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The most common mistake that people make when trying to learn about and understand God is to view Him as though He was just like us. You and I were born human beings. We have always been human beings. From the very beginning we were taught that unless we can see something it is not real. Unless we have the power to do it, it can't be done. We are taught that we can do some things, but we will never be able to do all things, and we should learn our limitations. Those are good rules to live by in the things of the world, but too often people get so used to thinking within the limits of what they can and can't do that when it comes to God, they think of Him in the same terms. If they can't see how it is going to happen then they automatically think that it is too hard for God! But I'm here to tell you that even though God became man for a time so that He could shed His blood, He is not limited by the "can'ts" of man! God is much greater than any of us! Where we lose sight, God has just begun to see. Where our abilities end, God's are just beginning. God is not even limited by what we can think. Some people think that you've got to be able to think it if you are to receive it, but the scriptures say:

God is able to do exceeding abundantly above ALL that we ask or even THINK! I heard a preacher telling about all of the things that God had done for him and he could only shake his head and say, I couldn't even conceive of it working out that way: It was a GOD IDEA! Can I tell you that I can look back on my life and realize that the greatest victories and spiritual breakthroughs of my life have not been of my own concoctions. It was not something that I thought through and came up with my own. I can look back at my life and the victories and truly say that most of them were GOD IDEAS! It was beyond anything that I could even think up myself!

You see, one of the most common areas that we limit God by thinking that He is like us is that we think that He is limited in power! God is not limited in power! He is capable of things that you can not even think up! Not one of the Israelites had the idea that we can march around this city called Jericho and in seven days after we send up a praise, the walls will just fall flat! Some of those men were probably thinking "I'll tell you what we should do: We should dig under those walls!" Another was probably thinking: "We need to invent the catapult so that we can fling each other over the walls!" There were many solutions to the problem but all would have given them the glory rather than God! The way God did it, nobody was hurt during the siege, and they didn't have to climb, they just walked right over! It was a God Idea!!!

I'm preaching to some of you that your only fault in your lack of faith is that you are viewing God as a limited human being! You've carefully weighed out the options and solutions to your trials and tests and you have realized that there is no way you can do it! But I'm here to tell you that it doesn't matter your great logical ideas and solutions, God is able to do beyond and above anything that you can ask or think! And that's why no matter what it looks like and no matter what you feel or your emotional state, trust in God and lean not to your own understanding! He has ways of working that you have never even heard of! He can take care of the storm in a way that it has never been calmed before! And when it's over you can look back and say: Truly that was a GOD IDEA! What Paul was saying was "give God the glory and praise to the only one who can truly deliver and save!" Paul was saying "I have a reason to praise with everything in me, because of the God IDEAS in my life!

You've got a reason to praise Him! Nobody came up with the idea of taking rank sinners and turning them into saints! That was a God IDEA! Nobody else came up with the idea for Jesus to come and shed His blood on Calvary so that you can I could be set free: It was a God IDEA! Nobody else came up with the idea of purchasing our healing by being beaten with a whip! Nobody else came up with the idea of having the very Spirit of God come into your life: It was a God IDEA! God had to have spoken it into existence because I could not even think it! Thank God that He can see beyond what I can ask or think and thank God He is not bound by our human limitations!

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I have read our first text many times before but I missed out on what the last part really meant because of the Old English wording. I would like to read it to you in the Phillips Modern English translation:

God wants to use this scripture to minister to someone today, so let's go through what it really means. God has always chosen to make promises to men and women who will serve Him. The man mentioned here was a man named Abraham. God made a promise to Abraham, "if you will separate yourself from your sinful lifestyle and will step out in faith and trust in me, I will bless you and make you even more promises!" And when Abraham stepped out in faith and separated himself completely from his idolatrous homeland and former lifestyle and began to follow the leading of God, we find that God did visit with Him and make Him more promises.

Can I tell you that the first step to getting the promises of God is separate yourself from your sinful past. You've got to leave what you once were. You've got to put some things behind you. God did not come down and physically move Abraham from Ur, but Abraham had to make up in his mind, that I am going to leave some of those things behind. Too many people want to receive the blessings of living for God but do not want to totally separate themselves from a sinful lifestyle. But you are only going to experience a few of the blessings of God while staying in your past. Too many people are bound up by the way that they have always done things. But if God's Word says that you need to change, then you need to change! Because by staying partly in sin, you will stop the flow of God's blessings and you will limit how far you can go in God. Go back and read it in Genesis chapter 12, God made Abraham a few vague promises about a land and a nation. But it was not until after God saw that Abraham was willing to step out in faith that He expounded and clarified and added to His promises! Too many people blame God when He does not answer their prayers when really their sin is the problem. The prophet Isaiah said:

There is another principle here that we need to grab hold of. Abraham was only walking by faith when he was traveling to a place that he had never been. Too many people use their lack of experience or newness as an excuse not to grow. They say "well this is hard because I've never done this before." If you had already done it, then it wouldn't be faith! Faith is the evidence of things NOT SEEN! Too many Christians are content to live a their present spiritual level and really do not want to get closer to God. They are not really hungry for more of God. They do not want to be more committed to God. They are not interested in heading to a place in the Spirit that they have never been. But realize this: If you are not heading to somewhere you have never been in the spirit, then you are not walking by faith! You are not abiding and living in faith. If there is nothing happening in your life that is causing you to trust God in a new way or to grow in maturity, then you do not have faith operating in your life. That's why God allows bad things to happen to good people: not because He is mean or unfair, but because He knows that we can't make it without faith and to have true faith, we must be headed for some place that we've never been! Without faith it is impossible to please God! Do you have faith today? If you do, then your attitude toward the things of God will be "I want more of God, I want to be more committed to God, I want a deeper anointing, I want a greater experience, I'm willing to change ANYTHING in my life that might hinder my walk with God!" Those attitudes reveal true faith! If Abraham would have said "I believe you, Lord" and then stayed in Ur and not began to travel to a place that he had never been, then he would not have had real faith! Faith is more than a statement, it is a journey to a spiritual level or maturity or anointing that you have never been! Don't look at your trial as the end of the road, look at it as an opportunity to walk by faith!

God is no respecter of persons, so what He did for Abraham, He will also do for you! AFTER Abraham was willing to walk by faith and trust God to lead through places that he had never been, then God appeared to Abraham and told him that he would give him a son and through that seed would come many nations and as many descendants as there were stars in the sky and sand in the sea! God told him "I will bless you and multiply everything that you do!" Before we go on, I want you to notice that God made this promise to a person who had no children and was well up in age! God picked the least likely candidate to give His promise to. Both Abraham and Sarah laughed when they heard that God was going to give them a baby. It was not their idea! They had already given up on the fact that they would ever have children! But it was a God IDEA! It was beyond what either of them could ever fathom. A 90 year old woman had never had a baby before, but God is the one who said it! It was a God idea! You cannot limit God to your human limitations. I don't care what you think about what you can or cannot do, why don't you trust God and let God think up what He wants to do with you. Why don't you lose the "well I don't think that God can do ..." It doesn't matter what you think, just separate yourself from a sinful lifestyle and begin walking by faith and see what GOD THINKS AND SAYS!!!

You probably know the story well. Eventually the blessings of God did come true in Abraham's life, and the boy, Isaac was born. Of course actually before Isaac was born Abraham and Sarah got ahead of God and tried to create the blessing by their own power and Hagar had Ishmael. But that only delayed the coming of the promise son because God told Abraham "until you get Ishmael out of the camp, the promise son will not come!" The first test of Abraham's faith was if he was willing to leave a life of sin and walk by faith. The second test was if he was willing to settle for a cheap substitute for the promise of God in his life. Would he be satisfied with Ishmael that was his own creation?! That's the second battle that you fight in your spiritual life. Are you willing to settle for just a normal relationship with God? Are you willing to settle for a little liberty and a little moving of God's Spirit and a little victory in your life? Some people are content with just religion. A religion that they have created to appease their conscience. But does God have His free reign? Does the Holy Ghost move? If not it is an Ishmael, just a cheap substitute for what God really wants to give us!

Embracing Ishmael will always stop up the blessings of God! Why do some people go their entire life without seeing the miraculous; without seeing the supernatural; without receiving the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in other tongues; without receiving the many blessings of God in abundance?? Because they have embraced Ishmael. They have reached a place of comfort in their walk with God and they do not want to sacrifice or trust God for anything greater. They are content with just an ordinary life and just a few isolated blessings of God. They are content to create their own religion instead of conforming to all of God's Word! And they get like Abraham was with Ishmael when he begged for God to let Ishmael be the chosen one. But God refused! And God said "not only will I not bless that, but until you get him out of the camp, I refuse to bless you any more!" That's the way that we get sometime. We get comfortable spiritually and beg God "God can't I just keep doing this, or not do that and still live for you?" "Can't you bless this Ishmael that I have created?" But God will not, and -- until you get Ishmael out of your life -- you will not receive the promises of God! I don't know about you, but whatever I have to change, I will not embrace one way of living if it keeps the supernatural power of God from flowing!

And so Abraham got Ishmael out of the camp and then came Isaac and once again everything was going great until the third and final test. Isaac was older now and was getting to the age where he could marry and see the promises that God. The Jewish historian Josephus says that Isaac was 25 years old when the request came from God to Abraham: "take your only son Isaac and offer him as a sacrifice to me!"

This was the ultimate test. And it was a God idea! Never before had God asked for human sacrifice. Never before had God given a promise and then yank it cruelly away! Abraham did not understand. Ishmael was gone and Sarah had not had another child. Isaac was his only hope. There are several things to point out about this test. We know that in the end that God did not require the sacrifice and provided a substitute, but Abraham did not know that was going to happen. God sent this test to see what the thoughts and attitude of Abraham would be. God wanted to see if Abraham would go back to Ishmael. God wanted to see if Abraham would trust Him when everything in his human logic said "don't." God wanted to see if Abraham believed that God could perform the same miracle even later in his life! God wanted to see how much Abraham really believed His promises! God wanted to see if Abraham was willing to give up the most precious thing in his life for the will of God.

Abraham did not hesitate. Abraham left out early the next morning with Isaac and took him to the top of the mountain and God worked it out. But when God saw Abraham raise His knife and realized that Abraham was willing to give up the most precious thing to God and trusted Him completely, the Bible says in Genesis 22:16 that God did more than give Abraham promises, but that He swore!

And in Hebrews, we get more information about what God did. God swore that every one of those promises would come true. That does not mean that He cussed for that would be sin and God cannot sin. But God did swear! He took an oath. Now I know what some of you are thinking: the scripture tells us not to swear:

And your interpretation of that scripture is correct: a Christian should swear to promise that something will come to pass. Because when men swear, they swear by something higher than them that something in the future will come to pass when really they have no real power to make it come to pass. If you "swear to God" then you are really lying because you are not God and it is very possible that what you have sworn to will not come to pass. If you "swear by the earth" then you are really lying because you cannot really change one thing about the earth. What you should say is "I promise that I will do everything within my power to do such and such." But it is sin for human beings to swear by a greater power because we cannot be sure that it will happen like we said!

But wait a minute! That doesn't apply to God! When God swears, He swears by Himself! For there is none greater! He cannot lie! He cannot fail! So it is not a sin for God to swear because whatever He swears to cannot help but happen! And get this: once Abraham was willing to leave his homeland; once Abraham was willing to push the cheap substitute, Ishmael out of the camp; and once Abraham was willing to surrender everything even the most precious things of his life to God; God not only again made him a promise with great detail and blessings, but this time He SWORE that it would come true!

You see up to that point, the promises had been conditional. God had said "I will do this for you, if you will do this." If Abraham would have turned and gone back to Ur after hearing the promises of God then he would never have experienced them. If Abraham would have allowed Ishmael to live in the camp, then he would have never seen the promise fulfilled and would have died thinking that Ishmael was the only thing that God could do for him! If Abraham would have told God to get lost when God asked him to sacrifice Isaac, then Abraham would not have experienced the promises and blessings of God coming true in his life, but after God realized that Abraham was completely totally devoted to Him, God not only promised but He SWORE that it would come to pass! And He swore by Himself!

And it did come to pass. Even when the children of Israel worshipped idols, and God wanted to toast all of them, He did not because of the oath that He had sworn to Abraham! The scripture says time and time again that He remembered what He had told Abraham! They have failed God in many ways, but there is a nation of Israel even today because God swore to Abraham that it would be so!

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You see every time I find in the scripture that God has sworn to do something, it has come to pass. And every time that God has sworn to do something it has been the result of a person proving that they were totally committed to God! In our text we read what God swore to David:

The entire 89th Psalm proves that God swore to David that one of his descendants would always be upon the throne of Israel and so God kept it despite the many sins and trials of those descendants! When one of David's grandsons, sinned, God would remove the sinner but allow their son to reign. In the years that the northern 10 tribes of Israel were a separate country, there were 19 kings and the royal family changed 9 times in 250 years! But in Judah were the descendants of David were living, there were also 19 kings but ALL were the grandsons of David! Not one time did the family change! And when the King of Kings, Jesus Christ, came to earth, He was born to an earthly mother and father who were descendants of King David! And the scriptures say that Jesus Christ will rule and reign forever and of His kingdom there will be no end! God caused what He had sworn to David to come true: not just for a period of time, but for ALL of ETERNITY! When God swears, what He says will come to pass! His promises are conditional but WHEN GOD SWEARS... Nothing will change what He has said!

So why did God swear to David? God never swore to Saul. God never swore to many other men. What made David different? Because David became a man after God's own heart! He became a praiser and a worshipper! David fell in love with the Word of God! When he sinned, he repented with all of his heart and never returned to that sin again. He made things right with the God that he served. He refused to worship other gods. When God required his precious baby as punishment for his sin, David did not get bitter but washed himself and went and praised God. David proved to God by his life that he was completely and totally committed to God's will. And when God was convinced, He not only made David conditional promises but He SWORE!

I don't know what you are going through and I don't know all of what you face, but I can tell you that you must never lose hope and give up on God! Whatever you feel like, do not turn your back on being faithful to the things of God! Do not stop trusting in Him completely! Your trial is really an opportunity to prove to God that you really are completely and totally committed to Him in every way! How are you responding in your situation? Are you telling God by your actions that you are completely committed to Him and His will even if it you do not understand it? Or is it telling Him that you are not really committed completely? If you will prove to God that you are completely committed to serving Him in every area of your life, God will do more than make conditional promises, but God will SWEAR! And what God swears by Himself to do, WILL come to pass!

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God swore to Abraham. He swore to David. He swore that Jesus Christ would be a High Priest forever. But He never swore promises to another person! He did swear that some things would happen though.

In Isaiah 45:23 God swore that one day every knee is going to bow to Him! They will either in worship or in judgment.

In Revelation 10:6 He swore that time would one day end. It will!

The sad thing is that all the other oaths that God took were in judgment.

In Psalms 95:11 and Hebrews 3:11, God swore that those with out faith would not enter into the promised land! They didn't and even today no one without faith will enter into the promised place of the Holy Ghost!

In Isaiah 14:24-25, God swore that the Assyrian Empire would be broken up. It happened just as He swore.

In Jeremiah 22:5, God told Judah that if they did not repent and serve Him only, He would cause Jerusalem to be destroyed, and He swore it so. It was.

In Jeremiah 49:13, God swore that the country of Edomites would be completely destroyed. They were.

In Jeremiah 51:14, God swore that Babylon would fall. It did.

What do all of those upon whom was sworn judgment have in common? They all convinced God through their actions and lack of faith toward Him that they would never be totally committed to Him! So when God saw their total commitment to not serving Him, He swore, but this time it was a swearing of judgment and not blessing! You see, God will swear when someone has convinced Him of their intentions by their actions! If you prove to Him your complete dedication, then He will swear blessings, but if you prove to Him that you are not going to live completely for Him, He will swear judgment! And when God swears, it will come to pass!

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As I close, you are probably wondering where you fit in the picture. Let me read some scriptures that make it clearer:

God does not change. If proving to Him total commitment caused Him to swear blessings back then, then He will do the same for us today! And this illuminates the last verse of our text:

Did you catch that? The writer has just told about how that God sware unto Abraham blessings and then he said that WE can have that source of strength and can grasp the hope that he hold out to us! There is a reason to serve God! There is a reason to sell out to Him and live for Him with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength! The devil tries to whisper in your ear and catch you in your emotions and tell you that there really is no use serving God and being faithful to Him! But that is a lie from the pits of hell! You can find strength and hope in the fact that if you will be faithful to Him God will not only promise to be faithful to you, but He will swear by it! And everything that God swears comes to pass!

There was only three men before Calvary that God swore to: Abraham, David, and Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was repeatedly called the Son of Abraham, the Son of David, the Seed of Abraham, and the Seed of David, and the Root of David! But the writer of Hebrews says that WE have this hope! We are the body of Christ! We are to be like Jesus Christ! The scriptures say that we should be "as He is in this world." If you and I will completely commit our ways to God, He will do something that very other men before Calvary ever experienced! He will not only give up promises, but He will swear to them! And when God swears it will come to pass! Don't you believe the lie of Satan that the cause of Christ is not worth selling out to! It is the only thing worth selling out to! When God looks at my life, I want Him to be pleased and I want Him to swear!