Abraham received a commandment to leave his hometown of Ur of the Chaldeans (which is Babylon) and go on a long journey. In Hebrews 11: 8, he obeyed by faith, not knowing where he was going.
In the book of Genesis chapter 12 to 22, we read of another great journey that Abraham and Sarah accomplished at the same time. This was an amazing spiritual journey of faith that was destined to change their names prophetically. It also completely changed Abraham’s life and made him a different person; he became the father of all those who believe, Jew and gentile alike.
This journey is briefly summarized in Romans 4: 17-21. Verse 20 literally says that Abraham was empowered with faith to believe that Sarah would have a child by him who would be the beginning of the multitudes. Hebrews 11: 11 says that Sarah was empowered with faith in order to conceive their child. The Greek word used in each case is dunamis or one of its derivatives. These words are the basis of our English words power, dynamic, and dynamite. The remarkable faith Abraham and Sarah exercised didn’t come from within them at all, but was imparted into their awakened human spirits as a gift straight from the very Spirit of God.
The highlights of this journey of faith are also recorded for us in Hebrews 11: 17-19. There we read that Abraham believed that even if he had killed Isaac and offered him as a sacrifice in obedience to God’s command, he would nevertheless receive him back from the dead to fulfill God’s promise that through Isaac a multitude of descendants as numerous as the Sand of the sea, and the stars would come from his loins. As this promise could not fail, both Abraham and Isaac were already in faith to believe for Isaacs resurrection before Abraham moved to dive the knife into him. This act of faith sealed the fullness of Abraham’s inheritance.
As God walked with Abraham on that long journey from Ur the Chaldeans to the promised land, he showed him many things and enabled him to begin to see the magnitude of his great Kingdom purposes. We cannot go into all the details this deserves, but we must, at least, look at the highlights.
The city
Some of us were robbed for years by the theology we were taught. Our expectation for the present was taken away from us completely by wrong relegating the fulfillment of many great prophetic events until after the return of Christ. Now we are seeing that there can be at least a partial, present fulfillment of many of these things, although the full final glory may have to wait until Jesus returns when the new heavens and the new earth are established.
Until recently, most of the church believed that the manifestation of the heavenly city of Jerusalem was a future event. This city would suddenly appear out of heaven as a bride adorned for her husband as part of the second coming of Jesus, having had no previous existence or relevance.
God is now revealing that the heavenly city of Jerusalem came into existence on the day of Pentecost. It was first established in the spirit realm over the earthly city of Jerusalem at the same time that the church was born and began to pray in that upper room.
This heavenly city became effective as a powerful heavenly influence from those first days of the church. It was the power of that spiritual city that shook the principalities and powers of darkness over Jerusalem and cast them down. Those fallen angels had a long time ago formed a spiritual canopy over the physical city of Jerusalem on earth. From that polluted heavenly realm, they were able to rule over the religious system and so control the minds of most of the people who lived in Jerusalem. These demonic powers had strongly opposed the ministry of Jesus on earth and had been able to restrict much of the manifestation of the Kingdom while he was on earth throughout his ministry. This continued until he broke the power of these spirits at the cross and was raised up and triumphed by the glory of the father to rule over them all.
Once the church was born and heavenly Jerusalem was established, the Saints in Jerusalem were able to seize from these demonic powers the spiritual government in the heavenly places over the physical city of Jerusalem. The result was that this demonic canopy of darkness over Jerusalem was removed, and the whole spiritual climate changed on earth. As a direct result, many spiritually blind and demonically hardened people in that city came under deep conviction and repented of their terrible sin. They had refused Jesus as their king and crucified him instead. Gratefully receiving his forgiveness, they put their trust in him as their king and savior and were baptized. This became a massive ingathering of souls into the Kingdom of God, with multitudes being added to the church every day. The church in Jerusalem rapidly grew to about 20,000 members within two years.