsmen of Lot began to quarrel with the herdsmen of Abraham. So, Abraham suggested to Lot that they part company, giving Lot first choice as to where he would go. Unlike Abraham, who was humble hearted and waited for God to speak to him in order to decide what to do, Lot looked up and saw that the plain of Jordan was rich, fertile and well-watered. He greedily grasped the best land for himself; he pitched his tents towards Sodom. In Hebrew the word Sodom is related to the word for scorch or burning. The people of Sodom were partnering with Lucifer, the father of lies, to live cursed lives which were exceptionally evil in the sight of God. Because Lot had not sought the unmerited favour of God’s blessing for himself and because he had departed from living under the umbrella or covering of Abraham’s blessing, he chose to come under the curse of Sodom. Eventually, Lot chose to actually live in the cursed city of Sodom and gave his daughters in marriage to the Sodomites. By doing so, he hoped to have an inheritance within the city of that shameful community. God decided to destroy the cursed city of Sodom as a warning of the vengeance of eternal fire to those who wholeheartedly embrace the devil’s curse of wickedness rather than God’s blessing of righteousness. That is why it says in Jude 7 “Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh [homosexuality], are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire”. Because of Abraham’s intercessory prayers for Sodom, Lot was visited by angels from God who had come to save Lot out of Sodom. Things were so bad in Sodom, that all the men of the city came to Lot’s house in an attempt to rape the angels of God. The angels blinded these men and then saved Lot out of the city and God destroyed Sodom by fire. However, the angels that saved Lot out of Sodom could not save his inheritance. He himself lost his inheritance and ended up with nothing. Such is the religion of church tradition. Despite its ritualised ceremonial celebration of Pentecost, the established church rejects the real blessing or actual grace of Abraham’s saving anointing poured out on the Day of Pentecost; it pitches its tents towards Sodom and that in more ways than one. It says in Isaiah 1:10-12 “Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah. To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? says Yehovah: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats. When ye come to appear before me, who has required this at your hand?” Exactly who was it that required the multitude of sacrifices, offerings, burning of incense, calling of assemblies and the celebration of new moons and sabbaths in Isaiah’s day? Exactly who is it that requires the creeds, dogma, beliefs, sacraments, ceremonies, rituals, incantations, spells, enchantments, commentaries, theologies, vestments, incense, altars, candlesticks, cassocks, rites, liturgies or traditions of the established church today? It isn’t God. Isaiah 1:16-18 explains what Yehovah God requires, and God’s requirements have not changed; “Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; put away the evil of your behaviour from before my eyes; cease to do evil; Learn to do good; seek justice, relieve the oppressed, judge for the fatherless, plead for the widow. Come now, and let us reason together, says Yehovah: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool”. It is the false blessing and deceptive pretence of religion that licences people to pitch their tents towards Sodom, leaving them to fester and wallow in pits of depravity and defeat with false faith in theoretical victory, false beliefs in conceptual righteousness and the false promise of something great when people are dead. Those that believe and behave like that lose their inheritance in God and eventually end up with nothing, just like Lot. That is why it says in Revelation 22:14 “Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. For outside are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loves and makes a lie”. It is the blessing of Abraham, the unmerited blessing or amazing grace of the unearned Pentecostal favour and saving anointing of God that inspires or keeps people well away from the city of Sodom and its wicked worldly ways. Those that humbly live under the umbrella or covering of the saving anointing of Pentecost have the right to the tree of life and are given an eternal inheritance within the City whose foundation and builder is God. This is the City that Abraham was looking for when he left everything to follow God. We will discuss this in more detail later in this book.

In the ancient world there was frequently no such thing as morality outside of the family. Often people groups were wholly enemies or wholly friends. Extended families or clans were seen as friends because they shared common blood, everyone else was a stranger and potentially an enemy. There were times when people saw they could benefit in a relationship with other families or clans. That relationship was made by making a covenant which is a binding agreement, a form of contract. Normally the terms of a covenant would be shared provision and protection; being able to call upon those in covenant for help in times of need. Because of his obedience, God made a blood covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15 and confirmed this covenant in Genesis 17. This covenant was in Abraham’s own blood, but it is a foreshadowing of the precious blood of Jesus who is described many times in scripture as the Son of Abraham. The terms of this covenant were simple. Abraham was already living a life of implicit obedience and faith in the living word of promise that God had spoken into his grace humbled heart. However, God required one more thing; Abraham and all males within his household throughout all generations were to be circumcised. In return, God himself was to be their shield and protection, and very great reward. God also promised to give Abraham and his seed or sons the land of Canaan as their inheritance. God promised to grant them the true salvation of overcoming victory over the demon worshipping inhabitants of the land whose sins had reached the limit as to what the amazing grace of God would tolerate. It says in Deuteronomy 30:6 “And the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou may live”. In Hebrew, the word hear is shema and means literally to see the name. To see someone’s name means to treat them with respect and if appropriate, to obey them. Abraham’s covenant of circumcision was symbolic of a much more significant new covenant circumcision of the heart and ears to enable people to love the Lord their God with all of their hearts and obey him. That is why Yehovah God said regarding Abraham in Genesis 18:19 “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 true Sons of Abraham are those with circumcised hearts and ears who keep the way of the Lord, do justice and show kindness and mercy to those around them. These were the real terms of God’s covenant with Abraham. As such, the real promised land was not so much the land of Canaan (although it was) but a heart redeemed from pride filled with the eternal life’s breath or Holy Spirit of the paradise of God’s fatherhood. In Acts 7 Stephen accused the Chief Priests, Pharisees and Teachers of the law, the church leaders of the day, of being stiff necked and rebellious with uncircumcised hearts and ears. Within ancient Hebrew culture, to hear meant to obey. Those with uncircumcised ears were rebellious and disobedient. It was these religious leaders who conspired to have the innocent Jesus crucified and those same leaders condemned Stephen to death by stoning for blasphemy. These religious leaders had confidence in the physical rite of circumcision in their bodies. They considered themselves to be part of the corporate circumcision of covenant keeping Israel and therefore automatically in covenant with God. But the Apostle Paul said in Philippians 3: 2-3 “Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision. For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh”. We will discuss this in more detail later in this book. 

Within Abraham’s culture to obey God’s command to leave his father’s house would have been an almost impossible thing to do. The Hebrews did not believe in heaven or hell as the ethereal and eternal dwelling places for the righteous or the wicked. For them, eternal life was bearing a son who could inherit this father’s estate, build his father’s house, and bear witness to the name, personality, character and identity of his father in the next generation of sons. Abraham’s immediate father was the idol-worshipping Terah who would have seen Abraham as his hope that Terah would receive an inheritance in the next generation of sons. God was offering to redeem Abraham by adopting Abraham and changing him from a son of Adam or man and changing him into the Son of God. However, God couldn’t do this if Abraham was still the son of Terah and part of his natural father’s house. He had to die to his father, his people, his religion, and the land of his birth to become alive to God. He had to become obedient to God unto death so that God could give him the crown of life. The blessing that God was willing to give Abraham was God Himself, the gift of the Holy Spirit. Abraham was to be the Son, God the Father, and the Pentecostal blessing of the Holy Spirit as God’s gift to Abraham to enable him to be called by the name, the Son of God. For this, Abraham needed a change of fathers, a change of heart, a change of life’s breath or personality, a change of name and therefore a change of destiny. It says in Hebrews 11:8-10 “By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: For he looked for a city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God”. Abraham obeyed God because Abraham believed that God was true, and Abraham’s obedience was necessary for God to keep his covenant promises. Abraham was looking for a city whose builder and foundation was God. The city of God is the corporate Son of God, whose foundation or cornerstone is God Himself in the person of Jesus Christ. We will discuss this later in this book. Abraham was redeemed by receiving the seed of the living word of God within his good and noble circumcised heart and this bore much fruit, the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness and self-control. This is the new covenant Pentecostal fruit of the Holy Spirit of God.

Paul says in Romans 3:3-5 “Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Now to him that works the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that works not, but believes on him that justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness”. What is important to understand is not what people think now, but what those words meant to Abraham within his ancient Hebrew culture. The blind guides of the established religion of hand-me-down church tradition have created a god in their own image. The church establishment has divorced the living word of God from the Holy Spirit that originally spoke those words. Established church traditionalists believe that God justifies them by crediting their pie in the sky spiritual bank account with the righteousness of their culturally Greek jigsaw Jesus. They believe that they are conceptually righteous because believe what they read in culturally Greek religious commentaries. They believe that God must pretend they are conceptually righteous because that is the best that he can do. They teach that because of an intellectual appreciation of the cross of Christ, God imagines evil people are good, nasty people are nice, and obnoxious people are all sweetness and light. They teach that people’s faith and trust in the gospel, creeds, theologies and doctrines of the religion of established church tradition alters God’s perception of reality so that they can be considered conceptually righteous by God and are intellectually saved. In Hebrew, the word for hypocrisy means literally a fenced mouth, to hide what is really being said. Conceptual righteousness is the bloodless religion of Cain and the leaven of hypocrisy taught by the father of lies; that the people who believe the creeds or sacraments of the church establishment can follow the ways of this world, satisfy the lust of their flesh and eyes, pander to the pride of their hearts but still be conceptually credited with holiness and righteousness so that they can go to heaven when they die. The scoffers of established church religion believe that, because of the cross of Christ changed how God feels about sin, if they believe they are righteous, then they are righteous no matter what they do. This was not the case with Abraham. In Acts 5, Annanias and his wife Sapphira sold some land and gave part of the money to the Apostles. They kept part back for themselves which would have been fine if they hadn’t lied and pretended that they had given it all. Peter declared that Satan had filled Annanias’ heart and that Annanias had lied not to men, but to God. When Annanias heard these words, God struck him down dead and his wife was also struck down dead when she confirmed the lie three hours later. Within the established hypocrisy of the religion of church tradition there are at least two different arguments that reason away God’s judgement. The first argument is that Peter did not understand the gospel of the grace of God and was still operating under the law of Moses. As such, because Peter was still under the law and did not understand God’s grace, this cost Annanias and Sapphira their lives. This is simply the hypocrisy of wilful idiotic blindness. It was God that struck down dead Annanias and Sapphira not Peter. Does God not know the gospel? The second argument is that Annanias and Sapphira did not understand the gospel of the grace of God and were still under the law of Moses. They did not believe in the conceptual accreditation of the gift of theoretical righteousness that would have blinded God to the fact that Satan had filled their lying hearts and inspired them to lie to God. As such, Annanias and Sapphira’s ignorance of the counterfeit gospel of God’s grace cost them their lives. Again, this is the hypocrisy of wilful idiotic blindness to the real gospel of grace and the lying foundation upon which the religion of established church tradition is based. In Acts 3, Peter explained the gospel “Ye are the children of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying unto Abraham, And, in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed. Unto you first God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities”. The real gospel of the unmerited grace and blessing of God promised to Abraham and his true heirs is not something that can be earned because a gift earned is no longer a gift but an obligation. Neither does it mean that people can have hearts filled by Satan and keep on doing evil, wicked, vengeful, lying, immoral, greedy grasping and pride-poisoned acts of brazen depravity but be considered conceptually righteous by a God who is blinded to such things by people who believe and trust in the teachings, creeds, dogma and theologies of the church establishment. That is not the gift of righteousness that Abraham received. The real gospel of the unmerited grace and blessing of God promised to Abraham and his true heirs is the gift of the Holy Spirit that turns people away from their iniquities and sins from their hearts. There was nothing conceptual about Abraham’s faith because for Abraham faith and faithfulness meant the same thing. In Hebrew the word for mother in Hebrew is em which means literally strong or first water and the word for faithful means literally the life of a mother, always there, always faithful. The word amen, commonly used in prayers, means literally a mother’s life, faithful, dependable, so be it, make it so. The word truth was emet which means literally the mother of the covenant. For Abraham, believing was of the heart. For Abraham, believing was an all-consuming lifestyle of absolute faithfulness and implicit Holy Spirit inspired obedience to the personal call and living word of promise spoken to him personally by the eternal life’s breath or Holy Spirit of the paradise of Yehovah God’s fatherhood. In Hebrew, the word for righteous was tsadaq and it means literally to follow a straight path through life. It has nothing to do with the hypocrisy of conceptual accreditation. There was nothing conceptual about Abraham’s righteousness because Abraham was inspired to do what is right by the blessing or grace of the unmerited or unearned favour of the eternal life’s breath or Holy Spirit of the paradise of God’s fatherhood. That is why Yehovah God spoke to Isaac and said that he would surely bless Isaac and his seed or sons and give them the land of promise that God had promised on oath to Abraham. Why? God said to Isaac in Genesis 26:5 that “Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws”. These were the hidden terms of God’s covenant with Abraham. The religious hypocrites of the church establishment do not obey God’s voice, they do not keep his charge, they do not keep his commandments, statues or laws and God does not recognise them as His Sons. The gift of God to Abraham was the blessing or grace or unmerited gift of righteousness; the gift of righteousness is the Spirit of Righteousness, the Holy Spirit. God had made a blood covenant with Abraham, and the character, personality and identity (in other words his name) and the thoughts and intentions of Abraham’s heart were changed, redeemed or justified by this unmerited grace or blessing of God. This blessing inspired Abraham to walk through life by doing what was morally upstanding or upright. Abraham had a circumcised heart and ears. He loved God and he obeyed him. That is why it says in James 2:22 that Abraham’s faith was made complete or perfect by what he did. James said in James 22:26 that just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without corresponding deeds is also dead. We will see later how Abraham proved this in the way he behaved.

Jesus said in Matthew 12:33-37 “Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit. O generation of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. A good man out of the good treasure of the heart brings forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things. But I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by your words thou shall be justified, and by your words you shall be condemned”. Jesus spoke these words to the Pharisees, the blind guides of the religion of rabbinic tradition who claimed to be the sons of Abraham. Jesus called these religious leaders a generation of vipers, the poisonous venom of serpents was on their lips. Why? Because of their behaviour. Within the ancient Hebrew culture of the Bible, the heart of a seed or son bears fruit after its father’s kind. A good tree bears good fruit, a bad tree bears bad fruit. Jesus said, make a tree good and its fruit will be good. Cain was the original son of man who imagined his was the marvellous me and quite naturally bore the fruit of murder. Why? Because when God maligned his marvellous but rebellious offering, he was no longer marvellous but rather murderous. Why? He was the son or seed of the serpent and the devil, who imagined he was also the marvellous me, and the devil was ultimately Cain’s father. How can you make a tree good? By changing its father. For man this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible. This is what the unmerited grace or blessing of God did for Abraham, and because of Abraham’s Holy Spirit inspired obedience, God changed his name from Abram (exalted father) to Abraham (father of a multitude). Within ancient Hebrew culture, how someone behaved was their words or deeds as they walked on the pathway of life. Abraham proved by how he behaved that his heart had been justified or made righteous. How did this work in practice? It says in Psalm 119:1-3 “Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord. Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, and that seek him with their whole heart. They also do no iniquity: they walk in his ways”. It was the blessing or unmerited sovereign unearned grace of God that inspired Abraham to walk in God’s ways, keep his testimonies and seek God with his whole heart. Abraham did not understand God through thoughts, feelings or sentiments. Abraham understood God through God’s word. He lived by faith in an all-consuming lifestyle of absolute and implicit obedience to the personal call and living word of promise spoken to him personally by the eternal life’s breath or Holy Spirit of God. Words are a form of communication and when God wants to communicate, he speaks his word into people’s hearts. In Psalm 119, the Psalmist clearly understood the vital importance of the word of God because God’s word is mentioned more than 40 times, here are a few; “How shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to your word. Your word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee. I will delight myself in your statutes: I will not forget your word. Deal bountifully with your servant, that I may live, and keep your word. Establish your word unto your servant, who is devoted to you. Let your mercies come also unto me, O Lord, even your salvation, according to your word. Remember the word unto your servant, upon which you have caused me to hope. You are my portion, O Lord: I have said that I would keep your words. I intreated your favour with my whole heart, be merciful unto me according to your word. You have dealt well with your servant, O Lord, according unto your word. Before I was afflicted, I went astray: but now have I kept your word. It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn your statutes. How sweet are your words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth! Your word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. You are my hiding place and my shield: I hope in your word. The entrance of your words gives light; it gives understanding unto the simple. Order my steps in your word: and let not any iniquity have dominion over me. Your word is true from the beginning: and every one of your righteous judgments endures for ever. I rejoice at your word, as one that finds great spoil. Let my cry come near before thee, O Lord: give me understanding according to your word. Let my prayers come before thee: deliver me according to your word. My tongue shall speak of your word: for all your commandments are righteousness. I have longed for your salvation, O Lord; and your law is my delight”. These wise words speak for themselves but have little importance unless the Holy Spirit makes these words live. God spoke his living word by his Holy Spirit into Abraham’s humble, trusting and believing heart to bring the illuminating light of divine life. This is the foundation of true faith and is the principle of the living word of God. God’s words are true, God’s promises are true, and a Holy Spirit inspired rock-solid faith that God is true to his living word put Abraham in a place where God’s word performed for him that which was promised. The living word of God can do the same for you.

However, it wasn’t just plain sailing for Abraham. God blessed Abraham, and God promised to bless those who blessed Abraham and curse those who cursed him. Lucifer, the devil and father of lies tried many times to curse him. In fact, in his earlier years, Abraham didn’t help matters. The secret power or mystery of wickedness that was at work to a lesser or greater extent in the heart everyone except Jesus, had planned his downfall. Abraham had gone to live in the land of Canaan in accordance with God’s will but there was a famine in the land. Instead of staying in Canaan and trusting God to supply his needs, Abraham went into Egypt. As Sarah was Abraham’s half-sister, Abraham persuaded Sarah to lie and say to anyone who asked that she was Abraham’s sister and not his wife. He feared that someone would kill him and take Sarah by force. In Egypt, Sarah, as Abraham’s sister, was taken into Pharaoh’s harem to be his wife. Even though Abraham was rewarded with great riches, the loss of Sarah was a curse. Sarah was to be the ancestor of Jesus, Jesus was to be Son or seed of Eve who would crush the head of the serpent, Lucifer. This could not happen if Sarah was married to Pharaoh, and so God cursed Pharaoh with great plagues. Pharaoh was understandably upset with Abraham and sent Abraham and Sarah away with all their possessions. If that wasn’t enough, a similar thing happened in Gerar. Abimelech, the King of Gerar accidentally cursed Abraham by taking Sarah as his wife. This was because Abraham told Abimelech she was his sister. God spoke to Abimelech in a dream and said, “You are just about to die, you took another man’s wife”. Abimelech was understandably mortified and, in his dream, declared his innocence to God. It says in Genesis 20:6-7 “And God said unto him in a dream, Yea, I know that you did this in the integrity of your heart; for I also withheld you from sinning against me: therefore suffered I you not to touch her. Now therefore restore the man his wife; for he is a prophet, and he shall pray for you, and you shall live: and if you restore her not, know you that you shall surely die, you, and all that are yours”. Remember God had made a blood covenant with Abraham and promised to be Abraham’s shield, defender and very great reward. So, God threatened to curse Abimelech and his whole household with death if he didn’t give Sarah back to Abraham. Abimelech was understandably upset with Abraham. He gave Abraham gifts and Sarah back to him. By playing upon Abraham’s natural born fears, this was second time Lucifer attempted to prevent the coming of the promised redeemer. Lucifer made yet another attempt, this time he directed his evil schemes towards Sarah herself. Sarah was barren and the secret power or mystery of lawlessness would have reminder her constantly about her presumed disgusting shame and failure to bring forth a son and heir for Abraham. God had promised that Sarah would bring forth a true son for Abraham. Instead of trusting in God’s promise that she would bear a son, Sarah submitted to the natural customs of that time. She gave Abraham her Egyptian slave girl Hagar to bring forth a surrogate son for Abraham. She did, and Ishmael was born. Ishmael was not the son that God had promised. Ishmael was a wild donkey of a man whose hand was against all his brothers. Ishmael was not Abraham’s true son. When Sarah was old, she gave birth to Isaac in fulfilment of God’s promise. However, when Isaac was weaned, he was mocked and scoffed at by Ishmael who by that time was a young man. It was the secret power of lawlessness that was at work in the scoffing heart of Ishmael. Sarah recognised this and told Abraham to cast Ishmael and Hagar the slave girl out of his house. She said that Ishmael would not share the inheritance with her son Isaac, and she was right. With Abraham gone, Ishmael, would have become Abraham’s primary heir, not Isaac, and Ishmael would have taken at least the lion’s share if not all the inheritance for himself. Without Abraham, Ishmael could even have been a threat to Isaac’s life. God told Abraham to cast Ishmael out of his house. Again, it was Lucifer who was behind this attempt to thwart the coming of the promised redeemer. We will discuss that later in this book. Incidentally, God did bless Ishmael who became the father of many of the Arab nations who persecute Isaac’s son Israel to this day.

Many years after Isaac was born, God tested Abraham because he wanted to guarantee that Abraham and his true heirs would receive the new covenant promise of a Pentecostal paradise, God’s Holy Spirit, and the promise of the true salvation of overcoming victory in all things. God could not do this if Abraham was disobedient like Adam, Abraham’s first father. It says in Genesis 22:1-3 “And it came to pass after these things, that God did test Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am. And he said, Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell you of. And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him.” We do not understand this in our modern culture and human sacrifice is an abomination to God. However, within the Luciferian religious system that Abraham had been called out of, a child blood sacrifice would have been common. As they approached the place of sacrifice with the wood and the fire pot, Isaac asked his father where the lamb for the sacrifice was. Abraham replied that God would provide himself a lamb for the burnt offering. Abraham bound Isaac with rope and was about to slay him when God stopped him. Abraham was willing to offer up his only son, Isaac, just as God would one day offer up his only Son, Jesus. And Isacc, as a true son of his father, willingly submitted himself his father’s knife just as Jesus, as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, willingly submitted himself to death on the cross in accordance with God as his Father’s will. It says in Genesis 22:11-12 “And the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I. And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do you anything unto him: for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, thine only son from me”. Jesus said that the Son can only do what he sees the Father doing. Abraham had done exactly that. God had become Abraham’s own Father, God had become the strength of Abraham’s heart. Abraham did what he saw his Father doing; he kept covenant with God by being willing to offer up his own son in obedience to his Father’s will. It was the blessing of the eternal life’s breath or Holy Spirit of the paradise of God’s fatherhood that enabled Abraham to do that. Abraham’s heart had been redeemed and filled with paradise. Just as Abraham lifted up his knife to slay his son Isaac, the people of Israel would one day slay their own Passover Lamb when they nailed Jesus to the cross. Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw a ram caught in a thicket which he offered in place of Isaac. It says in Genesis 22:15-18 “And the angel of the Lord called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time, and said, By myself have I sworn, says the Lord, for because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son: That in blessing I will bless you, and in multiplying I will multiply your seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and your seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; And in your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because you have obeyed my voice”. When God a makes promise, it is usually conditional, and the conditions are generally assumed. When God swears something, the fulfilment of the promise by God is absolutely guaranteed. God absolutely guaranteed Abraham that his seed or son or heir would possess the gate of his enemies. That includes the enemies of pride, sin, sickness, Satan and ultimately death. God absolutely guaranteed Abraham that through his seed or son, all the nations would be blessed because of Abraham’s Holy Spirit inspired obedience. The blessing of Abraham was God’s gift of himself, the Holy Spirit, the Pentecostal paradise of God. It is the blessing of the Holy Spirit that enables the Sons of God to live in the presence of power where victory is assured. This overcoming victory was having a heart redeemed back into the paradise of Eden lost at the Fall and it wasn’t just for Abraham. This same blessing came upon his son Issac, then after him Jacob and then Joseph and king David. The blessing was to be passed down through the generational seed line so that one day, God himself would be born as the man, Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Adam or man, the Son of Abraham, Son of David and ultimately the Son of God. That is why it says in Hebrews 1:1-3 “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spoke in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he has appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high”. God himself came as Jesus, the Lamb of God; the Lamb that God would provide as himself in place of Isaac. God was in the process of fulfilling the new covenant promise to Abraham that through the blood of the Lamb, God Himself would be Abraham’s shield, defender and very great reward. Jesus came as the seed of Eve as promised in Genesis 3, the seed or son born of the woman who through the sinless blood of the Lamb of God would crush the head of the serpent, Lucifer, the devil and father of lies. As the Son of Abraham, Jesus was the heir of God’s absolute guarantee that Jesus would rise victorious from the dead, victorious over sin, sickness, Satan and death. This was to bring this very same heart-changing and life-changing victory over pride, sin, sickness, Satan and death to all families of the Earth. The gospel or good news of the promised blood-covenant covering or blessing of this victory was poured out on the Day of Pentecost and Abraham’s blessing is available today.

So why Abraham? It is not exactly clear why God chose Abraham, but it is remarkable that Abraham’s personal circumstances were like God’s. God’s greatest desire was to have a Son whom he could love, relate to, give to, share with, and eventually give an inheritance to. God’s Son was originally Adam. Unfortunately, because of the Fall, Adam fell out of a loving Father-Son relationship with God and as a marvellous me, fell in love with his over inflated opinion of himself. Abraham also wanted a son whom he could love, relate to, give to, share with, and eventually give an inheritance to. God had called Abraham out of his natural father’s house and devil-inspired religious belief system into a Father-Son relationship with God. Abraham proved by the grace of his inspired obedience that the blessing of God’s fatherhood had changed Abraham to become the Son of God. God wants to do the same for us. That is why Paul says in Romans 8:14 that those who are led by the Spirit of God are the Sons of God. God wants us to come under the same umbrella or covenant-covering so that we automatically become the recipients of the same covenant promises. However, for God to do that we must be freed from the secret power of lawlessness that works ceaselessly through the marvellous me pride that lurks within the fallen Cain nature that everyone except Jesus natural shares and be untangled from the web of deceit that the devil weaved into the religion of established church tradition that binds the amazing grace of God. God wants to bring us to the place of such unshackled Holy Spirit inspired obedience that everything we do is done in the power of God’s Holy Spirit. It is in that place and through the sinless blood of the Lamb that God absolutely guarantees our covenant victory over sin, sickness, Satan and ultimately death. That is why Paul said in Galatians 3:29 “And if you be Christ’s, then are you Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise”. So, what was Abraham’s promise? God promised Abraham “Your seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; And in your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because you have obeyed my voice”. God promised Abraham that through Jesus, the Son of Abraham, and a heartfelt understanding of the meaning and power of the precious blood of Jesus, you would be a winner. God absolutely guarantees it. It has nothing to do with you or me, our individual faith or prayers or spells or enchantments or creeds or vestments or theologies or incantations or rituals or liturgies anything else about us individually or the deceptive religion of the church establishment. The eyes of your heart simply need to be enlightened so that you can see, know and understand how God’s blood-covenant promises of redemption from the marvellous me pride of Cain, God’s blessing and the true salvation of overcoming victory actually work. The armour of enlightenment is the heartfelt understanding of truth, of covenant, of position, of the blood of the Lamb, of understanding and the knowledge of God. You cannot be armoured with light without knowing these truths at the most basic and deepest heartfelt level. Once you know and understand in your heart of hearts that you can be freed from the murderous pride of Cain and come Abraham’s seed or son and heir of these blood-covenant promises through Jesus, and your heart is right before God, and you come under the umbrella or covering of the anointing of God’s Holy Spirit, the victory is yours because of God, Abraham and the Son of Abraham and not because of you. You will be armoured with light. That is what this book is all about.

So, what about you? Someone once sang; get back to where you once belonged. God called Abraham out of idolatrous religious tradition, out of his natural father’s house and the dreadful curse of the marvellous me pride that naturally came from the Fall and that nailed Jesus to the cross, to get back into blessing of the unmerited favour of a heartfelt Father-Son relationship with God lost when Adam and Eve sinned in the garden of Eden. God made a blood covenant with Abraham and promised that God Himself would be Abraham’s shield and defender and very great reward. The eternal life’s breath or the Holy Spirit of the Pentecostal paradise of God’s fatherhood filled Abraham’s redeemed heart and granted Abraham success or victory in everything that he did. God wants to do the same for you. Abraham’s calling can be yours; Abraham’s blessing can be yours; Abraham’s covering or anointing of God’s Holy Spirit can be yours; Abraham’s success can be yours. What God did for Abraham, God can do for you and when he does, God absolutely guarantees that you will be a winner. Through Jesus the Son of Abraham and the new covenant Holy Spirit blessing in Jesus’ blood, you can become an heir to Abraham’s blessing, just like Jesus. God’s Holy Spirit can show you the way. God wants to reveal himself to you, and to lead your redeemed heart into paradise this side of the grave. When he does, to follow will be your greatest delight.

Prayer: Dear Father, I don’t want to be fooled into being a loser by anything to do with the established religion of church tradition that is counterfeit or corrupt. I would like to be a winner like Abraham and like Jesus. In the name of Yeshua the Messiah, please do for me what you did for Abraham. Please open the eyes of my heart for me to understand that, through your wonderful work of Jesus’ death on the cross, his blood shed by the very people he came to save, his resurrection, his ascension, his glorification, and the coming of your Holy Spirit, your guarantee of my success in every circumstance of life has nothing to do with my individuality, prayers, faith or religious beliefs and as such there is no place for pride. Please bring me humbly under the umbrella or corporate blood covenant-covering of the anointing of your Holy Spirit that will guarantee that I will be a fool no more. Instead, I will be a winner.  

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