2002-01-01
Good Morning Faithful Readers,
Something that appears in Peter’s writing gives us hope of a very special kind from God. 2 PET 3: 9, “The Lord is not slow to do what He promised, as some think. Instead, He is patient with you, because He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants all to turn away from their sins.” And, what patience that is! The time of human history, which the Bible suggests has been going on for around 6,000 years seems like a huge stretch of time to us. To God, Who has existed forever and is our Creator, it’s a blink of an eyelash [2 PET 3: 8]. We have not been easy children to raise. One need only look at our long history of wars, broken promises, sinfulness, and foolishness to see that. Yet, through it all, God has never wanted anything more than for us to be His people and for Himself to be our God. This important message so eloquently stated in DT 6: 4-5, EZK 37: 23, JER 31:33, and REV 21: 3 (to name just a few of the places in the Scriptures where this is found), really matters both to God and to us.
One of the central issues that led to Judah’s seventy years of captivity in Babylon was the breaking of an important covenant the Jews made with God. The description of this covenant is found in LV 25: 8-17, the Year of Restoration. Every fifty years, beginning on the tenth day of the seventh month, the Day of Atonement [Yom Kippur], freedom should be proclaimed for every inhabitant of the land. All property that had been sold should be restored to its original owner or his descendants. That would keep the property in the family and tribe to which God had originally designated it. All slaves shall be freed and returned to their own families. No unfair land dealings should take place. The land shall be fallow for that one year, and no cheating should take place. Instead, it should be a year of obedient reverence for the Lord. By Jeremiah’s time, it this covenant between God and His people had been broken seven times, the basis for God’s decision to allow the Babylonians to hold the Jews captive for 70 years. JER 34: 18-19 can be found in a section where God speaks through Jeremiah about the deceitful treatment of the slaves in the course of breaking this covenant. “The officials of Judah and Jerusalem together with the palace officials, the priests, and all the leaders made a covenant with Me by walking between two halves of a bull that they had cut in two. But they broke that covenant and did not keep its terms. So I will do to these people what they did to the bull.”
There is nothing strange about God’s words if we understand the Hebrew word, karath [pronounced “kaw-rath” with the accent on the last syllable] as used in GN 15; 17-18a. “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 [which had been halved in preparation for this sacrifice to seal the Abrahamic covenant]. Then and there, the Lord made a covenant with Abram…” Covenants with God are serious business. They are not made lightly or to be fluffed off. These are two-way promises between God and mankind that are always in mankind’s best long-term interests. Sadly, mankind doesn’t always recognize this. They clearly delineate God’s sovereignty and mankind’s responsibility to respond to it.
Often mankind confuses the covenant, which is a matter of the heart-attitude, with the sign it has taken place. Such was the case with the Jews in Paul’s time who claimed that unless a man was circumcised, he was not a child of God with full rights and privileges. That is what prompted Paul to say in his epistle to the Romans, “The Gentiles do not have the Law; but whenever they do by instinct what the Law commands , they are their own law, even through they do not have the Law. Their conduct shows that what the Law commands is written in their hearts. The consciences also show that this is true, since their thoughts sometimes accuse them and sometimes defend them [RO 2: 14-15].” This is the same chapter of Romans where the hypocrisy of traditional Jews is highlighted and really brought to light in RO 2: 28-29. “After all, who is a real Jew, truly circumcised? It is not the man who is a Jew on the outside, whose circumcision is a physical thing. Rather, the real Jew is a person who is a Jew on the inside, that is, whose heart has been circumcised, and this is the work of God’s Spirit, not of the written Law. Such a person receives his praise from God, not from man.” GN 17: 7-14, when read carefully, makes it clear that circumcision is a sign of a covenant, not the covenant itself.
We must always come back to the question: why is this important to me in 2001? The reason is clear. We need to understand Who God really is in our lives and what His sovereign power over us is. That means we must come to realize that every command He gives us and every covenant He makes with us is righteous, for our best long-term interests, and forces us to make changes in our lives that will allow Him to advance our sanctification. These changes are not often easy for us to make, but they are necessary. Just as Jews in ancient times didn’t want to free their slaves and send them back to their families, the command to have a Year of Restoration (Jubilee Year) was important to both God and the Jews, so the command for us to live “in Christ” is important to us. When we came to faith and were baptized, God made three promises to us. He would forgive our sins, give us faith, and allow us to eventually live in eternal peace with Him. In return, we are to stay faithful, trust Him, and be obedient to Him. Covenants with God are important business which matter greatly to all parties involved.
PRAYER: O Lord, Your patience in waiting for us to learn what we need to know and to convert that understanding into apostolic action is nothing short of amazing! Today, we approach You in reverence, knowing we are sinners, to confess our sins in the name of Jesus Christ. You know the content of our hearts and have thus caused us to be “circumcised” in our hearts. That is such a magnificent manifestation of the love You have for us. You are the Lord of our lives. We don’t always meet Your righteous expectations for us, but we dedicate ourselves to trying to improve on doing that. You exert Your sovereignty over our lives in ways that we don’t always understand, but we recognize our need to trust and obey You when that is done. We have entered into the new covenant with You, the covenant of grace. Unlike some many of those who have come before us, we wish to consecrate ourselves to using the example of Your Son Who died on the cross for us and then was resurrected as the Paradigm for our lives. Your wish is to have us be Your people and for You be our One and only God with Your law written on our hearts. Today, we humbly dedicate our lives to making Your fondest wish come true. In Christ’s name, we offer You our adoration, worship, loyalty, trust, obedience, glory, honor, praise, and thanksgiving. Amen.
Tomorrow, the Lord prompts me to write about a covenant that involves King Abimelech of Gerar (part of Philistia) and the family of Abraham. This covenant is a man to man one, rather than a God to man one. However, it still adheres to the morals of God’s law. When God is a part of a man to man covenant and that covenant is kept, it will be successful. All of this is one more way that God demonstrates the love He has for each of us. Peter and I send you our love too.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn