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God’s
Covenant with Abraham Continued from The Essence of Covenant “Keeping in mind this procedure for making a
covenant, we'll turn to Genesis 15:7‑18, which describes how the
Lord entered into a covenant with Abram (his name had not yet become
Abraham): 7 And He said to
him, "I am the LORD who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give
you this land to possess it." 8 And he said, “0 Lord
GOD, how may I know that I shall possess it?" 9 So He said to
him, “Bring Me a three year old heifer and a three year old female goat, and
a three year old ram, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon." 10 Then he brought
all these to Him and cut them in two, and laid each half opposite the other;
but he did not cut the birds. 11 And the birds of
prey came down upon the carcasses, and Abram drove them away. 12 Now when the sun
was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram and behold, terror and great darkness
fell upon him. 13 And God said to
Abram, "Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a
land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four
hundred years. 14 "But I Will
also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out
with many possessions. 15 "And as for
you, you shall go to your fathers in peace, you shall be buried at a good old
age. 16 "Then in the
fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not
yet complete." 17 And it came about
when the sun had set, that it was very dark, and behold, there appeared a
smoking oven and a flaming torch which passed between these pieces. 18 On that day the
Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, "To your descendants I have
given this land..." (Genesis 15.7‑18) The passage opens
with the Lord making a promise to Abram that He will give him the land of
Canaan for his possession. Abram responds with a question: "How may I know... ?" In
reply, the Lord proceeds to make a covenant with Abram. In other words, God's
final commitment to do anything is in a covenant. When God has entered into a
covenant, there is no more that He can do to commit Himself. Covenant represents
final, irrevocable commitment. Once God has made the covenant with Abram, He no
longer speaks in the future tense He does not say, "I will give,"
He says, "I have given."
The covenant has settled it—finally and forever. The procedure by which
the Lord entered into the covenant with Abram corresponds exactly to that
described in Jeremiah 34:18‑20. Abram had to take the sacrificial
animals, kill them, and divide them into two pieces. Then it appears that, in
due course, the Lord and Abram passed between the pieces of the sacrifice. By
that strange act, the Lord entered into a covenant commitment with Abram. Now let us look at
some of the details of this transaction. Every one of them is illuminating.
Verse 11 reads. "And the birds of prey
came down upon the carcasses, and Abram drove them away." These
words bring back very vivid memories to me. During World War
II, while serving with the British forces in Egypt, I lay for one full year
sick and in hospital, with a condition which apparently the doctors were not
able to heal. In desperation, I turned to the Bible to see what it had to
say. Ultimately, after reading the whole Bible through, I came to the
conclusion that God had provided healing for me through the death of Jesus
Christ on the cross, that it was a part of the covenant God had made with me
through Christ. But as I sought to lay hold of this truth, my mind was
continually assailed with all sorts of fits of depression, doubt, and
darkness. As I lay there,
wrestling to appropriate my covenant benefits in Christ and fighting off
these moods of depression and doubt, I happened to read this passage in
Genesis chapter 15, and I saw that it was Abram's job to drive the birds of
prey away. God ordained the sacrificial objects, but to keep them intact was
Abram's job. Likewise, I saw that God had provided the sacrifice in Christ
for me, but it was my job to keep those satanic birds from preying on the
sacrifice and robbing me of my benefits. So I saw there was a period in which
I would have to keep driving the birds away. No matter how many times doubt
or unbelief or fear would attack me, it was my privilege and my responsibility
to keep those sacrificial objects intact. They were not to be desecrated by
the satanic birds of prey that wanted to feed on them and take away from my
inheritance. Then it says in
verse 12: “Now when the sun was going
down, a deep steep fell upon Abram; and behold, terror and darkness fell upon
him.” This was a very profound spiritual experience in which Abram as a
mature, committed believer went through “terror
and great darkness.” Does your theology make room for that? Do you know that
some of the greatest saints of God go through periods of spiritual darkness?
It is not necessarily a mark of immaturity or weakness to go through
darkness. In fact, God cannot trust the immature and weak with that kind of
experience. He knows just how much
each of us can endure. Abram did not go through the darkness because he was
weak or uncommitted, but he went through it because it was part of his total
spiritual experience. His darkness was a preview of what his descendants were
to suffer in Egypt. As their father, he had share a measure of their
suffering. In verses 13
through 16, the Lord explains to Abram what is going to happen to his
descendants in Egypt, and how ultimately He will intervene and deliver them
and bring them back to the land of Canaan.
Then verse 17, a new dimension is added to Abram’s experience: “And it came about when the sun had set,
that it was very dark, and behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a flaming
torch which passed between these pieces." To the normal darkness of
night is added the blackness of smoke belching from an oven. Frequently in
Scripture, an oven or a furnace typifies intense suffering. In Isaiah 48:10,
God says to Israel: "Behold, I
have refined you, but not as silver: I have tested you in the furnace of
affliction." (By the way, it is worth noting that word “affliction” in the Hebrew does not
mean health issues, or disease, etc. but “misery,” or “trouble.” For a clear example, see 2 Cor. 11:23-30; see also
God’s Covenant of
Healing) This applies at
times to all of God's people. If you should ever find yourself in the
furnace, remember that is where God refines you and tests you. How you react
in the furnace will determine your destiny. You are not necessarily in the
furnace because you are weak or backslidden or because you have failed God. You
are in the furnace because the furnace does things for you that nothing else
can do. In Malachi 3:3, God warns the sons of Levi, His priests, that He will
refine them as gold and silver are refined. Precious metals are never
purified without intense heat. In the midst of
this overwhelming darkness to which Abram was subjected—a darkness that was
both natural and supernatural—there was "a
flaming torch which passed between these pieces" (v. 17). What a depth
of meaning there is in that! The flaming torch was a manifestation of the
Spirit of God, corresponding to "the
seven lamps of fire...which are the seven Spirits of God” (Revelation
4:5) that John saw before the throne in heaven. It was at this moment—the
moment of deepest darkness—that the Lord, in the appearance of the flaming
torch, made His commitment to Abram. He passed between the pieces and, in so
doing, He entered into the covenant. Let me return again
for a moment to my experience in the hospital in Egypt. It was at that time
of darkness in my life that the truth of this incident in Genesis chapter 15
became so vivid to me. I learned that there are times of utter darkness when
the Holy Spirit will illuminate only one thing, the emblems of the sacrifice,
because that is all we need to see. The sacrifice is the emblem of the
covenant, and the covenant is God’s final irrevocable commitment. You may pass through
a time when you can see nothing but the one fact that Jesus died for you.
That is all you need to know. Everything is included in that. Romans 8:32
tells us, “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all,
how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?” There are times
when that is all you hold on to. It is the covenant made in the sacrificial
death of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is how the
Lord and Abram entered into covenant. As I understand it, each passed in turn
between the pieces of the sacrifices. Isn't it amazing that Almighty God
would do that with a man? It staggers my mind that, in a certain sense, God
would come all the way down from heaven to pass between those pieces of slain
animals to make His commitment to Abram. I am overwhelmed to realize that God
would go to such lengths to make His personal commitment to a man. Valid Only Through Death But why was a sacrifice necessary? Why
was that the only way to enter into a covenant? The answer is that the sacrifice
symbolized the death of each party to the covenant. As each party walked
between the pieces of the slain animal, he was saying, in effect, "That
is my death. That animal died as my representative. He died in my place. As I
enter into this covenant, I enter into my death. Now that I am in covenant I
have no right to live.“ That explains why both Hebrew and Greek make no
distinction between covenant and testament. The necessity of death to make a covenant
valid is emphasized in Hebrews: “For
where a covenant is, there must of necessity be the death of the one who made
it. 17 For a covenant is valid only when men are dead, for it is
never in force while the one who made it lives.” (Hebrews 9:16-17) These words leave no room for
misunderstanding. The one who enters into a covenant enters into it by death.
As long as a person remains alive, he is not in covenant. It is impossible to
be in covenant and remain alive. The death of the sacrificed animal is
physical, but it symbolizes another form of death for the one who offers the
sacrifice and passes through the pieces. The one who does this hereby
renounces all right, from that moment, to live for himself. As each party
passes through the pieces of the sacrifice, he says, in effect, to the other:
“If need be, I will die for you. From now on, your interests take precedence
over my own. I no longer live for myself; I live for you.” To God, a covenant is no empty ritual.
It is a solemn and sacred commitment. If we trace through history the course
of events that resulted from the Lord's covenant with Abram, we see that each
party had to make good the commitment which the covenant represented. Some years later, when Abram had become
Abraham, God said to him: "I want your son Isaac, your only son. The
most precious thing you have is no longer yours because you and I are in
covenant. It is mine." To his eternal credit, Abraham did not falter. He
was willing to offer up Isaac. Only at
the last moment did the Lord intervene directly from heaven and stop him from
actually slaying his son (see Genesis chapter 22). However, that is not the end of the
story. God had also committed Himself to Abraham. Two thousand years later,
God in His turn, fulfilled His part of the covenant. To meet the need of
Abraham and his descendants, God offered up His only Son. But this time, there
was no last minute reprieve. On the cross, Jesus laid down His life as the
full price of redemption for Abraham and all his descendants. That act was
the outcome of the commitment that God and Abram had made to each other on
that fateful night two thousand years earlier, when they passed between those
pieces of the sacrifice. All that followed from then on in the course of
history determined by their covenant. The commitment that is made in a covenant is that
solemn, that total, and that irrevocable.” Abraham was blessed in “all
things” (Gen. 24:1; see also
Gen.15:9-21; Heb.6:13). If you are a committed follower of
Jesus the Christ, you are a descendant of Abraham for “through the work of
Christ Jesus, God has blessed the Gentiles with the same blessing He promised
to Abraham, and we Christians receive the promises … through faith” (Gal.3:7, 9, 14, 16, 29; see also Acts
28:28; Rom.4; 9:16-30; Heb.6:13-19). That is good news! “No, I will not break My covenant; I will not take back a single word I said.” (Psalm 89:34) “The Lord leads with unfailing love and faithfulness all those who keep His covenant and obey His decrees.” (Psalm 25:10) Back to The Essence of Covenant Sixteen Great Covenants of
Scripture
The
Context “The object and purpose of our instruction and charge is that all believers would be filled with charity (love) that comes from a pure heart, and a clear conscience, and genuine faith.” —1 Timothy 1:5 Links Sowing Financial Seed—Giving If this website is helpful and the Holy
Spirit is prompting you to sow financial seed, please visit HERE “For His divine power has given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who has called us to glory and goodness. And by that same mighty power, He has given to us exceeding great and precious promises; that by these you all might be partakers of the Divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” (2 Peter1:3-4) There are 750 promises in the New Testament alone. Link to the list of 250 separate benefits
of the 750 New Testament promises The Key That Unlocks all promises “The Lord leads with unfailing love and
faithfulness all those who keep his covenant and obey his decrees.” (Ps.
25:10) The benefits of God’s promises are conditional. “…For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged [by the Lord]. But when we are judged, we are chastened [taught] by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world.” (1 Corinthians 11:31-32) “…Remember, each of us will stand personally before the judgment seat of Messiah (Christ).” (Romans 2:1-16; 14:10; 2 Cor. 5:10-11) Understand the Seven Judgments in Scripture – currently under construction “If you love me [Jesus], keep My commandments.” (John 14:15; 1 John 5:2-3; 2 John 1:6) And the very God of peace sanctify you
wholly, and [I pray God] your whole spirit and soul and body
be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess.
5:23). See the tri-unity of humans. Some links require Adobe Acrobat Reader “This Good News tells us how God makes us right in his sight. This is accomplished from start to finish by faith. As the Scriptures say, ‘The just shall live by faith.’” (Romans 1:17; Galatians 3:11; Habakkuk 2:4) “So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.” (Hebrews
3:19) See Doubt and Unbelief
concerning God’s Word “Beloved, I pray above all things that you may prosper and be in health, even
as your soul prospers.” (3 John 1:2) “For we wrestle not against flesh and
blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the
darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in
high places.” (Ephesians 6:12) See the reality of evil, Satan, or the devil
“Be careful for nothing; but in every
thing by prayer
and supplication [prayer as from neediness] with thanksgiving let your
requests be made known unto God.” (Philippians 4:6) See The Art of Prayer “…The eternal purpose which He [God]
purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Ephesians 3:11). “…Rightly dividing the word
of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15). Link
to God's Plan for Mankind Thank you Derek Prince and Derek Prince Ministries Thank you Finis Jennings Dake and Dake Publishing |