2011-04-22
Good Morning Dear Ones,
Last week, we began looking at what set up the Abrahamic Covenant. GN 12: 1-3, “The Lord said to Abram, “Leave your native land, your relatives, and your father’s home and go to a country that I am going to show you. I will give you many descendants, and they will become a great nation. I will bless you and make your name famous, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, but I will curse those who curse you. And through you I will bless all the nations.” Thus, we have seen the first two parts of this three-part covenant-a land and a people. The third prong in this covenant is a King, and we will see that later on. For ten years, Sarai, Abram’s wife, remained barren, causing Abram to think that he would have to leave his belongings to his favored slave, Eliezer [GN 15: 2]. But we mustn’t underestimate the promises our God gives us. PS 138: 8, “You will do everything You have promised; Lord, Your love is eternal. Complete the work that you have begun.” Some events had to pass before the next step in our journey of discovery on covenant was to take place. After taking his family, servants, and his sheep to Haran [in modern day Syria north of Israel], the journey was delayed until Abram’s father, Terah, a pagan, passed away. Terah was not supposed to have come on this journey from Mesopotamia in the first place, so there was some imperfection in Abram’s obedience to God. It was only then, that Abram and his entourage crossed the northern boarder of Canaan and went into that country. This time, there was another delay, in the form of a famine in Canaan. Thus, Abram and Sarai went to Egypt [GN 12: 10].
While in Egypt, Sarai was mistaken for Abram’s sister, rather than his wife. Abram didn’t do anything about this at first, and the pharaoh wanted her for his harem. Abram had allowed this lie to go unchecked, because he thought it would save both their lives in this foreign land. When the king took Sarai, God sent a terrible disease on the land. It was only then that Abram admitted that Sarai was his wife. [By the way, she actually was also Abram’s half-sister, so the lie was not completely a lie]. Once the truth was revealed, Abram and Sarai were expelled from Egypt. [GN 12: 11-20]. Later, Abram and his nephew, Lot, recognized that there wasn’t enough land in Canaan for both of them to graze their sheep in the land. So, it was decided that Lot would go east, and Abram would stay in Canaan, west of where Lot would go. We all know the unfortunate train of events that would eventually befall Lot and his wife, who go to Sodom [thought to be now under the southern end of the Dead Sea] and how Abram was to rescue Lot but Lot’s wife would end up as a pillar of salt due to her disobedience to God. [GN 13: 1-13; GN 19: 1-29].
The issue of obedience to God would come up repeatedly throughout the Scriptures. We must take into account, one of the reasons why it is so important. God has both an immediate purpose for our lives and a cosmic one. Most of us get to know the immediate purpose for our lives through the work God calls us to do or something about our personalities that fits into His will for us. In Abram’s case, He was selected for a great work for God because of his ability to obey God, even thought his obedience isn’t perfect. He was willing to leave everything that was familiar to him and follow God without knowing exactly where God would lead him. However, few of us know during our earthly lifetimes what our cosmic purpose is, i.e. the purpose that will transcend our physical lives and go on for generations to come. In Abram’s case, it was two-fold: 1) to establish the Jewish people set apart from all their neighbors by the belief in one God-monotheism [EX 20: 1-5]. The other cosmic purpose was 2) to establish a royal lineage, later known as the royal line of David, out of which the Lord Jesus Christ would come [1 SAM 7: 12-13; IS 11: 1]. We must not underestimate the importance of GN 15: 6, “Abram put His trust in the Lord and because of this the Lord was pleased with him and accepted him.” This chapter of Genesis has in it some very important principles. To begin, this verse just cited was the first incidence of justification- being deemed acceptable in the Lord’s sight. Since God is omniscient, it is my personal opinion that this leads back to the reason God chose Abram out of all the people living on the earth in his time for his immediate and his cosmic purposes.
Later on, in GN 15: 13-16, God gives Abram in a vision while he slept some important reconnaissance for understanding the journey he was on. We shouldn’t take any of it lightly either. “Your descendants will be strangers in a foreign land , slaves there treated cruelly for four hundred years.” But God promises to punish the nation that is their captors, and Abram’s descendants will take much wealth out of that country when they leave. Abram will live to a ripe old age, die in peace, and be buried. It will be four generations before Abram’s descendants will return to the Promised Land, not until the Ammorites [enemies of ancient Israel] become so wicked that they must be punished. GN 15:17 is both powerful and significant, as it is the consummation of the Abrahamic Covenent itself. “When the sun had set and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch suddenly appeared and passed between the pieces of the animals [laid out on the altar].” The final jewel in the crown of GN 15 is in verses 18-21, in which the actual boundaries of the Promised Land by divine right are defined, and that might come as a great surprise to a student new to this part of the Scriptures, because of the amount of territory included. More on that next week.
PRAYER: O Lord, while much of today’s devotion is a narrative, we must pay attention to Your reasons for putting it into the Scriptures and deeming it very important. Our very own Christian faith finds its origins in Judaism and in the concepts of covenant theology. Without covenants, we don’t have that unique relationship that is forged between You, Dear Father, and us as believers in Your Son, and between each other with You-an integral of our own Covenant of Grace. You have taken this author through a set of experiences which has boiled down to this important fact. There is nothing more important in life than one’s covenant relationships with God and with other people. No material wealth, position of prestige and influence, or any other thing is more important than that. A significant portion of our covenant relationship with You, Dear Father, is what made it possible-the death of Your Son on the cross and our repentance and faith in Him [JN 3: 16; RO 3: 24-25; JN 13: 34-35]. The latter citation, Your own Son’s words, bears rehearsing here. “And now I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love on another. If you have love for one another, then everyone will know that you are My disciple.” We thank You for choosing us before we chose You [JN 15: 16]. We praise You and thank You for grounding us in a faith that places Your Son at the center of our lives and blesses us when we are obedient with eternal life and fellowship with You. In Christ’s holy and mighty name, we pray. Amen.
NEXT WEEK: I’m led to discuss the land given the Jews by divine right, the significance of justification, and to begin the examination of the third prong of the Abrahamic Covenant, a King. In its creation, nothing I have ever experienced is as wise, compassionate, and just as God’s plan for the salvation of the people who choose to believe in His Son and for mankind in general. God has no evil in Him, but He is forced to endure considerable disobedience and imperfection on the part of His human creation. We must be on our toes, because the forces of evil can strike us where we are vulnerable. 1 PET 5: 8-9, “Be alert. Be on watch! Your enemy, the devil, roams around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Be firm in your faith and resist him, because you know that your fellow believers in all the world are going through the same kind of sufferings.” James also has a similar warning. JAS 4: 7-8, “So then, submit yourselves to God. Resist the devil, and He will run away from you. Come near to God, and He will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners! Purify your hearts, you hypocrites!” James never did mince words. J. With such warnings, we must also cite the balancers, the things that people tend to forget. As believers in the Lord Jesus we have been given the same power to battle the devil to victory in Christ’s name that God used to raise Christ from death to eternal life [EPH 1: 18-20]. (This bears some meditation). We are also given a view into God’s loving heart in 1 PET 5: 6-7, “Humble yourselves, then, under God’s mighty hand, so that He will lift you up in His own good time. Leave all your worries with Him, because he cares for you.” Praise and thanks be to Him!
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn
JS 24: 15