GOD’S WORD FOR NOVEMBER 23 ~ ~ Psalm 119:165 ~ ~ “Great peace have they which love thy law (Word) : and nothing shall offend them”
From the book, How to Read the Bible by Dr. Michael Youssef. Chapter, One King, One Kingdom, section: Abraham and the Covenant of Blood
Our God is a covenant-making God. He made a series of covenants with the human race in both the Old and New Testaments. The covenants between God and human beings, however, are not like the agreements that you and I make with other human beings. A covenant between God and humanity is, by definition, a covenant between two UNEQUAL parties.
God made a covenant with Adam and Eve in Genesis 3:15. Immediately after the temptation and fall of Adam, God promised that Jesus the Messiah would come and crush the head of the serpent, the devil.
In Genesis 9:13-15, God made a covenant with Abraham. He called Abraham – or Abram, as he was then known – to leave Ur of the Chaldeans and move to Canaan There, God promised, He would make a great nation of Abraham.
Then, in Genesis 15, God made another covenant with Abraham. Abraham had fallen into a spiritual depression and had begun to doubt God’s promise. He wondered if God was going to keep the covenants He had made. God reassured him and said, “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.” (Genesis 15:1). God wanted Abraham to know that, regardless of any circumstances, He would keep His word.
When Abraham needed further reassurance, God showed him the countless stars shining in the night sky and said, “So shall your offspring be.” Abraham didn’t understand the full meaning of God’s words. The Lord was speaking not only of Abraham’s physical descendants, but of his spiritual descendants as well.
God credited Abraham’s faith to him as righteousness. Over the centuries to come, God would also credit the faith of countless Old Testament and New Testament believers as righteousness. You and I as believers are the spiritual offspring of Abraham.
Next, God confirmed His identity to Abraham, saying, “I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.” Abraham loved God and honored God, but he still struggled with doubt. “Sovereign Lord,” he said, “How can I know that I will gain possession of it?” Genesis 15:7-8)
God knew that Abraham was weak in faith, just as you and I are weak in faith. In His mercy and kindness, God gave Abraham a visible sign of His covenant.
In the Middle Eastern culture of Abraham, a covenant was sealed with a ceremony of sacrifice. People would kill an animal and cut it in half, then place the halves across from each other. The two parties of the covenant would walk on the bloody ground between the two halves of the animal. The symbolic point of this ritual was to say, “If I fail to keep this covenant, may what has been done to this animal be done to me. May I be cut in half.”
In Genesis 15, God made a covenant with Abraham in precisely those Middle Eastern terms. It was a unilateral covenant in which God took all the conditions on Himself and there were no conditions placed on Abraham.
As God instructed, Abraham arranged the halves of the slain animals. He drove away the birds of prey that tried to feed on the carcasses. Then, the Scriptures tell us, Abraham “fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him.” Then God told Abraham that his descendants would be enslaved in a foreign land for four hundred years – but after that, they would “come out with great possessions.” Abraham himself would be “buried at a good old age.”
Then God entered the space between the animal halves alone, taking the visible form of a smoking firepot with a blazing torch. God made His covenant to Abraham through visible symbols, vowing to give his descendants a great land – far greater than modern Israel today, extending all the way to the Euphrates River in modern-day Syria and Iraq (see Genesis 15:9-20)
When God passed through the midst of the animals that were cut in half, He passed through the shed blood that soaked the ground – a foreshadowing of the blood of Jesus, which would one day be shed upon the cross. The blood of Jesus, which soaked the ground of Calvary, was the fulfillment of God’s covenant with Abraham, saving us from sin and judgment.
The ceremony of the slain and divided animals was God’s visible assurance to Abraham that He was not only a covenant-making God, but a covenant-keeping, God. As the New Testament tells us:
“When God made His promise to Abraham, since there was no greater for Him to swear by, he swore by Himself, saying, “I will surely bless you and give you many descendants.” (Hebrews 6:13-15) And so after waiting patiently, Abraham received what was promised.
We can trust the covenants and promises of God. When He writes our names in His Book of Life when we receive Jesus as Lord and Savior by His grace alone without works, He doesn’t write with a pencil and erase our name when we sin. He writes our names in the precious and indelible blood of Jesus.
God often makes His promises visible to us in a memorable way. When He covenanted with Noah after the flood, He gave the sign of the rainbow. When Gideon asked God for a promise of victory over the Midianites, God gave him the sign of a fleece spread out on the floor. And when Jesus revealed the New Covenant that God was making, He gave His disciples the visible, tangible elements of Holy Communion, the bread – symbolizing His body – and the cup of wine – symbolizing His blood.
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Helen Steiner Rice:
The farmer plows through the fields of green,
And the blade of the plow is sharp and keen,
But the seed must be sown to bring forth grain,
For nothing is born without suffering and pain.
And God never plows in the soul of a man
Without intention and purpose and plan…
So whenever you feel the plow’s sharp blade
Let not your heart be sorely afraid,
For like the farmer, God chooses a field
From which He expects an excellent yield….
So rejoice though your heart be broken in two –
God seeks to bring forth a rich harvest in you.
Psalm 68:19
Blessed be the Lord, who daily loads us with benefits, even the God of our salvation.
Psalm 73:28
But it is good for me to draw near to God: I have put my trust in the Lord God, that I may declare all your works.
Psalm 86:5
For You, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive,
And abundant in mercy to all who call upon You.