There Are Always Hooks Beneath The Bait
Beloved Family… I recently finished reading Tim Alberino’s book entitled: ‘Birthright’. For me, it proved to be a significant and important ‘eye-opener’. As I continue to process the things I began to learn as I made my way through the book, I am being forced to ponder an array of things that I never took notice of in the past.
The very word, ‘birthright’, as it is revealed to us in God’s written Word, has taken on a whole new significance for me as I continue to ponder the things that lie in store for those who are called to serve the Lord as His disciples during this Last Days Era. I’m realizing that the whole crux of the issues we will all have to deal with in the days ahead stems from the fact that we too have that God-given birthright that was first described and imparted to the first Adam, our original human father and mother, and to their human descendants.
“Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness! Let them rule over the fish of the sea, over the flying creatures of the sky, over the livestock, over the whole earth, and over every crawling creature that crawls on the land.” God created humankind (the Humanity He had in mind since the beginning) in His image, in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them. God blessed them and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, fill the land, and conquer it. Rule over the fish of the sea, the flying creatures of the sky, and over every animal that crawls on the land.” (Genesis 1: 26-28 TLV, Emphasis added)
As Paul said in Romans 11:28-29:
“Concerning the Good News, they are hostile for your sake; but concerning chosenness, they are loved on account of the fathers—for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.” (TLV, Emphasis added)
So here are some other texts that are packed with further depths of meaning that pertain to all of us who have received a unique personal and corporate identity, birthright, calling, and life-purpose from our wonderful God. God reveals that, in His sight, a birthright is extremely important. Never is it to be taken lightly:
“Now Jacob cooked a stew. When Esau came in from the field, he was exhausted, so Esau said to Jacob, “Please feed me some of this really red stuff, because I’m exhausted”—that is why he is called Edom.
So Jacob said, “Sell your birthright to me today.”
Esau said, “Look, I’m about to die. Of whatever use is this to me—a birthright?”
Jacob said, “Make a pledge to me now.”
So he made a pledge to him, and sold his birthright to Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew, and he ate and drank, then got up and left. SO ESAU DESPISED HIS BIRTHRIGHT.” (Genesis 25:29-34 TLV, Emphasis added)
“Also see to it that there is no immoral or godless person—like Esau, who sold his birthright for one meal. For you know that later, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected. He found no chance for repentance, though he begged for it with tears.” (Hebrews 12:16-17 TLV, Emphasis added)
“The sons of Reuben the firstborn of Israel—he was the firstborn, but when he defiled his father’s bed, his birthright was given to the sons of Joseph son of Israel—so he is not reckoned as the firstborn in the genealogical record. Though Judah was the strongest among his brothers, and a ruler came from him, the birthright belonged to Joseph.” (1 Chronicles 5:1-2 TLV, Emphasis added)
The Hebrew word for birthright is: בְּכוֹרָה (Bechorah). In Greek, it is: πρωτοτόκια (Prototokia). In the Biblical sense, this word, ‘birthright’, conveys the idea of the impartation of preeminence and authority in a family line that a father passes onto his son. And ordinarily, the birthright and the double portion of the inheritance that goes with it, are usually given to the eldest throughout the generations. But to show that this impartation depends on the will and authority of God, rather than the will of human flesh, the birthright was at times, not given to the eldest son, but to a younger son that God had chosen according to His Plan. Thus, the restored Adamic birthright that God renewed and augmented for Abraham was imparted to Abraham’s son, Isaac, rather than to Ishmael, and to Jacob, rather than to Esau, and to Joseph, rather than to Reuben, to David, rather than to his elder brothers, and to Solomon, rather than to Adonijah. And those who received it, were thus commissioned by God to fulfill a vitally important role and responsibility in the story of Man’s Salvation.
In the Biblical worldview, this birthright is of supreme importance because it serves as a direct link to the eternal Blood Covenant bond that exists between God, and the various family lines of the descendants of the first Adam. And because it is sealed in the Covenant Blood of God’s own Living Word, this bond is to be regarded as absolutely unbreakable! And, after our first parents abdicated their birthright to the Serpent, this is why God went to all the pain and trouble He has endured, to do whatever was necessary to restore that precious gift to all those among us who would repent and return to God so He could reconcile us to Himself and forgive and purify and endow us with His Righteousness!
The Birthright, Once God Gives It, Is Irrevocable!
No one could have taken it from Adam because God pledged Himself to be Humanity’s Protector and Guardian! But… because Adam willingly abdicated it to the Serpent, he and all of his offspring lost it. Adam was our original Covenant Representative, and when he deliberately chose to forsake the birthright he was intended to pass along to his descendants, we were all thus deprived of that awesome blessing!
But God, in His Eternal Covenant Faithfulness, sent His Word to serve as our ‘Last Adam’. He came to restore that birthright, and makes it available once more… to any of us who would repent of our Sin-loving alienated state of enmity with God and receive forgiveness and restoration from Him. This is why God swore to the Serpent that, one day, His Word made flesh would confront him in the future, and overturn and reverse what he had done to the human race and to God’s Creation. So God declared war… between Satan and humanity’s Blood Covenant Representative, Yeshua. One day, acting on behalf of God, as ‘The Son of God’, and on behalf of Man, as ‘The Son of Man’, He would take on and defeat and overthrow the powers of Darkness. Thus, acting as ‘The Last Adam’… the God-given human Messiah would redeem and restore His repentant human brethren.
So Messiah Yeshua came to be the Ultimate overriding Covenant Representative and Champion that would, in the future, redeem all of us who would repent. Acting in our name, Yeshua opposed, confounded and exposed the lying Serpent and destroyed his malicious works. In so doing, He legally restored the birthright and made the blessing available once more to Adam’s repentant children. And now, as our Resurrected Lord, He is leading His human brethren into total Liberation, Redemption, and Restoration!
“Adonai Elohim said to the serpent, “Because you did this, cursed are you above all the livestock and above every animal of the field. On your belly will you go, and dust will you eat all the days of your life. I will put animosity between you and the woman—between your seed and her Seed.HE WILL CRUSH YOUR HEAD, and you will crush His heel.” (Genesis 3:14-15 TLV, Emphasis added)
“If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So also it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living soul.” The Last Adam became a life-giving spirit. However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural; then the spiritual.” (1 Corinthians 15:44-46 TLV)
So, throughout the generations of the descendants of the first Adam, the Serpent and his hordes are relentless in their desperation to dupe each human being into doing the same thing their original parents did in the Garden… to deceive and get them to willingly abdicate their share in the birthright and blessing that God bestowed upon the human race that came to us through the first Adam. So, knowing this, we are forewarned: The powers of Darkness have each one of us in their sights, beloved! They are doing their utmost to deceive and tempt us also, in the hope of blinding us to the Treasure God has already given, and fully restored for us through His beloved Son’s Perfect Finished Works of Creation, Redemption and Final Restoration. In Eternity all of that is already done, completed and Eternally in place! Now all that remains is for those of us who follow Him, to complete our earthly journey into the Eternal Fullness in Messiah that awaits us.
The Fullness of all that God Almighty is, is contained within His Living Word made flesh… Yeshua, our Messiah! And thanks to the Gift of His Holy Spirit and the Authority of the Blood of the Lamb that has sealed us into His Eternal Covenant Bond, God’s Living Word can, even now while we’re still en route to Eternity, live and operate, and fulfill His Father’s will and Plan in us and for us… in our name! He can now reveal Himself to the world around us as well! And thanks to what He has done to Perfection, in our name, we can now embrace and identify with our New Covenant birthright, identity and status… remaining united to God and His Fullness by the obedience of our faith. So even now, we can live out our role and commission as regenerated sons and heirs of our Heavenly Father, in this world, and also in Eternity!
So, while we’re still en route to Eternity, what are the powers of Darkness always doing? They keep coming up with all sorts of ways to create illusory delights, distractions, tempting tidbits, and empty promises… to lure us off and away from the God-given Blood Covenant Ground our Messiah has already won back for us! They dangle all of that attractive-looking, glittery bait before us… hoping to capture our attention with their alluring bait and keep us unaware of the deadly sharpened hooks that are always concealed within it! If we allow ourselves to go for their bait, we too will foolishly let go of what God has given us. And many are doing that very thing, continuing to snap at the baited hooks the predators keep dangling in front of them because of how much ‘better’ and eminently more ‘real’ they seem to be in comparison to what God has said He already provided for us in and through His beloved Son.
The ploys of the predators remind me of the fable of the dog who was walking along the bank of a still pond one day. In his mouth he carried a very delectable and real bone. And at one point, while he was walking along the shore, he happened to look into the water and he saw his reflection. Of course he noticed ‘another dog’ being reflected in the water that was looking back at him. And that dog in the reflection also had a bone in his mouth! And it appeared to be so delectable, that the real dog forgot all about the bone he already had! So… he dropped the real bone into the water so he could go after the reflection he saw before him. And, needless to say, he got his face all wet, lost his real bone, and ended up with nothing… nothing but frustration and disappointment because… you can never achieve real results… by relying on false, non-existent ingredients!
This is exactly what happened to our first parents. They believed the Serpent and went for the ‘bill of goods’ he dangled before their beguiled eyes… and they immediately lost everything that God had previously given to them:
“The serpent said to the woman, “You most assuredly won’t die! For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Now the woman (who consulted her own naïve, unsuspecting perspective and understanding, ignored God’s Word, and thus she) saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a thing of lust for the eyes, and that the tree was desirable for imparting wisdom. So she took of its fruit and she ate. She also gave to her husband who was with her and he ate (and as soon as they rejected their True Source of Life, God’s Word, Death entered into them).
“Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they knew that they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made for themselves loin-coverings. And they heard the sound of Adonai Elohim going to and fro in the garden in the wind of the day. So the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of Adonai Elohim in the midst of the Tree of the garden.” (Genesis 3: 4-8 TLV, Amplification and emphasis added)
Yes, after they had taken the bait and fallen into total deception, THEN, (God’s Word tells us) ‘their eyes were opened’. They suddenly realized they had been grossly deceived… duped into giving up their God-given Birthright Treasure! But for what? They relinquished the Treasure they had been given for a vain, empty puff of smoke. Vanity, emptiness, and bitter disappointment and desolation are all that the Serpent ever has to offer to the naïve, gullible humans that believe his lies! And, that’s why Esau sobbed and grieved when he realized he had been duped by his brother Jacob into giving up the God-given blessing that his father Isaac was fully intending to impart to him!
Once God’s birthright is given, it is irrevocable! So after the Serpent stole humanity’s birthright, God took the necessary steps to make it possible for the birthright to be restored to us! So all that we humans can do now is to wait upon our Creator in helpless dependence. Now we must look to ‘the Seed of the woman’ to appear in our lives and come to our rescue. Only He can redeem and restore the Treasure we so foolishly allowed our enemies to usurp. And this is why the Gospel always begins with this first step: REPENTANCE!
“If they sin against You—for there is no man that does not sin—and You become angry with them and deliver them to the enemy, and their captors carry them away captive to the land of the enemy, far off or near, yet if they take it to the heart in the land which they have been carried captive, and they REPENT and make supplication to You in the land of their captors, saying: ‘We have sinned, we have committed iniquity, we have acted wickedly,’ and they RETURN to You with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their enemies who carried them into exile, and pray to You toward their land that You gave to their fathers, the city that You have chosen and the House which I have built for Your Name, then hear their prayer and their supplication in Heaven Your dwelling place, maintain their cause, and forgive Your people who have sinned against You as well as all their transgressions they have transgressed against You, and grant them mercy before their captors…” (1 Kings 8:46-50 TLV, Emphasis added)
Beloved, after we realize that we’ve squandered our birthright… if we wholeheartedly repent of what we’ve done, corporately and individually, and if we turn to God’s Living Word and allow Him to fulfill the promise God made in our name, He will crush the Serpent’s head in so far as we’re concerned, and return to us what we’ve lost. And He will restore to us our true identity, birthright and Heavenly status!
So, consider well that bitter trail our first parents and all the rest of us have had to follow until now. That trail has led us into total catastrophic disaster and bitter remorse! And that dreadful state of deprivation is what the Cross is meant to strip away from us! The Cross is the Gateway to a new and Eternal Life with God… it is the instrument that kills our radically independent, rebellious Self-life, and makes it possible for us to become reconciled to God so that we may abide with Him forever as beloved members of His Personal Family!
So the question arises: What should Adam and Eve have done while the Serpent was tempting them to turn their backs on God? What would have been the proper response to the Serpent as he was doing everything he could to beguile, deceive, and rob them of what God had created and empowered and commissioned them to be, and to have, and to do?
“Now, O Israel, listen and pay attention to the statutes and the judgments (God’s legal decisions) which I am teaching you to do, so that you may live and go in and take possession of the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you. You shall not add to the Word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it, so that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I am commanding you. Your eyes have seen what the Lord did at Baal-peor; for all the men who followed [and participated in the worship of] Baal of Peor, the Lord your God destroyed them from among you…” (Deuteronomy 4:1-3 AMP, Emphasis added)
“Adonai saw, and He spurned His sons and His daughters out of vexation. He said, “I will hide My face from them, I want to see their hereafter.
“For they are an upside down generation, children with no faithfulness in them. They made Me jealous with a non-god. They vexed Me with airy idols. So I will make them jealous with a non-people. With a foolish nation I will vex them.” (Deuteronomy 32:19-21 TLV)
“For thus says Adonai Elohim, the Holy One of Israel:
“By repentance and rest you are saved, in quietness and trust is your strength—but you were not willing.” But you said, “No, we will flee on horses!”
“Therefore you will flee. And, “We will ride on swift horses!” Therefore your pursuers will be swift. A thousand will flee at the threat of one, at the threat of five you will flee, until you are left like a flag on the top of a mountain, and like a banner on a hill.
“Therefore Adonai is longing to be gracious to you. Thus He will be exalted, so He may have mercy on you. For Adonai is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for Him.” (Isaiah 30:15-18 TLV, Emphasis added)
Beware Of The Current Last Days Snares
The deadly attractive and persuasive pull of the current Last Days traps and snares that beckon to us so alluringly are being set before us from every direction! We encounter them everywhere we look! Technological advancement is multiplying and intensifying them and packing our spheres of awareness with more and more opportunities to make misguided, alien, alternate, and spiritually fatal choices! And, to many people, they appear to be utterly convincing and irresistible. The cheap substitutes the dark powers dangle before us are made to look and sound equal to, or much better than, what God promised to provide for us. They promise to endow us with ultimate levels of ‘upgraded humanity’ while they scoff at the revelation of God’s Gift of Future Resurrection upon which He has cautioned us to place the trust, hope and expectations of our hearts!
Our Heavenly Father told us to remain totally focused upon His beloved Son, and the Perfect Finished Works of Creation, Redemption, and Restoration that He has already accomplished in our name! And this is why our demonic enemies scoff at what He has said in His Word, and they deride and ridicule it as so much ‘Pie in the sky’… in the hope of persuading us to agree with them and join them as they continue to reject, ignore, and bypass our Savior and Redeemer.
The enemies of God’s Word promise that they will lead us into vast new panoramas of heretofore unimagined and unexplored vistas of a glorious, alternate, kind of Man-made ‘eternal life’. They promise freedom, total cures for cancer, diabetes, heart attacks and all other forms of sickness, pain, and suffering. They’re doing everything possible to get us to forget the fact that Death is already inexorably at work within us! The inescapable Truth is that we’re already dead! Death was already in us at conception!
But the demonic predators keep mislabeling that death; they call it ‘temporal life, and they promise that very soon they’ll be able to upgrade it into a man-made kind of ‘eternal life’! They promise that, with the new technologies that are already being developed and perfected, we’ll soon be able to extend our so-called ‘lives’ forever! Thus, by promising to equal and surpass what God promised to give us, they hope that, just like our first parents, we too will be persuaded to drop the ‘Resurrection Bone’ we already have in our possession… in favor of the false, holographic, substitute, counterfeit they are projecting to our fallen, Sin-corrupted perceptions, and inner considerations.
“Because you listened to your wife’s voice and ate of the tree which I commanded you, saying, ‘You must not eat of it’:
“Cursed is the ground because of you—with pain will you eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles will sprout for you. You will eat the plants of the field, by the sweat of your brow will you eat food, until you return to the ground, since from it were you taken. For you are dust, and to dust will you return.” (Genesis 3: 17-19 TLV)
Yes, we’re being tempted continually… tempted to ignore God’s Word, and disregard His promise to ‘upgrade’ our fallen humanity by the total transformation He promises to give us through our Resurrection. Our enemies are desperately striving to convince us that we don’t need what the God of the Bible offers because Man is quickly approaching the point when we will be able to create our own reality, and our own new kinds of created beings will supply us with everything we want and need, on our own terms! But beloved… don’t fall for that tripe! The enemy can’t make Death release the grip it already has on us! Only the Cross of Repentance that our Creator supplies for us is able to kill our state of Death! And only the Resurrection Reality that only our Messiah can supply, will bring us into True Eternal Life!
Please wake up to the fact that our demonic enemies don’t care a fig about you and me! All they care about is providing whatever they can amass for themselves, and making sure they acquire and maintain total prominence and control over the masses of ‘lesser’ beings that they hold in total contempt! They intend to monopolize all the resources and seize whatever power and authority there is to be had in this world… for themselves! Our demonic enemies want to enslave and maintain total control over all the children of first Adam, in order to prevent the Last Adam from fulfilling His Father’s Plan to utterly defeat and consign God’s demonic enemies to eternal perdition! So, naturally,… they’re doing whatever they can to destroy us… in order to try to save themselves from what God has already told them is the inevitable ‘Lake of Fire’ that awaits them!
This is why they’re so desperate to totally deceive and overcome us! Their last hope is to persuade us to abdicate and turn over full ownership of our God-given Birthright and Blessing… to them! And if they can get all mankind to abdicate its God-given Redemption, Salvation and Restoration, then God’s Living Word won’t be able to fulfill His Father’s Plan and Promises and Covenant Oaths; and God won’t be able to fulfill and back up the promises He gave through His Word, to save, purify, and restore His Creation! That is their vain hope and the object that fear and desperation keep driving them to try to accomplish. So I urge us all to ignore the deadly bait they keep using to try to beguile you and captivate your attention!
“When Esau heard his father’s words, he shouted with an intensely bitter groan. Then he said to his father, “Bless me, me too, my father!”
Then he said, “Your brother came deceitfully and took your blessing.” (Genesis 27:34-35 TLV)
Beloved friends… no fallen human flesh, regardless of how ‘brilliant’ or scientifically ‘gifted’ he or she may claim to be, will ever be able to outthink, outgive, or come up with a better plan for us than our Infinitely Perfect and Wise Creator has already provided for us! No created being, angelic or human, will ever be able to outdo the Lord on any level nor will any creature, or group of creatures, surpass Him in understanding, reasoning, perceiving, and comprehending all there is to see and know! God has warned us repeatedly that we are not to allow ourselves to be duped and misled by our human pride and abysmal limitations and grossly arrogant assumptions!
“Seek Adonai while He may be found, call on Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous one his thoughts, let him return to Adonai, so He may have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways.” It is a declaration of Adonai. For as the heavens are higher than earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.
“For as the rain and snow come down from Heaven, and do not return there without having watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to sow and bread to eat, so My Word will be that goes out from My mouth. It will not return to Me in vain, but will accomplish what I intend, and will succeed in what I sent it for!” (Isaiah 55:6-11 TLV, Emphasis added)
“For, all humanity is like grass, and all its glory like a wildflower. The grass withers, and the flower falls off, but the Word of the Lord endures forever. And this is the Word that was proclaimed as Good News to you!” (1 Peter 1:24-25 TLV, Emphasis added)
Discerning Truth From Lies Is An Essential Weapon of War
People are being blinded and duped on many levels; and they’re being lured into some very dark, demonic pursuits! They are falling for the spiels of some extremely nice-sounding, but spiritually malevolent and sinister hucksters! Please don’t allow them to blind and enchant the eyes and ears of your spirit! That accursed radically independent Self-life utopia they keep harping about is an empty lie. None of it contains even a speck of Truth and Reality! Fallen, Sin-ridden, mortal creatures will never be able to deliver all the glorious-sounding pipe dreams that these demonic predators continually promise to fulfill for us! They are just as dead and bankrupt, spiritually speaking, as anyone else among us is. And they too are just as desperately in need of salvation as the rest of the human race has been, save for One… the Son of Man!
“He also spoke this parable to them: “The blind cannot show the way to the blind, can he? Won’t they both fall into a pit? A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher.
“Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the beam in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take out the speck in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the beam in your own eye? You hypocrite! First take the beam out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly the speck in your brother’s eye, to take it out.”
“For there is no good tree that produces rotten fruit, nor again does a rotten tree produce good fruit. Each tree comes to be known by its own fruit. For figs are not gleaned out of briars; neither are bunches of grapes gathered from thorn bushes.
“Out of the good treasure of his heart the good man brings forth good, and out of evil the evil man brings forth evil. For from the overflow of the heart his mouth speaks.”
“Why do you call Me ‘Master, Master’ and do not do what I say? Everyone who comes to Me and hears My words and does them, I will show you what he is like. He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid a foundation on the rock. And when a flood came, the torrent burst against that house but could not shake it, because it had been well built.
“But the one who hears yet does not do is like a man who built a house upon land without a foundation. When the torrent burst against it, immediately it collapsed—and the destruction of that house was great!” (Luke 6: 39-49 TLV, Emphasis added)