Can I pray for you in any way?
Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.
In Christ, Mark
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
** Follow The Christian Walk on Twitter @ThChristianWalk
** Like posts and send friend requests to the author of The Christian Walk, Mark Cummings on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/mark.cummings.733?ref=tn_tnmn
** Become a Follower of The Christian Walk at http://the-christian-walk.blogspot.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
He also said to him, “I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.”
But Abram said, “Sovereign Lord, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?”
So the Lord said to him, “Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.”
Abram brought all these to Him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half. Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away.
As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. Then the Lord said to him, “Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation, your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”
When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, “To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates—the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites.”
Genesis 15:7-21
This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
The Lord made it clear regarding who would be Abram’s heir:
“This man will not be your heir, but a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir.”
“Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.”
“So shall your offspring be.” Genesis 15:4-5
After hearing God’s promise, the scriptures told us that “Abram believed the Lord” and as a result, God “credited it to him as righteousness” (v.6).
Right after this, we find God sealing His promise to Abram with a special covenant. Look at the remaining verses of Genesis, chapter 15 here:
He also said to him, “I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.”
But Abram said, “Sovereign Lord, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?”
So the Lord said to him, “Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.”
Abram brought all these to Him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half. Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away.
As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. Then the Lord said to him, “Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation, your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”
When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, “To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates—the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites.” Vv.7-21
It’s interesting that although God’s Word tells us that Abram believed in what God had told him, he still asked the Lord the following question:
“Sovereign Lord, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?”
It appears there is some doubt in Abram’s mind, even after God reminded him that He had brought him “out of Ur of the Chaldeans” so to give him the land of Canaan so he could “take possession of it.”
Note that God doesn’t get angry with Abram, although He could have. Perhaps He took into consideration that His servant had grown up in an environment where polytheism dominated and so had only been a God-follower for a short time. Additionally, the Lord knew what Abram’s future held and how he would become the father of the nation of Israel.
And so, rather than rebuke Abram, we find God reinforcing the promise he made through something called a “blood covenant”.
To set the stage, God tells Abram to get “a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon”. Except for the birds, Abram “cut” the heifer, goat, and ram “in two” before arranging the “halves opposite each other”. He then prevented “birds of prey” from descending and feeding “on the carcasses”.
After this, the scriptures tells us that Abram “fell into a deep sleep” as “the sun was setting” and “a thick and dreadful darkness came over him”. In that slumber, we read about God speaking to Abram saying:
“Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation, your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”
This was God’s promise which he then sealed through the blood covenant, passing “between the pieces” in the form of “a smoking firepot with a blazing torch”.
Now, it’s important to note that in a typical blood covenant, the two parties entering into an agreement would walk a path between the arranged pieces. We get a sense of this from a passage in the 34th chapter of Jeremiah:
“Those who have violated My covenant and have not fulfilled the terms of the covenant they made before Me, I will treat like the calf they cut in two and then walked between its pieces. The leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the court officials, the priests and all the people of the land who walked between the pieces of the calf, I will deliver into the hands of their enemies who want to kill them. Their dead bodies will become food for the birds and the wild animals.” Vv.18-20
Here we find the Lord promising judgment on the “leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the court officials, the priests and all the people of the land who walked between the pieces of the calf” and then broke their covenant with God.
In the case of Abram, it was only God who passed between the pieces as He vowed the following:
“To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates—the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites.”
In today’s scripture passage, we find a patient God, willing to remain steadfastly to Abram, the man He had chosen as the progenitor of the Israelite nation. He wanted to make His promise clear, even going as far as a blood covenant to seal the legitimacy of its validity. As we know, God carried out exactly what He said He would, just as He always does because He never goes back on His word when He makes promises.
As believers today, let us rejoice and be glad in this truth.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment