Abimelech, Sarah, The Nation, The Bride
Written by Elinor Montgomery – em*********@****co.ca
July 27, 2003
It is time for the shutdown of the institutional church! It is the time of the fullness of the Gentiles. It is also the time in which the Lord will say, “Will the true Jew please stand up.” The nation is being re-gathered from the Gentile nations at the same time the body of the church is being called out of the institutions of Gentile churches. It is the time of Jacob’s trouble, a time like that when there was a famine in Canaan, or in Israel. Joseph was put in place to receive his brothers, just as Jesus is getting ready this day to receive His brothers. It is a time when teaching is at a low ebb, and there is a spiritual famine in America today. Bibles have been taken from the children, and they are starving for a feeding. It is the time when Jesus is going to reveal Himself to His brothers, and test them once again to see if they are ready to weep for Him in repentance, for Him Whom they had pierced.
Make no mistake; Benjamin will not be there for the testing, for he is the true brother by virtue of Rachel. He is born into the crossover blessing, going to the second son of the love relationship. He was born after the nation crossed into the land. He is the chosen of God who will receive a new name, as did Abram and Sarai. Benjamin’s name was changed from Ben Oni (son of my sorrow), for only in the pain and sorrow of Rachel’s death to self was he brought forth to be renamed by the father, Benjamin, (son of my right hand). This is the brother and son with whom Jesus, He who sits at the right hand of God the Father, will share His throne. Rachel, the prototype of the bride, the church, the true church, dies to self to bring forth a man-child who will rule and reign with her Beloved, her spouse, and her brother, Jesus, the Son of God. Joseph was seated in the place of authority over all the land by Pharaoh. He was able to give to his brothers the best of the land. He was the one who handed out the different portions, and to Benjamin he gave five times that of the other brothers. To Benjamin was given the cup of Joseph in his sack, the cup that would take him through the cross with Jesus and His apostles, who also were given the cup from which to drink. For Benjamin had no part in the evil deed of the brothers. He had loved his brother Joseph, and Jacob, the father, had kept him back from the testing in which Joseph would try his brothers to see whether or not they repented of their evil deed against him, before offering to them his mercy and forgiveness.
Israel, the nation will come into her inheritance only in the same way as the church does, which is through repentance and a belief in the saving grace of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. There is no special door that allows an idolatrous nation into the Kingdom. The people of Israel must repent and recognize that it is their brother, Jesus who is their Messiah and can save them in the same way that Joseph saved his brothers. The brothers came to fear Joseph after Jacob died, for he had all power of judgment over them but He assured them of His love and protection. They will receive their national tribal inheritance in the kingdom, under the blessings on the sons, given by their father Jacob, along with the other true Jews who have believed on the name of Jesus, only in so far as they become believers and place their faith in Him for their salvation.
The statement ‘Fear God and not man,’ is an important part of the Bible message of truth. (Matthew 10:28) And do not fear those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather, fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Yet, in dealing with His chosen people God says, “Fear not”, as was spoken to Daniel, Mary and Joseph, among others, by God’s angels. He takes His chosen people, by means of the Spirit, into a love relationship of dependency on Him to supply all our needs when we choose to obey Him. In love, there is no need to fear Him whom we worship, for He is our Father and our Beloved. To both we submit in perfect faith and perfect worship. Hence, before man we can turn over our bodies, for God is the Creator Who can raise our bodies up again from the dead. Who but a bride would witness in the spirit of the prophets, Moses and Elijah, then die and be raised up like her Beloved in three days? Is this not the true Jew, who like Benjamin, the chosen from among the brothers, was given Joseph’s cup? For only she will share in the cup of her beloved brother and spouse, Jesus, as did Benjamin.
Twice Abraham feared man and rulers more than he feared God. First, Abraham was willing to give over the bride of Israel to the Pharaoh of Egypt. This act was comparable to the nation wanting to return to her dependency on the idols of Egypt and to return to her captivity rather than face her uncertain future in the wilderness, being dependent only on God. There were no guarantees of safety to this lifestyle, or so the Israelites thought. The second time that Abraham gave over his wife as his sister to the ruler Abimelech, was as the church today, choosing to reject Jesus and the Word, to replace them with the safety of religion and political correctness. But, God will intervene for His bride, just as he did for Sarah when he commanded Abimelech to let her go, much in the same way that he intervened for His nation, Israel, saying, “Let My people go.” Jesus will likewise say before Satan, “This is My bride, and my house of Israel. Let her go, for you cannot have her. She shall witness for Me in the spirit of Moses and Elijah, and I will take her out of the judgment as she becomes an over-comer of your evil lures.” Abraham never was able to rid himself of the fear of what the enemy could do to him, not at all unlike the spies that took one look at the size of the enemy in the land, and refused to obey God’s command to go in and possess the Promised Land. Abraham was thinking of his own neck when he chose to pawn Sarah off as his sister rather than his bride.
Let us look specifically at the story of Abimelech, and see how this story pertains to the church and the bride. The crossover blessing to the son of the church is as that going to the son of a prophet. For Abraham, like Abel, was a prophet and son of righteousness. This second time of refusing the bridal recognition of Sarah was twenty years after the first time he declared in Egypt that Sarah was his sister. Likewise, moving forward, Rebekah was barren for twenty years before she produced Jacob, the son of inheritance, who would become the prophetic father of Israel. Always, the numbers point to a late birthing in Israel. It was Israel, or those in the bosom of Abraham, who were guilty of fearing man more than they feared God, and guilty of worshipping idols rather than depending on the one true God for their strength.
This all served to work against the birthing of Isaac, the true inheritor, for if Abimelech, the prototype of Satan, had taken Sarah, there no longer could have been a pure birthing in Israel. The seed of man would have entered Sarah before the pure birthing to produce nothing more than another child of the world. Sarah had to reach a ripe old age, when she no longer could birth of the seed of man, except by the divine intervention of the Spirit of God. Through God’s dealing with Abimelech, He shows that He will judge harshly anything that dares to come against His plans for the woman birthing in Revelation, the bride of Israel. For all of creation has been groaning in labor to bring forth a bride for Christ. Sarah’s miraculous birthing points to the virginal birthing of Mary by the Spirit to produce Jesus, and then with the woman wearing the apostolic crown of Israel, producing a man-child as a new creation by the miraculous infilling of the Spirit. This child will rule and reign with Jesus as His bride and His sister (my sister, my spouse, Song of Solomon 4:9). The emphasis is on the spouse, for as the bride, she rules with her Beloved.
Remember, Abimelech is a title that means king or prince of this world. It is not a proper name (see Bible Commentary by William MacDonald, page 57). In these end times, there will be a tendency to focus on the brotherhood of denominations and the brotherhood with the nation Israel. Our relationship as bride of Christ will be de-emphasized, with the church beginning to act out of the fear of being politically correct, more than she will act for fear of the wrath of God. This is a time when, by emphasizing unity in the wrong way, a half-truth or surface unity will become the counterfeit of the true unity of the body of Christ. True unity comes for those who, as new creations, belong to the house of Israel of God (see Galatians 6:14-16). In her fear of man more than her fear of God, like Abraham, the institutional church will choose for herself a tribal inheritance of a brotherly nature, rather than that of the spousal Davidic inheritance, of a king-priest nature. Today, it will play itself out in a counterfeit message straight from Egypt, or from Satan himself. It will point to a form of nation worship of Israel desiring more a brotherly relationship with her instead of the spousal relationship with and the worship of the Lord Jesus Christ. The latter is the pure worship of a bride, free of all religious practices, fearing God more than she fears man. This will be the time of separation of the bride, not only as the over-comer among believers, but also as the inheritor of the Kingdom as opposed to being a tribal inheritor within the nations of the believers of Israel. This is a time of spousal emphasis over brotherly emphasis.
Do not get caught up in the unity of the church on a superficial level of denominations, totally a product of religion, or in the Israel worship of a nation that adheres to pagan religious practices. God is coming for His true Jewish household, and there is only one gateway of righteousness, which is Jesus (see Psalm 118:19-20). He has given us light. Light comes only through the breath of the Spirit in our nostrils. Only through the Spirit can there ever be a creation of man worthy to walk and dwell with God. In Him has been put the light, the light of understanding that gives life to the new creation. It is the light broken for you and me that is the covenant message of the rainbow, bringing salvation to man. This is pure light, which, by way of repentance and a belief in Jesus as the only way to salvation, has no religion in it to take away its clarity and purity. There could be no birthing of any sort in Israel until Sarah, the mother of the chosen son of Israel, was in her rightful place as the bride of Abraham, the woman who would bring forth laughter, not tears, and joy, not sorrow. Likewise today, there can be no birthing in Israel until the bride is ready and in place in her pure white linen robes.
The bride will become the victim of scoffing by the brethren and nations. It shall happen in the latter days when the bride is very old and wearied by the journey. The voice of the bride says to the true church fathers, as did Sarah before her say to Abraham, “You must drive out the first son whom God made into a nation, in order to make straight the way for her child that she birthed of the Spirit, the true Jew and the true inheritor of the Father.” Ishmael will become a nation, as the son of the bondwoman. This points in this prophetic message to Israel, the nation, giving way to the birthing woman who births after the first son. When the child is weaned, it replaces both companies represented by Manasseh and Ephraim, nation and the institution, to receive her special inheritance from Jesus, her Beloved, as did Benjamin receive his from Joseph. But when the nation cries to God, then God will open Israel’s eyes, in the same way that the eyes of Hagar were opened to see the well of water. Just as the Samaritan woman came to know the living water at the well of Jacob, by coming to recognize her salvation in the living water that only Jesus can supply, so too will the bride come to recognize the source of her salvation. The well water of Jacob provided to the nation was nothing more than the seawaters of the world, from which she eventually must separate herself. Then comes the salvation of the other Gentiles who recognize that the waters of Jesus were stolen by the servants of the institution. The priesthood, like nation, was in blindness, because the commanders of the armies, or the priesthood, were ignoring Jesus. Now, they must recognize that He is the reason for the bride’s love and power. It is the truth of the Word versus the religion of denominational liberalism. This well is all-important, for it is the well of the oath. It is the place of the covenant of truth, where the waters of our lives are changed. It is at the well, where the bride comes into a right relationship with Jesus, and the spirits of evil waters are driven out forever from her to be replaced by the Spirit of the living water. The waters of truth replace the waters of religion.
Beware of Israel worship and any attempt to bring about institutional church unity. Beware of him who preaches such. The truth wars with religion. The designated man-appointed high priest is replaced by God’s divine High Priest. The designated man-appointed king is replaced by God’s divine King. The pattern of animal sacrifice and its failure is replaced by the divine sacrifice and its salvation. The dependency on self that began with sin in the garden gives way to dependency on the Lord Jesus, Who returns us to the garden. It is God’s protection that takes away fear. The new age, self-driven spirituality of man-made religious practices will come under the judgment and the wrath of God, which will bring about either great fear of Him or the blaspheming of His name.
(Proverbs 9:10) For the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
(Proverbs 7:1-5) My Son, keep My Words, and treasure My law as the apple of your eye. Bind them on your fingers. Write them on the tablets of your heart. Say to wisdom, “You are my sister,” and call understanding your nearest kin, that they may keep you from the immoral woman, from the seductress who flatters with her words.
Our lives are in a spiritual battle of truth versus religion, all the way to the door of salvation. There comes the day when God closes the door, and the ark of salvation, the Ark of the Covenant, is ready to carry the bride of Christ out of the judgment. Fear God, not man, for the day of judgment is at hand.