The Call of the Trumpets: A Wake-Up Call to the End Time Generation

By Adriaan Lens Van Rijn

What is really going to happen at the End of the Age?

This revelatory book will be of great help to understand the hidden meanings in the prophetic books of the Bible, especially the book of the Revelation of Saint John.

It will help us to prepare for the days ahead.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Nov 28, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499034950

Adriaan Lens Van Rijn

The author was born in Indonesia in 1940, grew up in the Netherlands, emigrated and lived in various countries including Canada, where he became a born-again believer. In 1985, he emigrated to Australia, and during the second half of 1995, the author had many visions, some of which are mentioned in the appendix. From January till June 1996, he received daily revelations about the end-times, which resulted in this book, and the time has now come for this honest and challenging account to be published.

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Copyright © 2014 by Adriaan Lens Van Rijn.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Unless otherwise noted, the scripture references are taken from The AUTHORIZED (KING JAMES) VERSION

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 01/02/2015

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgement

BOOK I

Introduction: Why We Must Be Born Again

Chapter 1: The Trumpet Calls

Chapter 2: Adam and Isaac

Chapter 3: The Blindness of the Pharisees

Chapter 4: Joseph and the Bride

Chapter 5: The Lord Jesus Christ

Chapter 6: The Book of the Seven Seals

Chapter 7: The Four Beasts

Chapter 8: The First Seal

Chapter 9: The Second Seal

Chapter 10: The Third Seal

Chapter 11: The Fourth Seal

Chapter 12: The Fifth Seal

Chapter 13: The Sixth Seal

Chapter 14: The Seventh Seal

Chapter 15: The Millennium

Chapter 16: The Four Temples of God

Chapter 17: Where Have All the Christians Gone?

Chapter 18: Until Death Do Us Part

BOOK II

Chapter 19: The Scene of the Harvest

Chapter 20: The Woman in the Sky

Chapter 21: The Seven-Headed Beast

Chapter 22: The Other Woman in the Sky

Chapter 23: Jesus and the Sickle

Chapter 24: As It Was in the Days of Noe

Chapter 25: The Four Arks

Chapter 26: The Visions and the Help

Appendix 1

Appendix 2

Appendix 3

Bibliography

Lo I am with you alway, even till the end of the age(Matt.28:20).

‘When they fall, they shall be holpen with a little help.’ (Dan.11:34)

Jesus is our shield and exceeding great reward and our way through the tribulations.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I want to acknowledge my wife Zaidee and thank her for putting this book in type from a hand written manuscript, and for the many hours of editing and proof reading.

BOOK I

INTRODUCTION

Why We Must Be Born Again

In John 3:3, Jesus said to Nicodemus, who came to visit him at night, that unless a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.

In verse 6, He explains further that unless a man be born of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

In our Pentecostal churches, we have built a shrine around these two Scriptures. Many people have come to the Lord on the principle of being born again, and rightly so, but is that all that these Scriptures allude to?

I am reminded of another verse, where Jesus uses two parables to illustrate a point:

‘No man puts a piece of new cloth on an old garment, for that which is put in to fill it up taketh from the garment, and the rent is made worse’. (Matt. 9:16)

And Matthew 9:17 says, ‘Neither do man put new wine into old bottles [Or, more precise, wine skins]; else the bottles break, and the wine runs out, and the bottles perish: but they put new wine into new bottles and both are preserved.’

When Jesus speaks of wine in parables, He means revelation. The bottles that contain this revelation therefore are the people who received the revelation, or as we often have it, doctrine.

Jesus shared these two parables with the disciples of John the Baptist, who confronted Him on the point that his disciples did not fast like them and the Pharisees.

He is indicating to them that it was not possible for them to conceive that things could change and be different from the customs that they had adopted as tradition.

There is a whole world of thought that is encapsulated in these four Scriptures mentioned above.

It implies that, under normal circumstances, we cannot make ourselves pliable enough to accept new revelation as truth, when this contradicts our accepted customs and doctrines.

We have to come to the realization that Jesus had only one group of enemies: the Pharisees. There were no confrontations recorded between Him and the Romans, nor the normal Jewish people. It was only with the Pharisees and the Sadducees that He caused such violent reactions that they ultimately were responsible for Him being murdered by their false accusations.

Jesus accused these people due to the fact that they and their fathers were responsible for the deaths of the prophets of God whom they had murdered from Abraham until His day.

These people were the church leaders, and they had made themselves responsible for bringing the Word of God to the people. They were not necessarily Levitical priests either; they were a religious sect, but as such they considered themselves the elite, who had all the understanding of the Scriptures and knew all the doctrines, and their whole existence revolved around teaching their personal interpretations and traditions to the people. In many ways, their interpretations were so bound up in traditions that the value of God’s word became powerless.

When God wanted to get the attention of these leaders, He normally raised up a man who grew up in some wilderness, unpolluted by the doctrines and traditions of the Pharisees, whom He instructed in His ways and word, and then sent him to the rulers with his message from the Lord.

The things this man was then proclaiming cut right through the traditions these religious leaders had been teaching the Jewish people and so they were exposed as false teachers.

They were interested not in hearing the truth but in taking revenge on the messenger who threatened to upstage them.

Moses came out of the wilderness, so did Elijah. Elisha was not connected to the priesthood. John the Baptist grew up in the desert. Jesus himself was not part of the priesthood and grew up in an obscure village.

What Jesus is saying to these disciples of John the Baptist simply is, because they had accepted John’s teaching as the new thing, they themselves had now become unable to accept a later thing, even though it was the better of the two.

Jesus said to Nichodemus, ‘Unless a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.’ I believe that in the above verse Jesus means that we must be born again whenever He requires it, in order for us to be able to see the new thing that He wants to reveal to His people.

And unless we are born of water, and of the spirit, we cannot enter into the new thing that He wants for us. We are required many times to go through the process of baptism to leave some old tradition or teaching behind, and come out with a virginal mind, so that He can put His new revelation into us and make us ready for His next purpose.

This is especially so when new revelations go against the practices and traditions we have accepted as truth and have become used to. Just as then, Jesus uses people today whom He raised up outside the church traditions and whom He has educated Himself through the Holy Spirit. These people are new wineskins, which are pliable. They have no problem with the new teaching because for them all is new, and so they can handle it without bursting.

They are then sent into the churches, where they cause a lot of problems for the leaders, not because what they proclaim is wrong, but because they are seen to undermine the authority of the church leadership. Often the hierarchy smothers them until they conform to the rest or they are moved out of the church.

The problem now is as it ever was: we do not want to accept a new teaching. We hate change.

In 1996, I had a strange vision. I was in Queensland, Australia, and I saw in a vision a lush green meadow, with some tall trees along the perimeter. A lovely little creek was running through the midst of it with crystal clear water, but in the creek, piranhas were hiding.

I asked the Lord what was the meaning of this dream, and after a few days I received the explanation: The meadow is the church, where the sheep come to feed. The tall trees are the leadership of the church, to provide shelter and protection. The creek is the channel that brings the water, which is God’s word.

The piranhas are false teachings, which bite and numb the sheep when they come to drink from the water. These teachings have infiltrated our Christian churches throughout the ages, wrapped in doctrine and traditions, which seem good, or were probably good at the time, but now prevent the people from receiving the unpolluted message God has for them through His word.

The Lord then proceeded to give me an example in a new vision.

He showed me a railway track leading in a straight line to the horizon. A steam engine was on the track followed by a coal wagon, and then came the wagons themselves. The Lord showed me that this is the church. The engine is the leader, whose vision is on the future, unwavering and straight. The coal wagon represents the resources of the church, needed to reach the destiny, and the wagons represent the people who all follow the leader. The Lord showed me that in these churches, the most used word is UNITY.

Then He showed me what real unity is:

I saw a school of fish in the sea. One moment they were like a ball of fish, packed together. Then suddenly a stream would flow out of them, the ball would spread out, dive, resurface, and contract again. He showed me the same thing in a flock of galas (or starlings) flying through the sky: diving one moment, then swerving to the left and then to the right. They suddenly spread out, and then they contract again, without understandable logic to make anticipation of the moves possible. The Lord said to me: Watch these. You see, there is no leader. They follow an invisible leader. This is what true unity is: when people are so close to the Lord that the Holy Spirit is their leader. They have no agenda and no plans. They have learned to flow with God’s Spirit and let Him direct them.

The other kind is uniformity. It is the fake and therefore it is of the enemy.

Our churches are controlled mostly by religion. Not by God. We spend almost all of our time teaching about God, about Jesus, about how to live, and about how to die. We are wrapped up in the latest things of healing, prosperity, apostles, and prophets, but there are few who can take us into the presence of God, because our teachers have not been there themselves, and therefore have no way of teaching others how to get there.

Therefore, God is still restricted to bring his revelations a bit at the time, through vessels capable of containing the new teaching when it is required.

That means that the church has one of two options: either they reject the new thing that the Lord is bringing or they allow their thoughts to be changed. This is what the true prophet of God has to do. That is his mandate and authority, which surpasses all human authority, especially that of the church leaders.

The following verse is his job description:

See I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down and to build and to plant. (Jer. 1:10)

Before God can build and plant new things in us, He has to totally destroy all the things that could come against what He wants to establish. This is the way He has to take, to make us into new wineskins that don’t burst with the new wine. This is why we have to be born again many times, in order to be able to receive more revelation from the Lord.

There is so much false teaching in the churches, and we cannot see it ourselves, because not only have we grown up with it, but also it has crept in from the days of the early church and has been perpetuated in Bible schools, leadership courses, and theological universities for many generations.

They have become so strong in us that we will be willing to die for them in defense.

Considering the excessive strong language God uses in dealing with these things, it is obvious that it is not an easy process. Destruction causes a lot of pain and confusion.

To have somebody come and kick against the holy shrines of our doctrine immediately causes very strong reactions in us, as we rise up in defense of them.

In the following pages, many different viewpoints will be shown, but if there is willingness in the reader to come to neutral ground and so give the new thoughts a chance to be formulated, there will be a great blessing. This is what Jesus meant when He spoke to the churches saying, ‘He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.’

Jesus is talking about spiritual ears, because only with spiritual ears can we hear spiritual words.

CHAPTER 1

The Trumpet Calls

History has shown us that almost always mankind has missed the moves of God. It would serve us well to ponder the question: Why is this so? It would appear that the most probable cause is that we use our human measuring stick. But we are human and influenced by sin. So when God says that His thoughts and ways are higher than ours, we take our measuring stick, which is our pride and our flesh, and we begin to measure with that. We forget that God’s measuring stick is humility—the opposite. So when God gives us a promise, we take our pride, and our flesh, we remember that God’s ways are higher, so we measure our desire and add a heap on top of that.

That is why the church leaders of the Jews did not recognize Jesus and misunderstood most of God’s intentions. The same applies to us.

The Lord is warning us that we may not recognize God’s move in the years ahead that are left to us.

We tend to expect great and spectacular things from God, because that is how we would do it, but God does things the opposite way. What we see as high, God sees as low. What we see low, God sees as high.

When we are in pride, God topples us. When we are humble in truth, He exalts us.

The humble way is God’s way; Jesus was the humblest man that lived, although he had all God’s power at his disposal, because he is God. Moses was the meekest man on earth: God spoke to him face to face, and he was allowed to see His glory.

When I began to realize these things, I came to the conclusion that all my preconceived ideas should be swept aside and that I should ask God for new understanding—His way. This led to my first discovery, after which I began to see more. Then I began to see a pattern and structure!

It reminded me of my days in Cape Town, South Africa, where I was shown an interesting rock during a session at the stone club there.

They called it ‘Duphrenite’ and told me it was a by-product of an old Manganese mine in the hills nearby. I made several fruitless trips up the mountain. I discovered the mine but could not see any of the rocks we really prized. The club members persuaded me, however, that there were lots more to be found, so, I made another fruitless trip. I made 5 fruitless trips in all, but the sixth time, I bent down and picked up this pebble-size rock full of dirt, but through the dirt, I recognized the specimen. Then I saw them all around me, and the reason I did not recognize them before was I had not considered the dirt covering them!

Once I knew how to look, I saw them everywhere. I made eleven trips in all and recovered much of the stone. In fact, I found a huge boulder, which I could not take with me, and finally, I discovered that above the mine entrance in the hill, there was a layer over a meter thick.

I was reminded of this when I started to look with different eyes, looking for explanations totally different from what I had been used to and willing to accept anything new at face value, until I could be certain it was wrong before rejecting it.

Then curtain after curtain started to lift, and I began to realize how we have fabricated doctrines and understanding in certain areas so different from God’s intentions.

Many people are aware, nowadays, that what is shown in the Old Testament in the physical is repeated in the New Testament in the spiritual, Jesus Himself being the dividing line.

As Paul said, the Old Testament was written as an example for us in the New Testament.

One of the things that cannot escape our notice is the frequent occurrence of the number 7 throughout the Bible.

But this factor seven is nowhere as prominent as in The book of the Revelation of John, (which I shall refer to as Revelation for ease of writing) and second, in the book of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, which deal with the feasts.

The three feasts, Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles, contain together seven events in the same sequence as the events of the book of Revelations, which starts with seven churches, seven spirits of God, the seven seals on the Lamb’s Book of Life, seven angels with seven trumpets, seven angels with seven vials. There are seven thunders, which John was forbidden to write. But there are more hidden away.

When I tried to understand the book of Revelation in the past, it felt like I was wading through a fog. The only part which I thought I understood was the seven churches.

I had read books on the subject but never felt convinced that the writer had something solid in his hands. Not long ago, however, I had the feeling that the seven seals, the seven trumpets, and the seven vials were depicting the same scene from three different viewpoints: The first one seen from heaven and the second and the third from different spiritual positions on earth. This understanding condensed the fog considerably, and understanding the seven seals solidified it to such an extent that I had the feeling I could almost get my hands around it.

I believe that the first key to understanding the book of Revelation is in a change of our attitude: We must…

1. Be willing to accept a different explanation if that is the truth or, rather, if we cannot prove that it is decidedly untrue, no matter if it seems scary or painful in the beginning.

2. Let go of all previous theories, such as rapture, the way in which Jesus is coming back, etc. and try to look at it again with a clear virginal mind, willing to seek the truth and accept it when found.

3. Accept the significance of something that is repeated many times.

4. Look spiritually, not physically.

5. Finally: God created laws and sequences, which He always follows Himself. Resist therefore any temptation to accept explanations that infringe on His laws, and resist the temptation to re-write God’s laws to suit our doctrines, thoughts and philosophies.

You will see that the sequence of the seven seals is repeated from the first day of creation, to the New Jerusalem.

God is always in the humble, unassuming things right before our eyes, and we miss it, because we have not learned to look with His eyes.

The days ahead will soon force us to abandon the religious structures we live in. We have today the choice to do so willingly and choose to go through the Jordan now, with Him as in the days of Joshua. Those who will not go willingly will find themselves soon forced to make a choice in the years ahead.

This book is what the title indicates: ‘The Call of the Trumpets’, which herald in the feast of the Tabernacles, the great feast of the harvest.

First comes the day of the Trumpets, which is the start of the feast, followed by ten days of soul-searching with burnt offerings, in other words, deep REPENTANCE.

Then the Day of Atonement, when the church is united with Christ in the Spirit, and with one another, just before He appears to us, and finally we celebrate the freedom in the Tabernacles—seven days—‘living with Jesus.’

The Vision

In October 1995 I was given a vision of a man standing on a flat circular rock with sharp jagged edges all around, like glass splinters, and about eight inches thick. The man was dressed in robes, not our modern clothes; they were robes like the Arabs wear and of a sandy color. His head and one shoulder were in the shadow, but I know that he was looking up. I know also, that the rock he stood on, which was hanging in mid air, was his faith.

A few weeks later, during the worship at church the vision returned, but now, there was, way down below, the dark outlines of a village in the night, with lights here and there behind a window.

Then I was given the interpretation, that the rock is our faith, and that we will only be able to stand on it, if we look up to Jesus, but if we look at our circumstances to the right or left, we will not be able to stand, and we will fall into the darkness below. But if we look to Jesus only, we will stand firm.

The victory in the days ahead is not in overcoming the circumstances of our lives, but in surrendering to God and obeying His will. Then He can and will take responsibility for our life, and then we can be at peace in the midst of the storm.

The rock is our faith, which has to be anchored in our sure knowledge, that we know that He loves us above all His creation, and that we are individually precious to Him.

Then we can look the times ahead clear in the eye, not with fear, but with confidence, peace and with great expectation. Also, God showed me that the time has come for us to put our Isaacs on the altar. This is the time of pre-selection of the church, the time when Gideon’s army is selected out of the church, to go and do battle for the freedom of the whole body. These are they who have conquered fear and replaced it with faith, because they have come to know Jesus personally, not by hearsay! Who have gone through the dry desert, where they have been scorched, dried out and parched for God’s love and with a deep and intense desire for God to use them in His plan and to fulfill their destiny.

These people have the ability to keep on listening and looking for signs of the enemy, even whilst they are drinking and are being filled. They don’t bend the knee, to lap like a dog, but lift up water to their mouth with their hands, whilst looking out for their enemy. These people shall not be taken unawares. These also know that it is impossible for them to defeat the enemy in their own strength. The numbers are insufficient, and their weapons consist of light and noise in the darkness at the given time. But the Revelations (torches) and the prophesies spoken (smashing the clay vessels) at that time will stir up panic in the enemy’s camp (demons) so that they will turn on each other in the confusion.

These people have been heavily tested. They will prefer their personal relationship with God above the security of their present life and will take the trip across the Jordan, however fearful for the unknown and hazy future ahead, learning to replace fear with faith.

When God in His own way (not according to our expectations), takes control over the circumstances of our life, He will shape us and mould us in the dry desert, where we often think that He has abandoned us. When we are just about ready to give up and go back, He gives us a drop of water and touches our hearts to let us know He is still there with us, to encourage us to move on and to keep going, teaching us perseverance.

This is the time when we are stripped of our pride and learn humility, where shame is cast off from us and replaced with the confident knowledge that we are truly the sons and daughters of God. And finally, He teaches us unity, watchful patience, and a clear ear to hear the signal to light up the torch and smash the vessels.

Make no mistake, the price is great! We may become homeless and lose our wealth. Our friends may abandon us; our family may think we are mad.

But the reward is Jesus, who provides for us wherever He sends us. He hides us in the cleft of the rock, behind His hand, in the midst of the storm, and whose peace shall be in our heart at all times. And hereby we will know whether we will be on the right track: ‘if we love our neighbors, as Jesus loves us.’

Be not dismayed, neither be afraid, press on, the prize is worth it.

CHAPTER 2

Adam and Isaac

In June 1995, I met a friend who shared with me how God had required of him to put his Isaac on the altar.

It was a shocking experience for me, because my friend related how he just about had the breakthrough that God had promised to him for years! He only needed to go to the bank and borrow the required amount and the promise was his, complete and fulfilled.

It did however bring him no joy, and struggling over this during the night, he felt the Lord ask him the following question:

‘Is it going to be YOU, ME, and the BANK? Or only YOU and ME?’

He realized the implication, and after an intense deep struggle, he conceded and said,

‘NO, LORD, ONLY YOU AND ME!’

And that left him to face an impossible situation that only God could handle.

I was not at all impressed to hear his story, because it struck a knife right through my heart.

You see, I had gone to see him, to share with him how I was finally going to get my breakthrough!

I had found a trustworthy partner, who was willing to put the necessary money into my real estate business, which relieved me in one fell swoop, of all my financial pressures. On top of it all, I received a contract that fell into my lap without any work to it, which seemed to be the cream on top, like the Lord was giving me a pat on the back for staying with it.

When my friend related his story, I could hear my Lord gently knocking on my heart, saying,

‘Do you hear what he is saying? Is it going to be YOU, your PARTNER, and ME, or just YOU and ME?’

I could not answer him then. I just said, ‘Oh Lord!’

My friend went on to share with me that the Lord had asked him,

‘Do you think that Abraham was the first man I asked to sacrifice his son for me?’

He said He had asked many, but Abraham was the first willing one. And the Lord shared with my friend that He needed the sacrifice of Isaac, because without that He could not sacrifice His own son.

With this load, I went back to my car and drove home, one and three-quarter hours by highway, and all the way I felt the Lord nudge me, ‘What are you going to do?’ And sometimes I was joking with Him, saying, ‘What a rotten trick!’ and He would just smile back at me. But when I reached the end of my trip home, the smile faded, and I realized that I was now facing the moment of decision. I could no longer postpone it, so I conceded with a long sigh and said, ‘All right, Lord, just you and me!’

And that left me too in an impossible situation that I knew only God could resolve, just like my friend.

One consolation was that there had to be a quick solution, and that came, within a month, and in such a way that I knew that only God could have organized it so. No great thunder claps, or angels with trumpets, just people, long delayed transactions suddenly sliding on butter! Things like that.

It sounds like a great time of rejoicing, and victory. It wasn’t! I had to cancel my partner and tell why! He understood! That was amazing too! My hopes and dreams were dashed, and although these miracles were happening, the Lord kept me on my toes, because there was always only enough for the day ahead. He was teaching me to walk by faith, day by day! Later I realized what a blessing it was that I didn’t have a partner. None of those miracles could have ever happened if I had not laid my Isaac on the altar.

Then I was given the understanding of the real meaning of what had happened that special day, between God and Abraham. To be able to explain this, I have to take you back to the Garden of Eden, where God had placed His first son. Created in His image, perfect and beautiful, who had creative powers on earth, just like God had in heaven, for God had given him dominion over all the earth with all its life. He had power not only to name all the animals, but also to remember them! That is creative power: to make something that did not exist before. Today, we cannot do this. All our inventions are based on previous inventions and knowledge of our creator.

As we all know, mankind was given a free will in order to exercise the choice for or against God. Adam was a virgin, so was Eve. They were innocent and inexperienced. They only had God’s instruction and did not know anything else. The relationship they had with God they were born with, and they had no idea what God meant when He said that they would surely die, the day they ate the forbidden fruit. Little did they know that the knowledge of the good and evil was the fruit of disobedience through pride and that the wisdom that Satan offered was the counterfeit of God’s true wisdom, which they already had, by which God had created all things—The wisdom of the book of Proverbs.

Adam was a free agent with God before, but when he fell for the lie, he came under debt to God, and his power and dominion became legally subject to Satan, through Adam’s disobedience. It was impossible for Adam to repay this debt, because no amount of good works can undo a single act of disobedience. The only way we can come clean is if the injured party is willing to forgive us.

From that moment were the connections with God severed, and Adam became an imperfect creature, subject to the wiles of Satan, stripped of his supernatural powers, and Satan’s poison injected into the blood of mankind. God controlled Satan, as we have seen in the book of Job, but as Satan had obtained his control over the earth legally through Adam, who had legally received it from God, God would not directly interfere with the matters of man without their consent.

One could imagine that God gave Adam the keys of this car (the earth) after warning him how to drive it. Then Adam handed the keys to Satan through disobeying God’s instructions. The keys are the legal right to the car.

Although man was now a fallen creature, poisoned by Satan, God did not take away his free will. Neither He nor Satan are allowed to override our free will, by God’s own decree. That is why we have power over our choices, but once we make the choice, we then become servant to the choice we made.

Adam had power over the choice. Once he made the choice by eating the forbidden fruit, he became irrevocably subject to the new conditions caused by the choice. What we may not have understood is that although it grieved God’s heart to see us fall, He already had, before man was created, a plan to redeem him. And where Adam was innocent and fell through ignorance, mankind, as in the Bride of Christ, will become fully matured through the process of life and will become white and pure again through the sacrifice of Christ. By following in obedience the path of life, fully exercising his choices, in spite of Satan and thanks to Jesus, mankind (as in The Bride) will become as Adam was, spotless and perfect, but now tried and wise, which is a higher order and which is how God desired it.

The rules for this intricate triangular interplay between God, Satan, and mankind had been determined from the beginning of creation and revolve around the law of free will, or free choice, the law of the harvest, and the law of reciprocation: you give, you shall receive; you take, it shall be taken. He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword.

In all this, God had also limited himself, because He had given dominion to man so that without man’s consent, God, by His own law, cannot intervene, although the ownership of the earth belongs to God, not to Satan, nor to man. Man is only the tenant, and God the landlord.

With this understanding consider:

GOD’S PLAN OF REDEMPTION.

In Leviticus 25:23 and onwards, straight after the Year of Jubilee, the Lord describes in minute detail that Jews—His chosen people—who had fallen into slavery through poverty are not to remain slaves, nor their land to remain in possession of another, but that in the year of Jubilee, freedom must be given back to those Jewish people, and all their possessions restored.

Also a next of kin is able to redeem such a person and his possession at any time, paying normal market value. The nearest in the bloodline to the person was the first one to have the opportunity of redemption, and we see this beautifully demonstrated in the book of Ruth, Chapter 3:12, where Boaz declares to Ruth, Naomi’s daughter-in-law, that he is delighted to redeem Naomi and Ruth, and Naomi’s deceased husband’s parcel of land, but there was a kinsman nearer than he. In chapter 4, we see how the right of redemption is legally transferred from the nearer kinsman to Boaz, in the presence of the authorities of the town and witnesses.

The law is very specific that the redemption could only be done through a member of the family, that is, there must be clear bloodlines.

Therefore, for God to redeem mankind, he must not only have legal right to interfere in the matters of man: landlord–tenant relationship, but also has to be blood related with mankind!

As I mentioned before, in 1995, a friend of mine related to me that the Lord had asked him if he thought that Abraham was the first one whom God had asked to sacrifice his son to him. (Gen. 22:2.) And God had shown him that Abraham was the first one to willingly obey. And that God needed this sacrifice so that He would be legally obliged to sacrifice his own son.

It was later on, when I began to receive these understandings, and insights, that the importance of that statement struck me.

Through the teachings of Craig Hill, I had been shown the importance of a blood covenant to the people of the East, still today, and particularly in the days of old—Abram’s days.

In those days, if two people decided to enter into a covenant with each other, it was the strongest form of contract that existed. In a normal contract, one party is excused if the other party is in breach of contract, but under a covenant or blood covenant, the obligation remained, regardless of whether or not the other kept his part, as long as either lived. The one in breach of the covenant would forfeit his life.

During the ritual, animals were sacrificed, the blood was poured in a trench, and the parties would each in turn make this declaration, in the presence of witnesses, swearing to the heavens, enforced by the blood that they walked in during their declaration, or by sprinkling that blood.

Thus was that covenant made, and if either party defaulted, he would be killed by anyone who found him who had witnessed the covenant.

In the ceremony,

1. They Exchanged clothes, to signify that whatever they owned was at the total disposal and co-ownership of the other.

2. They exchanged weapons, signifying that each would defend the other with all his might, unto death.

3. They would exchange names, to signify that each had become part of the other. They had adopted each other’s identity.

We see a demonstration of this in 1 Samuel 18:1-4 between Jonathan and David.

In Genesis 15:1-20, we see God entering into a blood covenant with Abram—the sacrificed animals, the promises.

In verse 1, God declares himself as Abram’s shield and Abram’s exceeding great reward (i.e. the exchange of protection and possessions.).

In chapter 17, we see the covenant renewed and an exchange of names take place. Abram became Abraham, with the addition of ‘ah’ being part of God’s name Jah or Jehovah (verse 5)

Then, the blood of the covenant is reintroduced in the circumcision ritual that transferred God’s promise from Abraham to his seed through this blood.

So great is the importance of this that anyone not circumcised would be cut off from the inheritance, that is, could not partake of God’s covenant benefits to Abraham and his seed! (verse 14)

Under the power of this blood covenant, either party was within his rights to make a claim on anything that the other possessed.

God was therefore in the legal right to request Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac to Him. Abraham knew this and so did Isaac. Isaac was no longer a little child and was believed to have been twenty-five years old at that time (according to the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus). He was under obligation to his father and to God (through the extension of the covenant by circumcision) to ensure that Abraham could fulfill his part of the covenant, even if it meant losing his life. But at the same time, both he and Abraham knew and unshakably believed that as long as they obeyed, God would be obliged to fulfill his promise, which meant that He would have to bring Isaac back from the dead. This must be seen against the background of the times and locality where they lived, where Satan, through idol worship and false religions, had caused human sacrifice to be commonplace among the local people and especially so in Canaan and Egypt.

We see, therefore, that God was legally justified in requesting the sacrifice of Abraham’s only begotten son. We see the son willing and obedient both to God and to his father unto death, but with the hope and prospect of resurrection after death.

When the sacrifice was for all intents and purposes completed, for the sacrificial knife was already on its down stroke, God intervened. He stopped Abraham and substituted the human sacrifice with a ram.

At this point, I quote a passage from the book of Josephus, the famous Jewish Historian in the days of Titus, who destroyed Jerusalem. In the appendix under dissertation II: 13…quote:

But now, if after all it be objected, that how peculiar and how typical so ever the circumstances of Abraham and Isaac might be in themselves, of which the heathens about them could have little notion, yet such divine command to Abraham for slaying his beloved son Isaac, must however be of very ill example to the gentile world, and that it probably did either first occasion, or at least greatly encourage, their wicked practices, in offering their children for sacrifices to their idols, I answer by the next consideration:

That this objection is so far from truth, that God’s public and miraculous prohibition of the execution and his command to Abraham (which command itself the Gentiles would not then at all be surprised at, because it was so like to their own practices,) as well as God’s substitution of a vicarious oblation, seems to have been the very occasion of the immediate abolition of those impious sacrifices by Tethmosis or Amosis, among the neighbouring Egyptians, and of the substitution of more inoffensive ones there instead of them.

Take the account of this abolition, which we shall presently prove was about the time of Abraham’s offering up his son Isaac, as it is preserved by Porphyry, from Manetho, the famous Egyptian historian and chronologer, which is also cited from Porphyry by Eusebius and Theodoret:—Amosis, says Porphyry, ‘abolished the laws for slaying of men at Heliopolis in Egypt’, as Manetho bears witness in his book of Antiquity and Piety. They were sacrificed to Juno and were examined, as were the pure calves that were also sealed with them: they were sacrificed three in a day.

In whose stead Amosis commanded that men of wax of the same number were to be substituted.’

Now, I have lately shewn, that these Egyptians had Abraham in great veneration, and that all the wisdom of those Egyptians, in which Moses was afterward learned, was derived from no other than Abraham. Now, it appears evidently by the forecited passage, that the first abolition of these human sacrifices, and the substitution of waxen images in their stead, and particularly at Heliopolis, in the North—East of Egypt, in the neighbourhood of Beersheba, in the South of Palestine, where Abraham now lived, at the distance of about one hundred and twenty miles only, was in the days, and by order of Tethmosis or Amosis, who was the first of the Egyptian kings, after the expulsion of the Phoenician shepherds.

Now, therefore we are to inquire when this Tethmosis or Amosis lived, and compare his time with the time of the sacrifice of Isaac. Now, if we look into my chronological table, published in 1721, we shall find that the hundred and twenty fifth year of Abraham, or, which is all one, the twenty fifth year of Isaac, falls into A.M.2573, or into the thirteenth year of Tethmosis or Amosis, which is the very middle of his twenty five years’ reign; so that this abolition of human sacrifices in Egypt, and substitution of others in their room, seems to have been occasioned by the solemn prohibition of such a sacrifice in the case of Abraham, and by the following substitution of a ram in it’s stead: which account of this matter not only takes away the groundless suspicions of the moderns, but shews the great seasonableness of the divine prohibition of the execution of this command to Abraham, as probably the direct occasion of putting a stop to the barbarity of human sacrifices, and that for many, if not for all, generations afterwards.

(Quoted from Josephus: Complete Works—

Kregel Publications, Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA)

From the above quotation, it is interesting to see the influence that this sacrifice of Isaac and its subsequent substitution by a ram may have had on the heathens of his days, although it did not stop this practice of human sacrifice in Canaan and other nations surrounding Palestine, especially Phoenicia, where the worship of Baal and Ashtoreth originated, and amongst the Philistines where human sacrifices originated.

From this, we can observe the length to which the devil has gone to counterfeit the