Abraham had a quality relationship with God. He was spiritually sensitive and so entertained angels unawares. The gesture brought down a long standing personal promise that had been hanging in the air as it were, for 24 years. The Rhema came forth and the blessing came down.” By this time next year, you will laugh.” It was not fasting that brought down the blessing this time. It was hospitality that connected the man with his God. When we are spiritually sensitive, we never miss the trigger for the blessing we need in our lives. If we are religious, we may be there for awhile trying to figure out which gesture is best suited to release our blessing. It all depends on God Himself. But if we are spiritually sensitive, we would receive that nudge from the Holy Spirit that drives us in the right direction.

Next we come to Abraham’s intercession. It is an eye-opener. The man’s personal relationship gave him a place before God. Religion can be very deceptive. A man may be very religious yet have no deep personal relationship with God. Religion has to do with what people see and approve. Spiritual people are religious but religious people are not always spiritual. Spiritual people see religion as an opportunity to express their love for God. Religious people see the rituals as an approving end in themselves. A spiritual relationship is so dynamic that it is unpredictable. You can never be too sure of what God would say or do in a given situation and you cannot afford to be presumptuous.

Abraham’s intercession revealed that divine restraint in judgment can be achieved by the number of righteous people in a place. Here in Nigeria we know that judgment is being restrained but because of who is the question? If you stay aloof and think, “Oh there must be many righteous people in Nigeria standing in the gap today;” then you must be mistaken. The only way to ensure that there would always be a righteous person wherever you are is to strive to be that righteous man or woman yourself. The people you may be hoping on, unknown to you, may have tumbled down the cliff. Some may have derailed without your knowing it. The façade of religion may still very much be there but they may no longer have a relationship worth the name before God.

The prophet Ezekiel let us know that more often than not, God is looking for a man to stand in the gap.

Ezekiel 22:29-30 (AMP)
²⁹ The people of the land have used oppression and extortion and have committed robbery; yes, they have wronged and vexed the poor and needy; yes, they have oppressed the stranger and temporary resident wrongfully. ³⁰ And I sought a man among them who should build up the wall and stand in the gap before Me for the land, that I should not destroy it, but I found none.

The voice from heaven said of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ at His baptism: “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” The voice was endorsing His life before His ministry began and long before multitudes began to follow Him.

The devil has the capacity to make very well intentioned people, particularly Christians, to derail. His strategies are threefold:

1.      

Command these stones to become bread – Lusts of the flesh, lusts of the eyes and the pride of life can be so confusing that before long gain and godliness will become interchangeable criteria for endorsement. The late Pastor S. G. Elton told us years ago: “Be careful young men, for once you start an organization the organization would begin to run you and not God anymore.

2.      

Jump from the pinnacle and let the world hail you – The world is determined to hail men of God these days and that is very worrying particularly in the light of these Scriptures:

John 7:7 (AMP)
⁷ The world cannot [be expected to] hate you, but it does hate Me because I denounce it for its wicked works and reveal that its doings are evil.

John 15:18-19 (AMP)
¹⁸ If the world hates you, know that it hated Me before it hated you. ¹⁹ If you belonged to the world, the world would treat you with affection and would love you as its own. But because you are not of the world [no longer one with it], but I have chosen (selected) you out of the world, the world hates (detests) you.

Luke 6:26 (AMP)
²⁶ Woe to (alas for) you when everyone speaks fairly and handsomely of you and praises you, for even so their forefathers did to the false prophets.

Each time the world hails us as Christians, would it because we no longer denounce its evil deeds? We all need to pause and search our methods and our teachings.

3.      

Here is the devil’s third strategy: “The kingdoms of this world have been given to me. If you will bow down and worship me, it will all be yours.” This is the snare that makes one ask: “Success indeed but at what price?” Preachers have been known to mix and match as occasion demands. When they begin to delve too much into occultic practices, trying to explain what they do and how they do them, you begin to get worried. A young man began to be exasperated when he noticed that the leadership of his organization appear to have a pattern to their behavior contrary to John 3:8. Their responses were becoming too predictable to be spiritual. It would be kind and gracious to say that all that he saw were simple signs of carnality. But one hopes that it is just simple uncomplicated carnality and that there is nothing uncanny and devious behind it all.

John 3:8 (AMP)
⁸ The wind blows (breathes) where it wills; and though you hear its sound, yet you neither know where it comes from nor where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.

The sum total of what we learn from Abraham’s intercession is that each one of us should fully face the challenge of loving God with all our hearts and being the righteous man or woman for whose sake the stretched out arm of judgment where we are is daily being restrained. That is the challenge for the hour.

2 Corinthians 7:1 (ESV)
¹ Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.

2 Corinthians 4:1-2 (ESV)
¹ Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart.
² But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.

Okey Onuzo