And I will make you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great and you will be a blessing. And I will bless those that bless you and curse the one that curses you and in you all families of the earth will be blessed. New Testament in the book of James chapter two in verse 23 it says, and the scripture was fulfilled which said, Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.

And he became, was called the friend of God. One final verse in Genesis chapter 24 in verse one. It says, and Abraham was old and well advanced in age and the Lord Yahweh had blessed Abraham in all things.

Abraham is probably one of the most famous names of the Old Testament, usually known as father Abraham. Even in Sunday school we used to sing the song, father Abraham has many sons. You ever sing that in Sunday school? Many sons as father Abraham.

I am one of them and so are you. Abraham is the father of both of God's chosen people at the beginning, the Israelite nation and God's chosen people of today, the church of God, both Jews and Gentiles. He's the father of both groups.

Abraham was the first or the prototype if you like of a whole new generation of people. As we read through Genesis of the creation and the fall of man and how sin began to show itself and people began to turn away from God, God chose out for himself a man that he would pull out and build a new generation with. And that person was Abraham.

Now, in order to get the full truth at times from the Old Testament, we need to look at it as more than just a history book. And so what we often do, especially in the teaching ministry is we look at events and persons from the Old Testament and we see in them a picture or a type or a model or illustration of something that is perhaps more clearly explained in the New Testament. Now, Abraham is one of seven different characters, Old Testament characters, which I believe typify and picture the ministry of the apostle, the role and the function and the office of the apostle, which we see in the New Testament.

Now, there were no apostles in the Old Testament. So if we want to use the term apostle, we need to go to the New Testament. But in order to understand better what apostles looked like and what they did, we need to get some of the illustrations from the Old Testament.

And so God has showed us that there are seven different Old Testament characters, which are pictures of apostolic types. So Moses is, sorry, Abraham is probably a pretty good model for us all to follow. If God has chosen him firstly as the father of both God's first people, Israel, and God's people today, the church of God, both Jews and Gentiles, I think we can learn something from his life.

On the one hand, we can see him as a model of the apostle, and we will be dealing with that in some detail. But today I'd like to just emphasize one aspect of Abraham's function. Now we see that there are two categories of apostle that we can consider as we look at apostles.

And we have four different kinds or types of apostles which have a ministry emphasis. I like to call them the ministry apostles. And then we also have four different characters on the Old Testament who typify a different kind of apostle.

Which I call the business apostle or the apostolic entrepreneur. Now when you combine those two together, you don't get eight, you get seven, because one of them is both. Now I'm not gonna be teaching on that today, but I'll be releasing a book in the very near future entitled, Seven Kinds of Apostle.

And there I'm going to show you in detail how these Bible characters picture these different kinds of apostle, how they interface together and how they function in the New Testament church. And the reason I mention this is because amongst those seven types and those two categories of apostle, Abraham stands out not as a model of a ministry apostle, but actually a model of a business apostle. Now that might seem a bit confusing at first, but I do explain that in the other course.

But I want you to understand that as we look at Abraham today, I want to look to him from a temporal or business or financial point of view. And that's why I've given you the title, Getting Rich the Abraham Way. You see, the scripture tells us that Abraham was very wealthy, very rich.

Now I've done extensive teaching on the ministry apostles and I've left the business apostles for last. And so we're still in process and putting together the different teachings. And as I've looked at these four characters from the Old Testament, and I'm not going to mention them all to you.

If you want to learn this, you better go and get my new book. But I want to look at just the one, which is Abraham was quite clearly a business apostle. Now, as I look at Abraham and as I studied him, I look to see what I could find out from his life and his experiences that would teach me how to be a good entrepreneur and to do well in business.

Because surely if Abraham was, and he was the first of the four business apostles, this guy should be the ultimate picture of how to do business. Wouldn't you expect that? Trouble is I couldn't find any business skills in Abraham. Very few business skills there.

And yet he became extremely wealthy. How did that happen? Abraham did everything wrong. Firstly, he lied his way.

On two different occasions, he lied about his wife and said she was his sister. And in spite of that, God still blessed him. And even through his very lie, he got rich.

So you want a model of how to be a good business person from Abraham, lie your way. That's what it looks like. But you see, it wasn't his practices.

It wasn't what he did and how he did it. That is not what made Abraham rich. And that's what I want to make clear to you today.

And those of you who feel that God has given you a business calling, you might be thinking, what kind of business practices should I do in order to become wealthy? Now I'm gonna show you from the life of Abraham that actually your business practices are effectively irrelevant because Abraham didn't have any of those. Okay, see if you're going to become wealthy by doing business practices, what makes you different to unbelievers out there who are doing business practices? Have you noticed in business, everybody's always coming up with a new idea, a new way of doing things, usually a new way of swindling people out of their money. Very true.

Now, if we're going to find good business practices from Abraham, what's gonna make them any different to the business practices of the world? Now we'll see some of that when we get some of the other business apostolic types. Now I'll show you the comparison between doing it the world's way and doing it God's way. But I want to show you how Abraham became rich without actually following business practices.

And in fact, some of the practices he followed, businesses of today would consider plain foolish. You don't do a business that way. Abraham was known as the friend of God.

That was his defining quality. Abraham was the friend of God. And because he was a friend of God, God poured so much wealth in him that he had more than he could handle.

But in order to get to that place and to become the friend of God, Abraham needed three absolutely essential qualities. That's what I'd like to speak on today. I'd like to show you the three absolutely essential qualities that are needed.

If you want to experience the blessing of God, and if you want to walk in wealth, and in actual fact, Abraham had far more than wealth. It's because the scripture tells us God had blessed him in all things. God said, I'm gonna make your name great.

He was blessed with fame as well as wealth. He was blessed with everything that we would consider in this world, the ultimate goal or thing to aim for, that the world are striving for. God gave all of those to Abraham.

Why? Because he had these three essential qualities. I'd like to look at these qualities and I'd like to show you how they were manifested in the life of Abraham. Firstly, Abraham was a man of faith.

Faith is the first essential quality that God looks for in anybody. The scripture says without faith, it is impossible to please God. If you want the blessing of God in your life, whether it be becoming known, becoming famous, being an influence, having much wealth, or anything else that comes under the category of God's blessing, the first and most important thing that you will need is faith.

Otherwise, your blessing's not coming from God, it's coming from somewhere else. If you wanna walk in the blessing of God, faith is very essential. The scripture tells us Abraham believed God.

Because of that, God considered him righteous. Would you consider a person who lies about his wife and says she's his sister, would you consider such a man righteous? Yeah, most preachers would be condemning him to hell unless he gave them some of his money. Kind of changes things, doesn't it? We'll make him head of the board of elders if he gives us his money.

Oh, the church is so full of the world. And the world's a way of doing it, isn't it? Abraham believed God. God said to Abraham, I want you to go, I want you to move out away from your family and from everything, your country, and I'm going to give you a promised land of blessing.

Abraham didn't say, well, prove it to me first. Scripture says he stepped out boldly and he traveled to the land that God showed him. He believed God and he acted on it.

The first key to becoming wealthy the Abraham way is firstly to hear the word of God and then to believe the word of God. And thirdly, to act on the word of God. Because as James tells us, faith without corresponding action lies dead.

It's like an unplanted seed. Faith is absolutely essential. And so Abraham traveled out, came all the way down to the land of Canaan, which is the land God had promised him.

Now, Canaan in the scripture is always a picture of the life of blessing, of the spiritual life, of the place where God wants us to be. So Abraham arrived in Canaan and the first thing he did is he built an altar to the Lord and began to call upon the name of the Lord and he put God first. Well, that was wonderful.

God had promised him this land of blessing. He traveled, he arrived, began to praise and worship God. And then God said, Abraham, look over this land.

See as far as your eye can see, all of this, I'm giving it to you and to your descendants forever. Wow. Abraham had arrived.

Just one slight problem, there was a famine in the land. Well, you know, I've trusted God and he's brought me into ministry and I've arrived. I've been trained, ordained and blessed.

And here I am. I arrived and there's my church with empty chairs in it. So what am I gonna live on? Who's gonna pay my salary? How can I survive? There's a famine here.

Yeah, but you're in the right place, aren't you? Aren't you? Isn't that what God promised you? Isn't that what you waited on God for and he gave it to you? There was no money there. There was no food there. Abraham would have worshiped the Lord while starving to death.

So he had to look and see where the provision was. And as always in the scriptures, we'll find that one place always seems to have provision. It was Egypt.

Now Egypt in the scriptures is a picture of the world or the world system. Abraham had his promised land but it was of little use to him. So he went to Egypt.

He had to go to the world. Many a preacher has made the mistake of thinking I've given up everything in the world. I've given up my job, I've given up my career to go and do the work of the Lord.

Only to find out that it takes money to run a ministry. It takes money to buy food, to eat and to feed your family. It takes money to do what God's called you to do.

And many have had to let go of that ministry for a season. Go back into the world and provide a source of income. Well, that's what Abraham basically had to do.

He hadn't turned his back on the Lord but he had to find another way of getting an income. Now here's the problem. When you go to the world for your source there's always a price to pay.

Because the world doesn't operate the same way as God's kingdom. And the first thing Abraham faces as he comes to the border of Egypt is sudden fear. I'm married to the most beautiful woman in the world.

See, I told you Abraham was blessed. Not only was he blessed in so many other things, God gave him such a beautiful wife that he was afraid they would kill him so they could get his beautiful wife. See, he married Miss Universe.

So I shouldn't be aiming that high, should I? Shouldn't you? Who do you want to marry? The ugliest person in the world. Well, I'm not saying that you should be concentrating on beauty. But I'm saying if you desire to marry somebody with good looks, you should marry Miss Universe.

There's nothing wrong with it. And actually, God wants to give you the best. Well, the best isn't always the best looking.

But God always wants you to have the best. And God gave Abraham the best. Gave him this beautiful woman.

You know, even in our old age, he was still afraid they were gonna kill him for his wife. Man, she must have been some looker. Tell you what.

So now then, Abraham goes down to Egypt and he faces the world system. If you want to do what God's called you to do, especially if he's called you to be the one who's gonna create the wealth that's gonna build the kingdom of God, I can tell you now, the wealth is not to be found in the church. You will not produce the wealth to reach the world by hammering God's people on tithing and nagging them to give you the little bit of money they got.

You're gonna have to go and get it in the world, just like Abraham did. But be careful. Be careful that when you go there, you don't forget your commitment to the Lord.

So Abraham goes in fear, lies about his wife. And immediately, of course, they grab her so that Pharaoh can take her. Isn't that great to be the king? Hey, you always get the best choice.

So Abraham gets, they make a fuss of him because of his beautiful sister. They shower him with gifts. But he's about to lose the most important thing in his life.

You see, in spite of that, God protected Abraham because God had a purpose for Abraham. God had called him. And you may have made the mistake of allowing yourself to get snared in the world system.

But I'm gonna tell you, if you've got the call of God on your life, God's gonna rescue you. And God did an amazing thing here. Not only did he rescue Abraham from Pharaoh, but he actually made Abraham rich in the process.

All the wealth that they poured on Abraham for his sister, he was allowed to keep it. So when Abraham finally left Egypt with his wife now, he took with him all the extra wealth that he'd accumulated while he was there. If you are called to be an Abraham, wealth should be coming to you naturally, no matter what you do, even when you mess up.

Now, that doesn't give you license, of course. It doesn't mean you can just go and sin and live however you like, because you have to be a model. You're a leader in the kingdom of God.

God could turn even that failure of Abraham's into a blessing. That is one of the hallmarks of the Abraham apostle. You will walk in blessing, in temporal and financial blessing, not because of your good business practices, not even because of your great morality, but because of your faith, because that's what pleases God.

And so Abraham left Egypt wealthy. He had some exposure to the world system, and that is one of the first signs of the business calling. You're gonna have to have exposure to the world system.

And very often when you see a person who's called by God to move in this direction, we often look at that person and we say, you know, they've just given up their commitment. Many years ago, when the Lord first led me to learn about the business calling, He told me to let go of my ministry calling for a season and to walk a new road, the business road. And I looked at Abraham and God said, Abraham, I'm changed your name from Abram to Abraham, the father of many.

And I felt God telling me I should change my name. Well, you know, I never did really like my name. You know, it seems most famous people in the world are called Bill.

I always wish I could change my name to William so they could call me Bill. I used to introduce myself to people say, hi, I'm Liz, but you can call me Bill. It was a standing joke.

And so I decided to take the name Billionaire so that I could become very wealthy. Well, every time you spoke Abraham, you said, Abraham, you're saying father of many, you don't even have any children yet. So he said, every time you called me Billionaire, I didn't have two cents to rub together, but you were calling me wealthy.

I figured that was a good idea. It didn't work so well for me. Everybody said, what? You're supposed to be an apostle.

You've been called by God. And now you've given in to filthy lucre. You're serving the mammon of unrighteousness.

You're just thinking about money. I guess they would have looked at Abraham that way when he left the Canaan land and went to the world. But God had a purpose in it, you see.

It's gonna have to be a time of letting go of the ministry side and going into a more temporal thing. And very often in the past, I saw people who made this choice and I would condemn them and say, you know, they are so carnal. All they think about is money instead of the kingdom of God.

I need to find out afterwards that actually they had a passion to raise finance, to finance the work of God. I've seen people rise up and become wealthy and have money to pour into the kingdom of God. If they didn't have that orientation, God couldn't have used them for that.

This is one of the hallmarks of the business apostle. You want to help people and you wanna help finance the work of God. Your starting point is faith.

If you don't have faith, forget about your business practices. Forget about which product you're going to sell. Forget about what kind of business you're gonna do.

Your starting point is, do I have faith? And if you don't have faith, you better learn how to get faith. And the starting point is to put yourself into a place where you begin to hear His voice. And when you hear His voice and you believe it, as the scripture says, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.

The rainbow word of God. When you hear His voice and you believe it and you act on it, faith is born and now you've taken your first step to becoming wealthy. But Abraham wasn't only a man of faith.

He was also a man of love. Well, if you've heard my preaching, you know what the three elements are, don't you? Faith, love and hope. Well, where do I see that Abraham had love? The scripture doesn't actually tell us that Abraham had love, but I'd like to show you what a loving man this was.

Firstly, when Abraham left, he took with him his brother's son. Now his brother had died sometime, long time previously and his son Lot was actually kind of part of the family. They originally all left together with Abraham's father and now Abraham was left with Lot in his care.

He cared for him. Now, it sounds like Lot actually wasn't exactly battling. He kind of had a lot of stuff as well.

So Abraham could have left him and said, you just stay here where we are. God's told me to go into a new promised land, but Abraham cared for Lot. That's why he took him with.

Now, here's the problem. Lot became his competition. Lot became his competition.

Lot had the same aspirations of becoming wealthy and as their flocks and their herds began to multiply, they started to squabble over the land. Lot wanted to bring his animals to be watered and fed and Abraham's herdsmen wanted to bring theirs and they started to fight over the land. Well, do you know what? The land was given to Abraham, not to Lot.

What would any normal person have done in a circumstance like that? Would have said, Lot, you know what? I've been pretty generous. I've been pretty good to you up to now, but you don't appreciate what I've done for you. Now, just take your flocks and just get out of here and go back home.

Really, enough. This land is mine. Just get out of here.

Or perhaps, he could have said, you see that crummy little piece of land over there that I don't want? Lot, I'm giving you that so you can go there with your herds and you can help yourself. I don't want that land, you can have it. But what did Abraham do? Very foolish thing from a business point of view.

He called Lot and he said, okay, Lot, I'm gonna let you choose first which part of the land you'd like to take. Okay. You know, that's not the way to do business, folks.

Don't you know that the way to do business is destroy the opposition? Don't you know that standard business practice out there? That if I can destroy the opposition, if I can demolish my competition, then I can take it all? That's good, solid business practice. Rich get richer, the poor get poorer. Survival over the fittest.

Or the richest, as the case may be. But no, none of this. Abraham, this guy really didn't have a business bone in his body.

Abraham, you should know better than this. Well, of course, Lot, he was a true businessman. He said, okay, uncle Abraham, you see that beautiful piece of land over there? You can see how well watered it is.

It's full of wealth. It's flourishing. In fact, it's so good, most of the people are living there.

See, the rest of this land's kind of like desert. Like prairie land, it's just flat. Hardly anything there.

Probably only thing you put on there would be a couple of sheep maybe. But just look there at the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, the cities of the plain. Okay, I'll take that, he says.

Problem with that, of course, it was evil and corrupt. They were full of sin. But Abraham didn't complain.

Abraham said, oh dear, I made a mistake here. Actually, Lot, on the other hand, no, I will take that. No, he said, fine.

You go ahead, I'll take what's left. They had business practice. But a real spirit of love.

I care enough about you that I'll let you have the best before me. Well, you know, old Lot, he went and he bumped his head. Because before long, a whole bunch of kings got together and they attacked Sodom and Gomorrah and captured everybody and took them away, including Lot and his family.

And Abraham, what would you have done if you were Abraham? See, Lot, I told you. See, you wanted to be greedy. See, Lot, you're gonna bump your head now.

See, you try to take everything, Lot, and now you've lost everything. Serves you right. Abraham gathers all of his servants, makes them into a little mini army, and he goes out and he attacks.

And he defeats the enemies. And he rescues Lot and his family. So now your business is really struggling and battling.

You hang along and your competitor who jumped in there and took it all, they suddenly hit a big crash. And their business goes bump. What do you do? Rejoice and say, hey, that's wonderful.

See, I told you guys. God has judged you for your wrong sin. God has judged you.

Serves you right. My turn now to step up. Now, let me help you recover your business.

You don't have to go bankrupt. Let me pour some of my money into you. Did you see that happening? In the natural.

See, when you've got a heart of love, it changes everything. And that heart of love may have cost Abraham dearly from a natural point of view, but it opened the way wide for God to pour even more into him. So, Mr. and Mrs. Almas, business person, what is your attitude in business? Are you gonna get out there and do this great, big, awesome business, show everybody how skillful and capable you are, prove you're better than everybody else and destroy the competition? You're not gonna be an Abraham apostle, that I can tell you.

Then here comes the final one. God decides to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah because of their wickedness and because Lot and his family have allied themselves to that place, they're gonna get destroyed as well. And so God comes and he says to Abraham, I'm not gonna hide it from you, I'm gonna tell you.

Because of the wickedness of this place, I'm gonna destroy it. Once again, Abraham steps forward and he says, Lord, Lord, if there were some righteous people there, would you still destroy it? And you know what's in his mind. He knows Lot is there and he's trying to persuade the Lord very gently.

He wasn't very arrogant, Abraham, he kind of tried to start with a bigger number and bring it down and try and persuade God, but he never had the courage to follow it all the way through, to get it down to the smallest number. But he tried, he tried to intercede for Lot. Are you interceding for your enemies? Are you interceding for your competition? Are you praying that God would bless them? Are you praying that God would not judge them? Or are you instead trying to take out the sword and saying, Lord, judge them, destroy them? What is your attitude? You got that attitude, I'm afraid you don't qualify for this level of calling.

So if you think the business call is simply becoming a successful business person, I'm afraid you're very wrong. Finally, Abraham was a man of hope. God had promised Abraham his own heir, his own son from his wife, Sarah, that would inherit everything and all this wealth that he'd got.

God came to Abraham the one day and he said, Abraham, I'm your shield of protection and your income and reward is gonna be huge. Abraham would say, yay, isn't that awesome? He said, Lord, what use is that to me if I don't have somebody to give it to? Can you see again the love? Can you see again the motivation? He wasn't trying to build his own kingdom. He was thinking of the future.

He was thinking of his family and those that he would pass it on to. God calls you to higher leadership. You're not there to make a name for yourself.

God says to Abraham, I'm going to give you your own son. And Abraham's thinking, well, you know what? Sex has become a thing of the past. I'm a bit old now.

And you know, Sarah, she's gone through menopause already. There's no more eggs there. No more babies coming from her.

So Lord, really, really, let's be sensible about this. What are the chances? God said, I'm telling you, a year from now, Sarah will hold a baby in her arms. Well, at first, Abraham thought it was impossible, but you know what? He held onto that hope.

And the scripture says he believed in hope, against hope. It was an impossible situation, but he hung on with his hope that God was gonna fulfill the promise. And sure enough, something happened.

I don't know how it happened, but I think Abraham suddenly got a bit of virility he didn't have there before. Must've been an exciting time to come back to life as an old man. And even then, I'm pretty sure he didn't figure he was gonna make his wife pregnant.

Sure enough, she did. Just as God had promised, the son was born. Abraham was a man of faith.

Abraham was a man of love. And Abraham was a man of hope. These three are the only qualities that God requires of you for you to be blessed in every possible way.

Especially since we're looking at the financial side. If you want to become wealthy the Abraham way, only way it's gonna happen is if you have these three things. In your life.

So the scripture says, God said to Abraham, as it is written, I made you a father of many nations. Before him who he believed, even God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things that are not as though they were, who against hope, believed in hope that he might become the father of many nations. According to that which was spoken, so shall your seed be.

Abraham is a model for us of how to experience the blessing of God. God had blessed him in all things. He was wealthy, he was famous, and he was very influential.

The only qualities that qualified him and made him stand out were his faith, his hope and his love. These are the only things God needs folks. If you wanna succeed in this world, you're not gonna do it without the blessing of God.

And the only way you're going to experience it is to have these three things manifest in your life. See, and this is where the spiritual dimension has to come in. Becoming wealthy is not about good business practices.

It's about good spiritual practices. It's about walking in the spirit. Scripture teaches us in the New Testament.

When you walk in the spirit, the fruit of the spirit is a manifest in your life. And a tree sprouts forth with three roots, faith, love and hope. And bears forth many different fruits which the scripture describes.

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness. So many good things. This is the key to the blessing of God.

This is the key to wealth. So if God's called you to be an Abraham, stop trying to find out how to do business the Abraham way because you're gonna fail. Because he wasn't a very good businessman.

You're gonna end up giving everything to somebody else. But if you have Abraham's attitude, if you have his heart, if you have his spirit, and you can come to that place where because of these things, God says, I'm not calling you my servant anymore. I'm calling you my friend.

Isn't that what Jesus said to his disciples? I'm not gonna call you servants. I'm gonna call you friends. And because you're my friends, I'm not gonna hide anything from you.

I'm gonna tell you exactly what I'm doing. And I'm gonna give you everything that I have. See, that's why Abraham has to be the first business apostolic type.

Because if you don't have this as your foundation, you will fail. You say, do I not need business practices then? No, I didn't say that. When we get to the other apostolic business types, we'll see what some of the business practices are.

But those business practices have to come secondary to those spiritual qualities which are the most important things in your life. As you've been struggling to succeed in business, if you believe God has called you to finance the work of God and to generate much wealth, stop running around seeing how you can do business better. Get into his word.

Move into the spirit. Get into a relationship with God as Abraham had. To become the friend of God and to hear his voice and to walk in fellowship with him.

And as the scripture says, if we seek first kingdom of God, all the other things will be added automatically. That, folks, is the key to becoming wealthy the Abraham way.

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