Chapter One

 How The Abrahamic Covenant Affects The Timing of
The Resurrection and The Rapture

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The Abrahamic Covenant has been given lip service concerning end time prophecy.  But in order to understand end time prophecy, we must have a full understanding of the relationship of this covenant to the prophecies concerning the rapture and the second coming of Christ.  Until we have this understanding, our view of the events of the end will be flawed to the extent of the lack of our understanding of this relationship.  In a very simple, easy to understand way, the next three chapters will explain how the Abrahamic Covenant affects the timing of the rapture of the church.

 In Genesis 12 God picked one man out of the rest of humanity.  His name was Abram (later changed to Abraham).  God then made a covenant with him, which became known as the Abrahamic Covenant.  There were sixty of these promises, which made up the Abrahamic Covenant.  This covenant included four basic things: healing for his body, prosperity for his pocketbook, well-being for his family and salvation for his soul.  God also included Abraham's physical descendants in His Covenant with Abram. (See the author's book, What Are Abraham's Blessings Anyway?)

 Over four hundred years later God added The Mosaic Law to the Abrahamic Covenant.  He did this because the seed of Abraham were sinners and God determined to do something about their sin problem.  But He dealt with their sins in such a way that they did not lose the blessings promised them in The Abrahamic Covenant which were healing, prosperity, well-being for their families and salvation for their soul.  This is how He did it.

 When any one of the physical seed of Abraham sinned under Moses' Law, God had included a sacrificial system within Moses' Law whereby that person could make the proper, specific sacrifice for that specific sin and the blessings in the Abrahamic Covenant would continue for him without interruption.  However, when he sinned and failed to make the proper sacrifice in the proper manner, the blessings of Abraham stopped for him at that moment.  He lost what he had been born with which included healing, prosperity, well-being for his family and the salvation of his soul.  Although he was the physical seed of Abraham, he became as lost and hell-bound as any heathen in the world.

 But, when he finally repented of his sin and acknowledged his repentance by making the specific sacrifice for his specific sin, then the blessings of Abraham resumed for him at that moment.  (Moses' Law required specific sacrifices for different kinds of sins.)  Consequently, Moses' Law was given to maintain the blessings, which had already been given to him in The Abrahamic Covenant.  It was never given for him to work his way into a relationship with God in any manner at all.  Moses explained this in Deuteronomy 7:12-15.

 Deuteronomy 7:12-15

12 Wherefore it shall come to pass, if ye hearken to these judgments, and keep, and do them, that the LORD thy God shall keep unto thee the covenant and the mercy which he sware unto thy fathers:

13 And he will love thee, and bless thee, and multiply thee: he will also bless the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy land, thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep, in the land which he sware unto thy fathers to give thee.

14 Thou shalt be blessed above all people: there shall not be male or female barren among you, or among your cattle.

15 And the LORD will take away from thee all sickness, and will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which thou knowest, upon thee; but will lay them upon all them that hate thee.

 In verse 12 Moses plainly said that God's keeping the Abrahamic Covenant was linked to their keeping of the Law.  In other words, when they sinned, they must make the proper, specific sacrifice so that He would "keep the covenant and mercy which He aware unto thy fathers".  Then in verses 13-15 He enumerated what the blessings were that He would give them, all of which are contained in The Abrahamic Covenant.

 This system lasted until Christ came.  When He, Jesus, mounted the cross, He became the final sacrifice for sin(s) under Moses' Law.  At that point in time, God no longer accepted the blood of bulls and goats as an answer for the sins of any of them. Therefore, from the death of Christ till the end of time as we know it, every one of the physical seed of Abraham has a vital choice to make.

 Since Jesus is the final sacrifice for sin(s) under Moses' Law, the Jew that accepts him as that final sacrifice, as his Messiah, as his Savior, the blessings of Abraham which include healing, prosperity, well-being for his family in addition to his soul, continue for that Jew without interruption.  But if he rejects God's final sacrifice for his sin(s), since God no longer accepts the blood of bulls and goats, he loses everything he was born with in the Abrahamic Covenant.  He loses his healing, prosperity, well-being for his family in addition to the salvation of his soul.  If he finally accepts Jesus, God's final sacrifice for sin(s) under Moses' Law, as his Messiah and Savior, The blessings of Abraham resume for him at that moment.  As we have noted before, the blessings which resume for him are healing, prosperity, well-being for his family and the salvation of his soul. (See the author's book, What've They Done With Abraham's Blessings)

 Gentiles (non-physical seed of Abraham) were prophetically included in several of the sixty promises of the Abrahamic Covenant.  We shall include only two of those several at this point.  They are Promise #48 and Promise #60.

 Genesis 12:3

3 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.

 Genesis 22:18

18  And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.

 Both verses above link "all families of the earth" and "all nations of the earth" to the same word "blessed" which, as we have seen previously, means "the beneficial enduement of the power of God to produce well-being in every area of a man's life".  In other words, "bless" means, in the Abrahamic Covenant, healing, prosperity well-being for our families and the salvation of our souls.  Now, these same Abrahamic blessings that Abraham and his physical descendants had are prophetically extended to Gentiles or those of us who were not Abraham's physical seed.

 Although Gentiles were prophetically included in the Abrahamic Covenant, the addition of Moses' Law prevented them from coming into Abraham's Covenant actually.  Deuteronomy 7:1-6 demonstrates this.

 Deuteronomy 7:1-6

1 When the LORD thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou;

2 And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them:

3 Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son.

4 For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the LORD be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly.

5 But thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire.

6 For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God: the LORD thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth.

 Therefore, as long as the Law was in effect, there was no way that Gentiles could experience actually what had been said of them prophetically in the Abrahamic Covenant.  This condition of Gentile exclusion lasted until Christ came.  When He (Jesus) came and died as God's final sacrifice for sin, he fulfilled the Law of Moses.  Then, He did six things to that Law.  He broke it down, He abolished it, He slew it, He blotted it out, He took it out of the way and He nailed it to His cross.  Ephesians 2:14-16 and Colossians 2:14 demonstrates these six things.

 Ephesians 2:14-16

14 For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us;
15 Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace;

16 And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby:

 Colossians 2:14

14 Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;

 Having dealt with that which excluded Gentiles from the Abrahamic blessings of healing, prosperity, well-being for our families and salvation for our souls, Gentiles can now come into the Abrahamic Covenant blessing system.  The question is, therefore, how do we do it?  We do it the same way a Jew does it with but one difference.  When a Jew accepts Christ, he maintains, without interruption, what he had been born with.  When a Gentile accepts Christ as his Savior and Lord, he is grafted into the Abrahamic blessing system at that point in time.  And it is at that point in time that the Abrahamic blessings become his.  He was not born with them like the Jew was.  He is grafted into them the moment he accepts Christ as his savior.  Romans 11:17-18 demonstrates this for us.

 Romans 11:17-18

17 And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert grafted in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree;

18 Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee.

 Simultaneous with a Gentile's grafting into the Abrahamic Covenant, he becomes a seed of Abraham.  He becomes a member of "The Abrahamic Seed Group".  Galatians 3:7 and 29 demonstrates this fact for us.  (See the author's book, The Unbroken Force of Abraham's Blessings)

 Galatians 3:7

7 Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham.

 Galatians 3:29

29 And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.

 Finally, we must understand the difference between "The Curse" and "The Curse of The Law" and how both relate to Jews and Gentiles.  First, "The Curse" is the result of Adam's fall.  This explains the sin, sickness, hunger, evil and wickedness that is present in the world.  "The Curse" is the reason things are the way they are in the world.  Everywhere man turns, he is confronted with the curse and its consequences.

 Picture "The Curse" as rain.  Its devastating effects just keep raining down on us and man keeps getting wet in it.  But, after Adam's fall, God set up the Abrahamic system which functioned as a giant umbrella which protected Abraham's' seed (The Jews) from "The Curse" which is represented here as rain.  As long as they kept Moses' Law by making the proper sacrifice when they sinned, they stayed under the Abrahamic umbrella, as it were, and they were protected from the cursed rain.  However, if they sinned and failed to make the proper sacrifice in the right spirit, they lost their Abrahamic blessings.  They were suddenly out from under the umbrella.  They were out in the rain.  There was no difference between a Jew out in the cursed rain and a lost heathen out in the cursed rain.

 But, the way a Jew "entered" the cursed rain was different from the way a Gentile entered the cursed rain.  A Jew entered the cursed rain because of disobedience to Moses' Law and the failure to sacrifice properly.  A heathen Gentile, on the other hand, was never under the Abrahamic umbrella.  He was born in the rain as it were, and lived in the experience of the curse every moment of his life.  He was lost, he was subject to sin, sickness etc., every minute he lived.

 Here is the difference, then, between a Jew and a lost, heathen Gentile out in the cursed rain.  The lost, heathen Gentile was out in it because of Adam.  The Jew got back into it because of his failure to sacrifice properly according to the instructions in Moses' Law.  The Jew was in the cursed rain because of the Law.  The Gentile heathen was in the rain because of birth.  This is the way it was for the Jew and "The Curse of The Law" until Christ came.  This is the way it was for the Gentile heathen and "The Curse" until Christ came.

 Deuteronomy 28:15-68 describes in detail what the Gentile heathen is born into and what the Jew gets back into when he steps out from under the Abrahamic umbrella.  Study this passage carefully in your Bible.

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