On That Day

By Ronald Stoneburner

Following the covenant promise God gave to Abraham, how it points back to creation and how it points forward to completion. Abraham's two sons-Ishmael, born of the flesh; and Isaac, born of the Spirit, the child of promise. Following this lineage forward, the two kingdoms. Ishmael representing the kingdom of this world's system, and Isaac representing the kingdom of God. How this plays out through history and takes us to today's Middle East crisis. Taking a look at the Old Testament prophecies that have yet to be fulfilled and how the stage is set for their fulfillment.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Jun 3, 2019
• ISBN: 9781644713969

Book preview

First Things First

It starts with creation, God did not say once upon a time, but His Word starts with in the beginning. In the beginning, God created, but before He created, the plan of salvation and the redemption of man was laid out before anything was ever created (Gen. 1:1). In Matthew’s Gospel chapter 25 verse 34, Jesus says, Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Did you hear the last statement prepared for you from the foundation of the world?

This idea first originated in the mind of God and is the foundation upon which everything else was built. We also read in Isaiah 46:10, Declaring the end from the beginning… and written in Revelation 13:8, it talks about the names not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

There it is again, first the kingdom prepared before the foundation of the world and second the Lamb of God who redeemed us. The idea was laid out and finalized before the world was ever created. He was slain before the foundation of the world.

For us, as humans, it is hard to put our arms around this. We think chronologically; God thinks in totality, so He can declare the end from the beginning because He sees it all before it has played out in time. God is outside of time and space; we are limited to time and space. So God was not caught off guard when sin entered creation. God had already prepared and dealt with it before it ever happened.

So in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. That word created in Hebrew is bara (bah-rah) meaning to create something that wasn’t there before, to produce, to form or fashion. God the eternal designer of it all.

In John 1:1–3, John parallels the verses in Genesis, he says, In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him and without Him nothing was made that was made.

In verse 14 of the same chapter, it says, And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory, the glory as the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth.

A couple of things to point out. One, the Word is Jesus Christ the eternal expression of God. The phrase the Word was God attributes deity to the Word without defining all the Godhead (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) as the Word. It goes on to say, And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

That word dwelt can also be translated as tabernacled just as God tabernacled amongst the Hebrews when the tent was set up in the middle of the camp during the forty years of wandering in the desert when they were delivered from Pharaoh out of Egypt. The tabernacle was to provide a place where God might dwell amongst His people.

So as God dwelt with His people in the Old Testament through this tent of meeting, in the New Testament, Jesus the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory. All of this was planned and prepared before creation ever happened.

So let’s go back to the beginning. In Genesis 1:27, it says, God created man… In chapter 2 of Genesis verses 6 and 7, it gives a greater description of the formation of man. It says, But a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground.

It says God formed man, the Hebrew word is yasar meaning to fashion something that was already in some rudimentary form. In this case, mist (water) and dust (dirt). Mixing water and dirt together creates mud/clay, and God formed—He sculpted man. The verse goes on to say that God breathed into the nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being. The Creator breathed life into man.

In John 1:4, it says, In Him (Jesus) was life… and He gave mankind that precious gift. We know that the Genesis story of creation went on to say, It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him. And the Lord caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam and he slept; and He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man, He made (yasar) into a woman, and He brought her to the man.

Adam and Eve—the name Adam in Hebrew is a play on words that we don’t get in the English language. Adam (A-dom) means man, but within the word Adam is dam (dom) which means blood. So within Adam is dam (dom) blood. Also Adamah which means ground, which Adam was sculpted from. It is interesting how the Hebrew language has the play on words that create an understanding within the words.

The name Eve means mother of us all. In Genesis 2:15–17, it says: Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden. Eden in Hebrew means delight, so it represents a delightful place, a place of bliss. Man was to tend and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man saying, Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.

In Genesis 3 starting in verse 1, it says:

Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’? And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat the fruit of the tree of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it lest you die.’

Then the serpent said to the woman, You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

There it is, the great lie—we shall be like God. The enemy was tempting them and saying God is withholding something from you (self-rule) in order to keep you dependent on Him.

We don’t think of it this way, but Eve was being told, Eat of it, and you will be like your father. Every child wants to be like their parents, especially boys. They want to grow up and be