ABRAM AND LOT
The Elohim of Heaven saw this man’s heart and the question in his mind. If there is a question, there is seeking and those who seek, Father will see to it that they find, especially in religious matters.
So, Yah spoke to Abram, and I personally believe it was an audible voice, though unspoken to others. I have experienced that twice in my life. It is something you never forget. You hear a real voice, but no one else around you does. Paul experienced it on the Damascus road. In the Old Testament it was the only means for Yah to get His message across for the Holy Spirit was not given.
The Work of the Spirit
When the Holy Spirit was given the word says, “Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth, for He shall not speak of Himself, but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak, and He will show you things to come. He shall glorify Me, for He shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you. All things that the Father has are mine, therefore said I, that He shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you.”
Notice that most of the time the Holy Spirit “shows” us what Yah wants. This is significant because that is how we understand spiritual things. They are shown to us, this is revelation knowledge. Remember what YahShua said to Peter, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by My Father in heaven.” This not only did not come from a man or ministry, but, it was not spoken. It came from the Father and that by revelation. Then YahShua went on to say, “And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.”
Why did He tell Peter his name? Did Peter forget who he was? No, Peter means “Rock”, and what He was saying is that upon the foundation stone of revealed knowledge He would build His church, not upon Peter as some believe. Furthermore, the gates of death would not overcome it. He came to give us everlasting life as well as dealing with the sin question. Therefore, when He sent us His Holy Spirit, He came to lead us into all truth. When someone leads he is showing the way, not just telling you how to get there.
The Message
So, down there in the land of the Chaldees, Yah spoke to Abram, and He said, “Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you.”
In our day there is a religious system of idol worship, blasphemy, and harlotry. She is Babylon the Great, mother of harlots. The whole country, our families and households lay in that land. Again Yah has spoken to a people who question. “Then I heard another voice from heaven say, "Come out of her, My people, so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues.”
“The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual.”
Taking Things Along
Abraham did as Yah told him, …but! Oh the buts! But, he took along his father and his nephew Lot. Yah did not tell him to do that. Abram’s father speaks to us of our doctrines and Lot is our reasoning. It is not enough to come out of something, you must allow Yah to get the something out of you. Abram came out into the place Yah showed him, but he only sojourned there. Sojourned means, “A temporary dwelling.” His dwelling in tents signified this. Abram only went a short way and made camp. The Bible said he dwelt there.
When we hear the call to come out of the perverse religious system we obey, but we only go a short distance. It is as though we do not know where to go, and we do not. It is a wild place full of doubts and fears, so strange and unfamiliar. We look around us and feel lost, vulnerable and wonder why we even came to this forsaken place. Then we question as to whether we even heard Yah. Perhaps we were mistaken. But, the voice was so powerful. How could we take a chance offending the Elohim of Heaven? We become scared to move and just seem to make camp.
Abram
Abram dwelt there in tents until his father died. Then he took Lot and wandered around seeking the land Yah had promised. Like Abram, it is in a wilderness place that we remain until our religious doctrines die. Then we begin to wander around seeking the truth, learning of Him.
However, Abram still was bringing Lot along with him. As Abram begin to grow and multiply in the land, trouble arose between him and Lot. Their differences became bothersome to each other. Abram decided it was time for Lot to leave. So they separated, Lot chose the fertile valleys while Abram took the rough mountains where the going is hard and the grass sparse. In our coming out walk we find our carnal reasoning and spiritual understanding do not go very well together. We must, as Abram, separate from our human reasoning and follow on to know Yah even though the going is rough and uphill. Sometime the things of Yah are sparse, but now we are no longer inhibited by our own reasoning and we find joy in the higher places of the Spirit.
Then Yah spoke to Abram again and told him of his inheritance. It was at this time Yah changed his name from Abram, which means “father of multitudes” to Abraham, which means, “Father of nations.” Notice he was no longer to father a multitude, or a shepherd of a flock, or a teacher to a crowd, or a minister. He had an encounter with Yah, and his inheritance was lifted from a people, to a nation, a kingdom of kings and priests.
Now, we also have been elevated from a carnal realm inheritance to a heavenly inheritance, from servants with everlasting life to kings with immortal life. YahShua “has made us kings and priests unto Elohim, His Father, to Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.”
In our wilderness travel we have come to a place where a profound revelation of Yah permeates our hearts. We realize that we are not just servants serving Yah, but that we are His sons, born of the Spirit, born of incorruptible seed. We have heard the voice of our spirit man cry out, “Abba Father”.
Still Abraham dwelt in tents and continued to wander for he was no longer looking for a natural inheritance in the land upon which he trod, but a city not made with hands whose builder and maker was Yah.
Even so, now the sons of Yah wander in the wilderness awaiting the manifestation of the sons of Yahur and the Kingdom Age. We dwell in the tent of human flesh, but in the Kingdom Age we will dwell in immortal bodies having found a permanent dwelling in our house from heaven, which is the glory of Yah.
Lot
The last time we saw Lot we had left him in the valley. I said above that Lot represented our reasoning and that it must be left behind to follow on to know Father Yah, and to come into sonship. Now, I would like to look at Lot as people who lean to their own understanding and reasoning. Let's take up the story again from the beginning.
Lot lived with Abram in the family dwelling in Ur, a type of pagan worship. Families were like what we call clans today. The whole family lived and worked together. When he learned that Abram had been visited by Yah and that Abram must obey and go out into the land that Yah should show him it sparked something in Lot's heart. Suddenly, he saw the adventure, the thrill of doing what Yah had told Abram. So, when Abram went Lot went along. It is important to notice that Lot did not hear the voice of Yah, he heard only the voice of the man.
I have said this before, but I feel it needs to be said again. The Word Father has spoken to me is for me. I share it, but I can not expect it to mean the same to others or even for Father to confirm it. He has already confirmed it in my heart. The Word the Spirit speaks to your heart is not for me, though it might bless me to hear it, it is personal. We must each hear heavenly things for ourselves.
People come out of the religious church order for many reasons. Some are hard for them to understand. They have not heard the voice from heaven and come out to go into sonship. Those, as Lot, hear the sonship message while out in the wilderness, embrace it and make it a ministry. Soon, they are building themselves a little kingdom from that truth and polluting it.
Lot went into the wilderness with Abram and Abram’s father and dwelt with them where they made camp. As with Abram, Lot saw and learned right along with Abram the truths Yah was revealing. It was exciting and what wondrous revelations struck his heart.
Since Lot’s father did not die, but was simply left behind, Lot was free to choose which doctrines to exchange for the ones he had in Ur of the Chaldees. He could, in effect, hold onto as many as he desired. However, he let go of most of them, after all he was born again and a part of the family.
As he grew in understanding, he became convinced that he knew Yah’s plan and felt very blessed and called by Yah. When Abram’s Father died and Abram began to move on to learn more about Yah, Lot went right along with him. Lot grew in knowledge and understanding of the plan of Yah. He thought to please Him ever more and reasoned that all this was too wonderful just to hide away in their heart. Many would love to know about Yah and His plan for mankind. He talked to Abram and tried to reason with him about at least setting up a tent so those beyond the family dwelling walls could hear and be blessed, even brought into these deep truths. Abram had heard the voice of Yah to go, and he was ready to move on. Lot’s reasoning became a point of division between them. Finally, Abram and Lot had such contention that they had to part.
Down in the Valley
Lot's heart was already settled on his vision, the calling of Yah, or so he thought. Lot looked at the fertile valley and the towns filled with people. This was just what he had in mind, it was a starting point. He could gather a following here easily. And, ...he knew just what to do, after all he had come from Chaldee. After a carnal thinking person leaves the religious system and finds little fellowship in the wilderness, he will once again build a church where he knows there is like minded fellowship and someone to speak comforting words.
People flocked to hear the truth in his heart. Then, suddenly, he begins to see himself as this great prophet or minister to bring Yah's word to pass. So, we see Lot settling in the already established town and there he became someone important, someone that they would respect and thus hear.
The Bible says of Lot that he sat in the city gate. This place was where the town counsel sat. He became a city commissioner and judged the matters of town government. I think Lot made a pretty good deacon on the church board. At last he held an important place in a church, made decisions about the way things should be done. However, Lot’s righteous soul was vexed with the sin that lay all around him. There was great work to be done here. Was this not what Yah wanted? Was his ministry not established upon the words of Yah?
It was due to Lot's carnal understanding that he continued in that immoral city of lust and perversion. He felt that he could in some way influence them to good, or to be better. He carnal reasoning overrode the cry of his heart and soon that cry died out.
Lot took a wife from that place. He had married the doctrine and even produced two daughters from his carnal understanding of Yah. One daughter could have been a ministry of song, and the other a book ministry. After all, Yah had sparked a truth in him about sonship and he could write about it and his wandering in the wilderness.
We know from scripture, the place Lot dwelt was so perverted and sinful that Yah purposed in His heart to destroy it. When you put new wine into old wineskins the wine is ruined and it becomes unfit to drink. One of the greatest sins, if you count sin, is to take the word Father has given you as truth and life and try to bring it back into a formal religious setting. It just becomes an extension or branch of what you were called out from in the beginning. Truth is there alright. It was even revelation knowledge gained in the wilderness, but it has become an instrument in man's hands and will become polluted because man always contaminates spiritual things with carnal ways. This is a virtual slap in Yah's face and Yah will not tolerate it. He would have destroyed Lot right along with it because he had become a part of it, but… There is that “but” again. But, this time it proved to be good for Lot. Abram had an encounter with Yah up there on that mountain and his name or nature was changed, and now he was making intercession for Lot.
Yah heard Abraham and sent two angels to the town to warn Lot of the impending doom. We know that the number two represents, “Witness”. The two witnesses of the revelations from Yah forced their way through the carnal mind of Brother Lot while he was enjoying the riches of gain in the prosperity of his ministry in evil city. One witness might have been the remembrance of the feel of the nearness of Yah while he lived in tents with Abram. The other could have been the burning truth of Abram’s words. Things he had left behind in the hills of separation.
However, the men of the city came to do harm to the two witnesses, to pervert them, and defile them. Something Brother Lot, himself, had done for a long time, kicking against the pricks. Lot still had enough of the Spirit of Yah to know that the messengers were from Yah. He counseled with the people of the city to listen to the words of the message, but they stopped their ears. He even promised to give them his daughters if they would just leave the messengers of light in peace. He knew what he would do. He would give them his two beloved little ministries if they would but allow him to have the two revelations of light. The carnal heart is always ready to compromise, but this time Abraham had prayed.
Blinded Eyes
You know how the story goes, the people of the town did not listen to Lot and they were blinded in their eyes and could not see where they were going. “But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!”
If the little light a person holds out is darkness because of human reasoning and perverted acts of religion, then the darkness one already has becomes gross darkness. They are unable to see even the simplest spiritual thing and grope about in the blackness of their souls to find their way in life. Lot had darkness in him, but thanks to Abraham, the little light that was there became illuminated by the two witnesses. Finally, he realized he would have to leave the place where he dwelled, yet he was reluctant to leave because it was a comfortable place and it afforded him with prosperity and importance.
He probably would have stayed there in that sonship ministry, but Yah honored Abraham and the two angels or ministers of light laid hold of him and forced him from the city. Have you ever had a truth that ministered life and it literally laid hold of you and would not let go until you obeyed?
Man’s ways are not Yah’s ways
In the story the messengers prompted Lot to go into the mountains, “As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, "Flee for your lives! Don't look back, and don't stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!" but he replied, “I cannot escape to the mountain, lest some evil take me, and I die.” Sometimes Yah will allow our spoken prophecy to come to pass if we are not obedient. Lot found himself fleeing his church and behind him the judgment of Yah was falling upon that city.
Here is something very ironic. Abraham heard the voice of Yah to go out of his country and he obeyed. That was Abraham’s instructions. Now, Lot heard the voice of the two witnesses and was told to flee into the mountains. This was Lot’s message. Abrahan obeyed, but Lot resisted once again using his human reasoning and missing sonship.
It is on the mountain that sonship is matured and that death to self-life takes place. Lot’s carnal reasoning did not see that death was just what he needed. Carnal thinking wants to preserve self, keep it comfortable and prosperous. Lot knew enough about the mountains from traveling with Abraham to know that danger awaited there for his aspirations and his calling. What he should have known was that it was in that place that Yah’s presence would be found. However, human reasoning had blinded him to that fact. All he saw was the death, not the resurrection life that comes out of it.
Then Lot entreated the witnesses, “Look, here is a town near enough to run to, and it is small. Let me flee to it.” After all, it is just a little church, and his daughters could carry on there.
When we want something bad enough to disobey the Word of Yah, then He usually lets us have it. When we go a different direction than the one He has laid out for us, we are being rebellious. He will withdraw from us and let us go our own way.
According to the Bible Lot’s wife looked back when they fled the city and was turned to salt. The doctrine of perversion was left behind, but not destroyed. Once again I must say, it is not enough to come out of something, you must allow that something to be purged out of you. If you do not, it will spring to life again in your doing, and the latter end will be worse than at the beginning. Lot had lost his wife, but he still had his two daughters from her.
In the morning, or the dawning of a new day, he looked back upon Sodom and Gomorrah and saw the smoke of it rising into the air. It was a new day, the city was burned behind him and it was time for a new start. He was told not to look back and he obeyed at that time, but now he stood a far off and looked upon what once had been. When Yah gives you a word on something it remains His word on that subject, until He speaks otherwise. Lot’s disobedience seemed reasonable to him, after all, some time had passed and there was deep regret in his heart.
Lot and his two little ministries went to a small town in the valley. The name of the place was Zoar and that means, “little place”. Just a little place was left in the valley of his heart. Lot just could not get Sodom out of his heart. Religion is very appealing to the carnal mind and human reasoning. Once we leave the perverted Religious System behind we embark upon a new start, a new way to walk.
If the religious spirit in man is not taken to the mountain to die, when man leaves behind the destruction of the Harlot Religious System or a ministry after her likeness he will always look back at it later, falling back into it ways. What if Yah was to destroy this “little place” too? Fear filled Lot because he knew he was not where Yah wanted him to be. So, he took his two daughters and went a little ways up the mountain and dwelled in a cave. Carnal man will go a little ways in the new walk as long as it can appeal to his intellect, but ends up dwelling in a cave.
David dwelt in a cave and died to self there for he had a heart for Yah. Lot went into a cave and it became his grave because he had a heart for a ministry. Lot sought to keep himself alive. That is the preeminent concern of a man with human reasoning. Lot’s mode to keep his posterity alive was to listen to the voice of his two daughters and bear sons from them to spread his self-life through out the world.
Natural Lot was the father of incest for he bore sons from his own two daughters. The perversion of Sodom had reappeared because it retained a little place in his life. Only now it was he, himself, which partook of the sin. His righteous soul was no longer vexed, it was drunk with the wine of the religious spirit. He could no longer restrain what he had held at bay deep inside him. Lot had two sons, one from each daughter, and each child became a large clan of people, the Moabites and the Ammonites.
The born again man through carnal reasoning finally became persuaded by the success of his inherent ability, his ministry and abilities. Moab means, “of his father”, speaking of his singing ability. And, Ammon means, “sons of renown, mountaineers”, speaking of his books on the sonship message and his mountain experience. His singing and writing of books now produced fruit. And, because of these two ministries his fame was spread abroad like children from the womb. They became his life, the extension of himself. But, by not going on up the mountain he missed the plan of Yah for his spiritual life and he remained in the carnal realm.
This allegory might not set well with those who have come out of the visible religious church and have heard the sonship message, but if you are in a ministry now, you will not be in the one Yah is building. That is a fact.
By virtue of the fact that these people are now ministering is proof that they will not be in the last next of Yah. Like their counterparts in Scripture they are forerunners just as John the Baptist was the forrunner of the first Son of Yah. YahShua had come all right, but was not manifest to the people. YahShua never ministered until he came from the wilderness where the Spirit led him. All the while John was preaching. John never went into the New Covenant, and neither will these ministers go into sonship. A person with a ministry now is mearly a forerunner and has the truth without the power of the experience. The sons of Yah have not been manifest yet.
Remember, David was anointed king in his youth, but had to become an overcomer and mature. It was many years later before he actually sat on the throne. The same is true of sons of Yah. Though they are sons and heirs of all things, yet while they are overcoming and immature, they must wait patiently under the tutoring and governing of the Holy Spirit.
What sprang out of Lot was his own doing, not Yah’s. Although Lot came out of the Religious System, he took the truth of the sonship message and the ways of religion and gathered a following, producing a ministry that Yah did not ask for or want. It is in the heart of religious minded people to build a little kingdom where man can be a king, but in doing so he has forfeited his right to be a king under the King of Kings. It just feels so right to the human reasoning and the inspiration did come from Yah. In the old order of religion when you have a truth you just naturally build a ministry around it. He had felt the calling. Yes, there is a calling, but it is to come up the mountain, not to start the supposed next move of Yah. Lot may rule a short time in his ministry kingdom, but he will not rule and reign in the Kingdom Age. Although he had the message of what Yah was doing, he did not obey the call so that he could become a part of it.
Here, I am reminded of the messenger in David’s army who wanted to run and take a message to the king. He begged David to let him go, so David sent him. He was so full of zeal for the message that he went off not really knowing what the message was which David wanted to convey. When he arrived before the king he could but say, “David is sending you a runner”.
Do not be running before you know the experience of the full true message. You can not take anyone higher than where you are, or give to some what you do not possess yourself. Wait upon the Word of Yah to send you forth. When it is time, and you are fully ready and can walk expermently in the power of the full knowledge of the message He will send you.
Let us go up the mountain to the city of the Great King and there learn of Him. Let us choose the mountain of the Lord’s house and not the lower mountains of self-glorification and religious pride.
“For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for Me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in His Father's glory with His angels, and then He will reward each person according to what he has done.”
I am always available to answer the questions of a hungry heart. It is Yah's will that we help one another up the hill to transfiguration. However, keep in mind that it is not revelation knowledge that we should seek, but "HIM". Spiritual understand will automatically come as we become more aware of "HIM" and become more like "HIM". Many fall short of full sonship by becoming too caught up in the revelation, and not caught up "IN HIM". "HE" must have preeminence in our life even in our getting of revelation knowledge. I can not stress this enough.