11/02/2013
Every Member a Multitude
“Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who gave birth to you in pain; when he was but one I called him, then I blessed Him and multiplied.”
Isaiah 51:2 NASB
What is vision (Gen. 15:1)?
“The word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision.”
• This is the first mention in the Bible of the word vision. The “law of first mention” teaches that the first mention of a word is the clearest teaching on that word.
• God’s vision is multiplication. He told Adam and Eve, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion…” (Gen 1:28 NKJV). God has always had it in His heart to create a world filled with spiritual sons and daughters who will love Him eternally.
• Satan’s biggest fear is multiplication. Pharaoh voiced this fear as Israel grew: “Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply…” (Ex. 1:10 NKJV, italics for emphasis) Addition is replacement growth, but multiplication is exponential growth.
The Blessing of Abraham is sons (Gen 15:2-4).
• Eliezer repents the natural, artificial methods of growing the church. It works through programs that attract attendees and holds them through membership, messages, and activities. “This is addition.”
• Isaac represents the supernatural methods of growing the church. It works through personal discipleship of all believers until they are able to spiritually reproduce. This is “multiplication” and has unlimited growth potential.
• From one son, God can make a multitude. It take longer than addition, but the ultimate end surpasses other methods.
“He took him outside” (Gen. 15:5 NASB)
• “Outside the tent” is the envisioning of the multitudes that God wants to give to you. The tent represents normal church activity. The sky represents unlimited multiplication. God has to reveal to your heart that He is ready to move you into multiplication.
• Genesis 15:6 says, “Abram believed the Lord” (Hebrew, said amen to the Lord”). The Hebrew word for “believed” (aman) means to rest in the arms of a nurse, totally confident and assured. The vision evidently works by faith.
• For a believer to enter into the vision of multiplication, he must have a revelation of the multitudes (“the stars”) and have faith in God’s promise. This requires patient working with the believer until he can both see and receive the vision.
Abram’s change of name (Gen. 17)
• God changed Abram’s name from Abram (“exalted father”) to Abraham (“father of multitude”). This was indicative of how the Lord was preparing Abraham’s heart for massive multiplication. The vision of multiplication requires a complete change of thinking in the paradigm of the church.
• The same thing had to happen to Sarai. She had to be renamed to signal to her that she would become “a mother of nations” (v. 16). From “barrenness” to “nations” is a long step, but God prepared her heart for it.
• Even Ishmael (v.20) would be blessed, because he was Abraham’s son. God would “multiply him exceedingly” and “make him the father of twelve princes.” This is the first mention of the fact that when God wants to multiply into a nation, He uses “twelve.”
The vision and the Cross (Gen. 22)
Abraham’s “Gethsemane”
• Not only did Abraham receive the vision by faith, but he also received it by “death.” Isaac, his son, represented his multiplication, his promise, his vision. God revealed to Abraham that only through “death” and brokenness can the vision come to pass
• God multiplies only that which has been broken. Total obedience, surrender, and submission to God’s command are required before multiplication can occur. For God to multiply what is unbroken would be dangerous to the kingdom.
• Brokenness is “order.” Abraham walked up the hill with his son and “placed the wood in order” (v. 9 NKJV) Order signifies that everything is submitted to God’s perfect will. The moment that God knew that Abraham’s priorities, purposes, and plans were in order, He sent the multiplication (vv. 16-17).
The revelation of the cross
• Just as Abraham saw the cross and went through total death to self in sacrificing Isaac, every believer must “pass through the cross” in order to multiply. Ambitions, agendas, and attitudes have to come into line with Christ’s perfect submission to the death of the cross.
• The cross is what puts our lives in order. Just as Abraham spent three days walking to the mountains (v.4), a believer can spend three days studying and applying the cross in order to die to self and enter the vision of multiplication. We call these three days an Encounter Retreat.
Other mentions of the vision of multiplication
Rebekah (Gen. 24:59-60, 25:23)
• Rebekah’s family prophesied to her that she would become the mother of millions. This was generational multiplication, faith that exponential increase would occur through her children.
• Two nations were in her womb in the person of Jacob and Esau. This was a statement of faith and the supernatural increase to come through two solitary children.
Isaac (Gen. 26:4)
• God told Isaac, “I will make your descendants multiply as the stars of heaven.” Isaac was the carrier of Abraham’s blessing, the fruitfulness of multiplied children.
• God also appeared to Isaac at Beersheba (v.24) and said, “I will bless you and multiply your descendants for My servant Abraham’s sake.”
Jacob (Gen. 28:3-4 NKJV)
• Isaac transferred the multiplication vision to Jacob: “May God Almighty bless you, and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may be an assembly of peoples; and give you the blessing of Abraham.”
• Jacob was told in his dream at Bethel, ‘Your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread abroad to the west and the east, to the north and the south” (v. 14). He reminded god of that promise twenty years later when he returned to Palestine: “You said, ‘I will surely treat you well, and make your descendants as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude’” (Gen. 32:12 NKJV)
• When Jacob returned to Bethel after twenty years, the Lord said to him, “Be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall proceed from you, and kings shall come from your body” (Gen. 35:11 NKJV)
Joseph (Gen. 48:16)
