Love Affair With the Word 8-10-26

Genesis 12:1-3  “Now the Lord had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, From your family And from your father’s house, To a land that I will show you.”  God gave him direction. It sounded like a warning. ^{2 “}I will make you a great nation; I will bless you And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing.”  It seems like he would not have been blessed in his hometown if he had stayed. I’ve talked about this before, how obeying God’s commandments leads to blessing.^{3 “}I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (fantastic, too difficult to believe promises). (All hinged on Abrams obedience)

Sometimes when you tell people about God they look at you funny, expecting you to prove to them with no shadow of doubt that your invisible being, God exists. There are two types of people, believers and non- believers. The question is, would they believe if God appeared to them like He did Abram? What do you think? If you asked them to loan you a dollar and promised to repay them $2 dollars in two days, would they? Maybe if they knew you. Here is where being a good judge of character comes in. But God is the one who knows it all. He doesn’t make mistakes. What He does is to see what we’ll do with the ability to make wrong choices. (Abraham and Hagar). Abraham is known as Faithful. Also an attribute of God. 

Genesis 12:7  ^{7 “}Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, (prophesied) “To your descendants I will give this land.” And there he built an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him.”  The Lord prophesied to him. Notice the interaction, one of faith and honor first from God and then from Abram.

Genesis 15:1-21“After these things the Word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.” God spoke to Abram a word of comfort. He was telling him I will protect you and reward you. I am your source! It doesn’t matter what you want, how much you want when you want it, what really is the target of our faith is God being our source!

Verse 2 “But Abram said, “Lord God, what will You give me, seeing I go childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” 3 “Then Abram said, “Look, You have given me no offspring; indeed one born in my house is my heir!”(his servant) Notice he goes right to the reward part after the self pity! This sounds like someone looking for a sign. A fleece before the Lord! But God gently corrects.

Verse 4 “And behold, the Word of the Lord came to him, saying, “This one shall not be your heir, but one who will come from your own body shall be your heir.” 5 “Then He brought him outside and said, “Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.” And He said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” (prophesied) Notice what God offered him was future tense so there was no way to verify, except to believe…nooo! not believing! Look, God I will sacrifice goats, sheep, even sell my servant and crawl on my knees up to the first place of your appearance just… not that!

Verse 6 “And he believed in the Lord, and He, (God) accounted it to him for righteousness.” (Not greed) Looks like he saw it God’s way!

Verse 7 “Then He said to him, “I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to inherit it.” Should have been a clue as to why God was bringing him out.

Verse 8 “And he said, “Lord God, how shall I know that I will inherit it?” Is this an ‘unbelieving’ question?  No, Abraham is learning to trust God. The Lord didn’t seem to mind Abram questioning things. At this point Look what He, (God) does next.

Let’s make a covenant; Verse 9 “So He said to him, “Bring Me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” 10 “Then he brought all these to Him and cut them in two, down the middle, and placed each piece opposite the other; but he did not cut the birds in two.” 11” And when the vultures came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.” The vultures seemed out of place in this scenario, (unholy).

12 “Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, horror and great darkness fell upon him.” 13 “Then He said to Abram: “Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years.” 14 “And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions.” 15 “Now as for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried at a good old age.” 16 “But in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” Foretelling secrets of the future of a nation, not just Abram and family, it was an act of confidence and trust from God ! Looks like the relationship went to another level after this.

Verse17 “And it came to pass, when the sun went down and it was dark, that behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces.” 18 “On the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying: “To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates— 19 the Kenites, the Kenezzites, the Kadmonites, 20 the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, 21 the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites” What started out as promises turned into a covenant! He had to know that God will keep His covenant Word! We also must know that God will keep His Word to us! Trustworthy is His Word.

God isn’t some unknown downtown fella who goes around flapping his jaws to everyone, (a con man). 

What proof did Abram have that God would do what he said? For one thing at that point God had made him very rich, in livestock and silver and gold. Genesis 13:6 “Now the land was not able to support them, that they might dwell together, for their possessions were so great that they could not dwell together.”  Pretty convincing! Hard to argue with abundance. Have you ever discerned a time period between God’s yes and there it is? I call it character building. Some people say it’s an eternity!

Not sure when I came to born again faith in Jesus. But the Lord had me hurry up and move from California to Ohio in 1986. He was very compelling! I couldn’t figure out why until my future wife had strolled across my path soon after I moved. You believe God has your life in His hands? My plans were not perfect. His plans were. God appeared to Abram in a dream and spoke to him. God gave me a dream while still living in California. Want me to tell you about it?

Here goes. I dreamt it was very dark outside, a nighttime dream, stormy. I had this trip I was on and couldn't reach my destination, Ohio, because of the storm. Rain pouring, wind blowing, I was driving. Not aware of anyone with me. Although it took forever it eventually was over with me arriving in the right place.

The actual journey was undertaken in February 1986 after much preparation and effort to uproot 29 years of life in a place I loved. There was very little to bring with me, a 1969 Ford with camper top towing a 1969 custom jeep hot rod. My brother Mike had offered to drive with me, so he flew out and joined the trip. We were to leave the next morning and we did in one of California's worst storms. There was no internet in those days, just local TV and news reports which steered us from going north because all the mountain passes were closed in one night. Rain and wind were furiously coming at us as we left south toward LA. At times it was difficult to keep the vehicles on the road. At some point after dark, the rain finally subsided and travel was easier. The rain turned into snow not long before we reached Flagstaff. Guess what, at 7000 feet elevation the main highway had closed before we arrived so we pulled off at an exit where other people were parking for the night. We made some room in the pickup camper and slept there until morning. I think it was 7am when I became conscious again, looked out and the sky and road was clear, cold, and off we went down the 2 lane divided highway. We didn't get too far though. My pickup was 2 wheel drive and not suited for winter roads. I was driving 60mph  and went to pass a slow poke semi in the right lane when suddenly the front end started floating going its own way. I thought I had lost my steering, but we were on solid black ice! A couple of seconds was all it took and the truck and jeep started spinning sideways across traffic in both lanes! I saw the rear end of the semi coming up quickly, and yelled out loud the first time in my life, “Jesus!” We were still going forwards, but suddenly were spinning and sliding counterclockwise facing backwards coming up on a bridge with a short siderail. Our whole rig slid off the road and slammed into a snowbank and stopped upright just before we would have hit the bridge! Just then as we stared up at the two lane, a 70’s Cadillac came up over the same section of road, spun about four 360's, went right past us and stopped sideways in the fast lane. That’s what you call a black ice miracle! Thanks be to God!

One tire went flat on the jeep when we hit the snow bank, but no big deal compared to dying! My brother turned whiter than usual and it took him a while to let go of the dashboard! (I don’t think he’s driven a Ford since).

Other than a radiator blowing up just as we entered Oklahoma, the trip was uneventful. Except that the fog was so bad my brother had to tail semi’s just to see the road ahead. The fog lasted all the way to the middle of Ohio! Oh, and the radiator was fixed and reinstalled in an hour by a radiator shop which was just about to close at 5pm, but stayed open for us! Bless the Lord O my soul and forget not all his benefits! And I will never forget!

Back to Abram, he wasn’t yet Abraham! He also was grateful for God’s intervention in his life. Then there was the Hagar event.  After that God changed his name to Abraham and Sarai to Sarah. Don’t underestimate the difficulty one can cause by being outside of God’s will. Tempted by his own wife, not good. We get into trouble when we take things into our own hands temporarily to help God with His plan. We do want the perfect will of God and not second best. How many of us fall after the way that Abraham mistakenly went? 

Relationship with Our Father.

Obviously God’s people were prone to lapses in their covenant with God and so are we. We find out what is expected and then fall into the Hagar syndrome.

As we see with Abraham the strength of his covenant with God carried him through difficult situations even in the wake of disaster.

Can we be known by God to be like Abraham in character and in divine relationship and believe or walk in obedience with Him, so as to please God, knowing Him as His friend? When you have a friend, you want to please them, within reason. The reciprocal is true and creates balance. James 2:23 “And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” And he was called the friend of God. 

Will God direct your path, reveal your future to you as a friend in closest confidence? Does the Lord protect you, bless you, distinguish you from the other nations? Could you say, ”Lord, you are my shield and my exceeding great reward?” Do you feel God would bless those who bless you, and curse him who curses you? Does God count your belief in Him as righteousness? Is God’s Word to us His covenant Word? Ponder and grow rich in the knowledge of Him! 

Consider Jesus the author and finisher of our faith. Jesus also called His disciples His friends. Getting to know God, your Father and Jesus will take eternity and then some. The Lord will make you a blessing to others. I’m sure this will bless the Father more than we know, that we are willing to do what He teaches us and get the results He wants.

So Abraham followed the Word which was spoken to him by almighty God. He questioned things he didn’t understand, in order to gain understanding.

The Word of God as we know from scripture was not imparted each day to Abram or even Old Testament saints, but a time period was between the communications.  In certain cases there was a famine of the Word or Words of God. Amos 8:11 “Behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord God, “That I will send a famine on the land, Not a famine of bread, Nor a thirst for water, But of hearing the Words of the Lord.”  

Do you long for communication from the Father? Seeking Him is the remedy. Matthew 7:7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” 

Galatians 3:16 “Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made.” He does not say, “And to seeds,” as of many, but as of one, “And to your Seed,” who is Christ.” 

2 Corinthians 1:20 “For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us.” 

Abraham was visited by God many times and was able to communicate back as a friend talks to another. Well he was chosen to be the father of our faith you might say, and my purpose is not significant as was his. The promises are to all his seed. 

Want another scripture? It is ok to ask questions. Yes! A good superior will be glad to answer your questions. One must think about the relationship with God as the bottom line to knowing, asking and receiving of the Lord. Relationships are developed not miraculously bestowed. Having developed faith in the Word of God is from feeding on His Words. The God kind of faith comes from believing His spoken and or written Word. Relationship with the Lord should  be enjoyable, drive you away from self, help you in a time of need, cause you to keep His commandments, help you be a blessing to others, and live to a ripe old age. Well-aged as we say in California!

Romans 10:6-8  ^“But the righteousness of faith speaks in this way, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ down from above) ⁷ or, “ ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). ⁸ But what does it say? “The Word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” that is, the Word of faith which we preach.” Yes it is to salvation, yes it is Divine rescue. Yes it involves the promises! We have the benefit of Adam to Revelation spoken through 42 writers who knew God and recorded truth which was spoken to them by the Holy Spirit, most of whom were unrelated to each other, yet concurred with each other by divine orchestration! 

The problem in our day and age is God can become a distant relative or a rainy day friend or a cell phone friend. The Word says He is the friend that sticks closer than a brother. Proverbs 18:24 “A man who has friends must himself be friendly, But there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” He is and will always be the Word!  Your friend Jesus!