THE ONGOING REVELATION OF GOD OR GROWING IN HIS KNOWLEDGE
As we look at the Presence of God, we realize that there is the Person of God. The Person of God is not something that we can know in an instant. We know God progressively. Even if we go to home to be with the Lord, we won’t know God all at once.
What we want to know is how such can we know about Him. To what extent we can receive the revelation of God while on this planet earth and if there are any conditions, what will it involve before God reveals Himself. Looking at Abraham's life as the model.
First Revelation to Abraham
Genesis 12: 1 Now the Lord had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, from your family, and your father's house, to a land I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great. And you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and I will curse those who curse you. And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.'
Acts 7:2-3, this is Stephen in his preaching, 'And he said, 'Brethren and fathers, listen: The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran, 'and said to him, 'Get out of your country and from your relatives, and come to a land that I will show you.'
From verse 2 and 3, we gathered that this was a first time that God revealed to Abraham. He said very clearly in verse 2, before he went to Haran, while he was in Mesopotamia. As you look back it Genesis 11:31-32 And Terah took his son Abram and his grandson Lot, the son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, his son Abram's wife, and they went out with them from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to the land of Canaan; and they came to Haran and dwelt there. So the days of Terah were two hundred and five years, and Terah died in Haran.'
So Genesis 12:1 was a revelation of God in Haran. Acts 7:2&3 was a revelation of God before Haran. So by the time we read the story in Genesis 12:1&2, this was the second time that God had appeared to Abraham. God had already appeared to him in Genesis I1 although it was not recorded. But Acts 7:2&3 gives us a background to tell us that God already revealed Himself to Abraham before he reached Haran. Genesis 12:1 is in Haran. Acts 7:2&3 was before Haran. But here is a peculiar thing even though this was a second appearance of God to him; it was a same level of revelation. God did not reveal more of Himself. He only revealed the same measure of His revelation to Abraham. This was just a first measure that God revealed. He was a God of Glory. He revealed Himself to Abraham as a God of Glory, telling him to leave his kin and all his idols and his homeland that he has been familiar with. And go forth into a land that he has never known.
This is a second time that He repeated to him. No fresh revelation, just a repeated revelation. Revelation is progressive. If we do not obey the first revelation, we could have the second encounter with God but it is still the first revelation. Many times people block the revelation God has upon their lives. Sometimes when you examine it very carefully, it is the same revelation but repeated three or four times. Why the repetition? They did not obey God. And God in His mercy repeated the same level of revelation. Now we are talking about knowing God and coming to this knowledge of God and intimate fellowship with God. Apparently, unless we are faithful to one level of God's revelation, we will never progress to the next. Even though a person may said, 'Oh, I have this revelation from Jesus and Jesus repeated this to me the second or the third time. It's nothing fresh! It’s just that we possibly have been not obeying fully.
Second Revelation to Abraham
However, the second repetition of the first revelation, Abraham obeyed. He obeyed God. And in the Book of Genesis, Abraham's second encounter with God, there is a progression here. Genesis 13:8-12, ' So Abram said to Lot, 'Please let there be no strife between you and me, and between my herdsmen and your herdsmen; for we are brethren. Is not the whole land before you? Please separate from me. If you take the left, then I will go to the right; or, if you go to the right, then I will go to the left. And Lot lifted his eyes and saw all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere (before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah) like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt as you go toward Zoar. Then Lot chose for himself all the plain of Jordan, and Lot journeyed east. And they separated from each other. And Abram dwelt in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelt in the cities.
Verses 14-17, (This is the second appearance. of the Lord). 'And the Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from his: 'Lift your eyes now and look from the place where you are northward, southward, eastward, and westward; for all the land which you see I give to you and your descendants forever. And I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth; so that if a man could number the dust of the earth, then your descendants also could be numbered. Arise, walk in the land through its length and its width, for I give it to you.'
This was a second revelation of God to Abram. Notice something peculiar before God revealed Himself. He waited until Abraham obeyed God 100%. Because God's earlier revelation was 'Abram, you must leave your kinfolks behind.' And Abraham possibly obeyed 90"%. He had left his kinfolks of his father's side and he had left a lot of those people he had known but he took with him Lot who was included among those he was to leave behind. If you understand what God was saying to him in Gen. 12, God meant everybody. The only person Abraham was allowed to take was himself and his family. So Abraham's obedience was partial, perhaps 90%. God did not say another word to him nor revealed Himself further to Abraham. He waited and waited. Sometimes, when you obeyed God 90%, the 10% of disobedience will give you enough trouble so that you have to do something about that. Not because God has anything to do with it but because those are the opportunity the devil takes. Any inch you can give to the devil, he will take it. The 10% of disobedience cause trouble until he had no choice but to obey but there was a delay. Finally, he obeyed and God revealed Himself - second revelation.
Third revelation of God to Abraham
This third revelation is interesting in Genesis 14, the condition is based on Chapter 14. To draw analogies here to show that there is an act of obedience before each revelation. No matter how much you prayed for revelation, you could attend a thousand seminars and if you do not obey God, you will not receive much. Even though the seminars could progressively be teaching deeper truths from God, you could sit in a deep meeting and only get 5%. It is not just what we have heard previously that will be based on our knowledge of God but it is based on how much we have obeyed what God is speaking in His rhema to our lives. What is He telling us to do? There is a certain blockage that will always be there, even if you go to different meetings as long as you don't obey God. It will cause you to have a blind spot or a deaf spot in your spirit so you can't hear the additional revelation until you obeyed the first.
Before Abraham moved into the 3rd revelation that God brought upon his life, the encounter that God has in Chapter 14, something happened in his life. He had three encounters and two revelations. His first two encounters was the first revelation. What will happen when we don't obey God we will stay where we are in our revelation and relationship with God.
Three encounters, two revelations. Before his 3rd revelation, Abraham moved into something fresh. The first revelation was a revelation that he will be blessed. The reason why God asked his to be separated from his family was because the blessing can only come on him if he gets himself away from all those cursed idols. God refused to bless him as long as he compromised on idols. Terah, his father was an idol worshipper, you can read about that on Joshua 24. God will not bless him as long as he associate with all these idol worship. The first was a revelation that God was going to bless him.
The second was a revelation of prosperity. It's very obvious in Chapter 13 that it's prosperity, 'the length that you look, to the north, to the south, to the east, to the west, is yours. I want you to walk to the land and filled it, that's the land I give to you.' Abraham walks about in that land. The principle of God - you do not receive before you give. So as Abraham walked through the length and breadth of that land, he came to the climax of the second revelation. Finally towards the end, the fullness of his second revelation, he brought forth his tithes. He met Melchizedek, the Bible said in Genesis 14: 20 Melchizedek pronounced his blessing on Abraham "And blessed be God Most High, Who has delivered your enemies into your hand.' And he (Abraham) gave him a tithe of all.' So Abraham learned the key blessed to be a blessing!
Secondly the King of Sodom offered Abraham prosperity in the wrong way. And he said, No, I don't want it. I don't want to receive by your hand lest you said that you have made Abraham rich. Genesis 15:1 said, 'After these things....... After his experience of giving, after his experience with Melchizedek, after his refusal of what the King of Sodom offered to him, God gave him the third revelation. God does not reveal Himself to us until you have obeyed to the fullest the previous revelation. The revelation of God is progressive. God said in Genesis 15: I-2, 'Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.' But Abraham said to the Lord, 'Lord God, what will You give me, seeing I go childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?' Verse 4 And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, 'This one shall not be your heir, but one who will come from your own body shall be your heir.'
Notice the progression now in Abraham's relationship with God. His first revelation, all he heard was from God and he just had to obey. He learned obedience. His second, he learned to be faithful. Faithful with what God had blessed him with but in his third encounter with God, he had become more familiar with God. By this third encounter he dare talked to God. He spoke to God. He told God what was in his heart, which he didn't dare to do in the first encounter, or the second encounter or the third encounter. There's progression. Abraham's relationship with God grew. And he told God something that he desired. He said, 'God, here's my problem. At the moment I as childless.' God gave him more revelation. There is now dialogue. The third stage sure there's dialogue. In the dialogue, God gives additional revelation. God said, “One born of your own body shall be your heir not Eliezer of Damascus but one of your own.' And Abraham said, 'How will I know? This is a tremendous relationship. He now has a response from God. 'How would I know, O God that what You said is true?' He is not the same Abraham that you met at the first occasion. He is not the same Abraham that you met in the second revelation. He is now the Abraham who talks with God. And God said, verse 11 will show you., Abraham asked for an assurance. And God said, I will give you an assurance. Bring that sacrifice!' When he brought that sacrifice before God and God manifested His Presence in what you called a covenant keeping God, God's fire went between the animal in the Old Testament, a symbol of cutting a covenant.
From Chapter 15 onward, God's relationship with Abraham was on a intimate basis. In other words it was like in the first revelation that God had with Abraham, it was friendship. Just getting to know God. At the 2nd stage, the first stage is like two lovers been friends, getting to know each other still. Second stage now they are engaged. By the time you are engaged, you're confirmed. What you do is you plan for the third stage - the marriage. So the third revelation was a marriage. It was like a marriage. It was now a covenant that God had with Abraham. And that Abraham had with God. This is the third revelation of God. Each revelation brings a person to a greater knowledge of God but that's not the end of his relationship with God. After receiving the third revelation, Abraham fell away from God. This is the story of some Christians. They lose intimacy because they used their own power to try to keep the things of the Spirit. The works of the Spirit and not the works of the flesh must achieve the promises of the Spirit. And for the next 12 years, which is a long, long time, there was no revelation. God did not speak to Abraham at all. God was not happy. The next 12 years are known among Bible scholars as the 12 silent years of Abraham where he had no more revelation from God. That was when he fell and they got Ishmael and until Ishmael was 12 years old, he never had another vision. It's a long time.
Fourth Revelation of Abraham
In Genesis 17:1, 'When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him. This is the first occasion when he used the word like 'the Lord appeared to Abram.' Before that you have words like 'the Lord said', 'the Lord said', 'the Lord of Glory said to Abraham' and now it's 'the Lord appeared to him'. It's a different level.
At the fourth revelation what did Abraham do to deserve it like he did the other three times? Nothing! It was God remembering the covenant. Did anything happen in Abraham's life? Yes. During those 12 years, the works of the flesh died. There was no way in the flesh you could fulfill God's promise anymore and God waited until he reached that stage. If you compare all the New Testament scriptures it is very clear that God waited until he reach that stage. Romans 4:19, 'And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old) and the deadness of Sarah’s womb. Abraham's body was completely dead. He was sterile when he was 99, which was about 100 years old. Before that he had Ishmael. That is proof enough that by the time he reached 99 years old, he was not reproductive anymore. That fellow was still capable of producing children but God said, 'Alright, since he want the way of the flesh, he will wait.'
When Abraham was 99 years, his whole reproductive system was “knocked” out. God said, 'Now, I will show you.' God said, 'Hello, Abraham!' Now Abraham, old man said, 'Hi, God.' God said, 'Are you ready now?' 'Yes, Lord.' Finally. So sometimes you wonder. Before each revelation something happened either in obedience or you reached the point where you realized you need Him. Which is why sometimes God delayed showing Himself to people because we are too capable in our own ways. We say, 'God, we can do it.' God said, 'You can. Alright, I don't have to come down.' So God waits until we reached to the end of the flesh, the end of our intelligence, the end of our mind.
Do we need to do that? No, if we learned how to acknowledge God in all of our ways like David, to acknowledge that God is our strength, to acknowledge that God is our source. We don't have to reach that stage. When we reach that stage of not relying on the flesh anymore, God shows up. Abraham had nobody to depend on but God. By this time God appeared in Genesis 17:2, 'And I will make My covenant between Me and you, (God remembers the covenant) and will multiply you exceedingly.' This was nothing new God already told him that in the third revelation. But you could see that the third revelation did not really catch a hold on him because when Abraham heard, 'You will multiply me,' Abraham laughed, 'Ho, ho, ho, ho! And he did not laugh because he believes. In Genesis 17: 3 Abraham fell on his face - not under the power but under laughter. When God said that to him earlier in the third revelation, he did not laugh but when God showed the fourth revelation that He is going to do it now, Abraham laughed because he knows that it is impossible. Totally impossible! And then God told him in verses 9&10, 'As for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations. This is My covenant which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: Every male child among you shall be circumcised.'
So because Abraham did not fully fulfill the third revelation when God appeared the fourth time, He had to repeat something in the third and gave him an act to show his obedience. God said, 'Alright, I want you do this part of your covenant,' to show his obedience to God. When God spoke to Abraham in these areas or circumcising all the male children, this time Abraham obeyed God. When he obeyed God, immediately in Genesis 18, you have the fourth revelation again. Actually the fourth one you saw was the third repeated, we are a little bit at the 4th. God did not go any further; He just repeated the covenant. So even though you see the fourth, it was still the third. He repeated about children; He repeated His promises but He did not mention any thing deeper than that.
Then now in the next chapter 18, which was supposed to be the fifth revelation but it is still a repeat of the fourth revelation. Abraham appeared, this is the 4th and he really moved deeper. Verse l, 'Then the Lord appeared to him by the terebinth trees of Mamre, as he was sitting in the tent door.' Now is different, Abraham had obeyed God. There's something different. There are a lot of things that Abraham had done. He had changed his name. He had circumcised the male children as the Lord told him. He had changed Sarai’s name and that was a very difficult thing for them to do when you are old. It's understandable when you are young, you are just about to launch out in life. It's understandable when people changed their names when they launch into a career. They take on a name that they feel it sounds better. Or when a person is already old and everything is under their old names. Their servants know them by that name and he must have a hundreds of servants and he has to tell them, 'Well now, my name is changed.’ It's not something easy that God gave him to do. God gave him a hard job to do. But God has to test him and prove him now.
Why does God require that? Abraham was not fully faithful to the 3rd revelation, so it was repeated until he fulfilled it. When he fulfilled it God appeared very fast. This time when God appeared there was something extra. In verse 6, 'Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah and said, “Quickly, make ready three measures of fine meal; knead it and make cakes.” He quickly welcomed the Lord in. He's a different man now. He got everything ready. In verse 10 God repeats the promise about their child, “I will certainly return to you according to the time of life, and behold, Sarah your wife shall have a son.” (Sarah was listening in the tent door which was behind him.) Verse 12, Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, “After I have grown old, shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?” Sarah was still laughing, her faith was not developed yet and God said in verse 14, 'Is anything too hard for the Lord”
Here is something extra in the fourth revelation, V17, 'Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing?' This is a new relationship that God has with him. God was on a project, executing one of His acts of judgment and He happened to be with Abraham and He said, 'Shall I hide from Abraham what I want to do? No, I won't. I will let Abraham into what I want to do.' In other words God is saying, I will tell Abraham some of My secrets. Some of the things I will not normally tell.’ There's a progressive revelation of God. Now Abraham's walk with God had reached the fourth stage. The fourth revelation has grown and the relationship he had with God is now very much deeper, after his lessons.
And God said to Abraham about Sodom and Gomorrah in verse 20, 'Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great.’ There are few other things that God mentioned too about Abraham. Verse 19, ‘For I have known him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice, that the Lord may bring to Abraham what He has spoken to him.'
In other word, God said that I know Abraham. What kind of person he is. He will instruct his children all after Me. God knows Abraham and Abraham knows God. This is the fourth level of revelation. God said, 'Abraham, by the way, these are some things I am going to do.' Notice that in the prophets, it tells us that God shows His prophets what He wants to do. Why should He? He's not talking about any common prophets. He's talking about people who walk with Him after the 4th revelation. You won’t get into the secrets of God until you walked into the fourth revelation with God, where you obeyed God to a certain extent, kept His word, kept His promises and God reveals Himself.
By now Abraham also had more authority to function. It is in this very chapter that you see Abraham interceding and praying. “God, what happened if there are 50 righteous, would you spare the city?' God said, 'Yes.' And Abraham vent down the line in his intercession until he was left with 10. While all this thing was happening, something else took place. The revelation of God, all the time is progressive.
Even the Apostle Paul himself realized that the revelations of God are progressive. Towards the end, a certain part or time of his ministry, he said in the book of Philippians that he may know Him and the power of His resurrection. In other word, there is so such more to know about Jesus, so such more to pursue about God. He realized he does not know everything about God. There is so such more and the book of Ephesians 4:11-13 tells us that the 5-fold ministry perfect the church for the fullness of the knowledge of Jesus Christ to grow to the full stature. That means that we are progressing to the full stature and the full knowledge of Him. Knowledge is progressive but it is not automatically progressive. It's progressive individually. That is why when some people come to know God and obey God, they seem to grow at a faster pace than others.
It doesn't mean that you all come to know Jesus Christ in 2018 and by 2020 everyone will grow at the same level. At the end of 1980 some may still be in first stage or some maybe in fourth stage. Every one of us have a progression. There is a timing that God reveals Himself and God may delay the revelation of Himself if there is disobedience, if there is a lack of faithfulness, if there is a lack of the application of the previous revelation that He has given to us. It will delay because He cannot give anymore. Just like Abraham, obeying 90%. God won't do anything until the 10% is adhered to. A 100% obedience must come forth and that is one of the reasons why very few people see visions and revelations today even though the Bible prophesied that the Holy Spirit will pour upon all flesh and it should be as common to people and among Christians as it was in the Book of Acts, as it were in the time of the Prophets. The vast majority of people still are struggling at either level I or level 2 and they are not obedient to God.
So God never reveal more of Himself. So is there any limit? There's a certain limit you can know of God. How did Elijah reach that stage? Not immediately! Elijah also had progressions. The first stage of Elijah, he was just a man of prayer but Elijah walked so much with God, he progressed in revelation with God and he walked so closely with God that being with God and seeing God was a common thing to him. It was as if he was with the angels of God. When it was close to the time that Elijah was about to go home, he had reached such a progression of revelation of God that it was even dangerous what he said. When the soldiers came for him, they said, 'Man of God, come down.' He said, “If I am a man of God, let fire come down!' And they were burnt. He didn't even pray. He walked so close with God that what he said just came to pass and it seems that he was conscious. I could visualize in my spirit that he was conscious of the angel with him. On the third occasion the angel said, “Go down.' Then only he went down. Even before that you hear his made statements that he is Elijah who stands in the Presence of God. So he had reached such a progression of revelation of God that he just fully launched into it. He just loved God's Presence.
That's the stage that we will reached where the dimension of the things in the Spirit are common to us, where the dimensions of the things of the Spirit are easily entered into so that almost every time you pray, you are in the Spirit realm. I am not talking about things that should be strange to us. There are people who do walk with God to that extent. There are people who walked that close with God. And we need to understand that it all comes by progression but the closer you walked with God, the more threat you are to the devil, the more dangerous you are too. And the more you withdraw from people.
You notice that at the first level, you got to learn how to break the ties in your life that you are no more a child of the soil, you are child of the Spirit. You learn to differentiate between the things of your flesh, your kinsfolk, which are your flesh and the things of your spirit. At the second level you learn to handle the things of this life, the land is given to you and that's the skill we have to learn. The first thing we have to learn is that we are spirit and not flesh. That's hard for people to take. We are spirit, we are born of the Spirit. The flesh is nothing and you leave all the things of the flesh behind.
The second level of learning is learning how to handle the things of this life and yet without becoming worldly so that the things are used but they are not possessing your life, your soul, like pulling you down. It's gravitational force pulling down back into this earth. A lot of people failed even at the second stage.
The third level is where you have a special covenant and contract with God. The third level is when you discovered God's perfect will for your life. You know it like the back of your hand. A covenant relationship implies you know exactly what God wants you to do. Then it's a covenant; you know what is God's full plan for your life. So you entered into the third level and you know like the back of your hand - what is your destiny. Abraham knew his destiny by the third stage, it took him some time but he discovered the third stage.
By the fourth progression, your knowledge of God is such that God shows you mysteries. Mysteries because there are a lot of things that are not for this earth, not even for sharing but personally for you. He shows you His secret, like Paul said, you are not allowed to share.
So the fourth revelation, a lot of things also start taking in Abraham’s life. His physical body even starts changing. It never changed in the first stage, second stage and third stage. At the fourth revelation, his physical body take on a new dimension. We all know that in the Book of Genesis 17, he was still an old man, sterile, half-dead. The Bible itself said, his body was dead. So he was a walking coffin. Romans 4. But somehow the revelation of God transforms his body. See there's something about this fourth stage of revelation that it does something to your whole being. Transformed from glory to glory!
