January 24

TREKKING WITH ABRAHAM.

“The LORD appeared to Abram, and said, to your seed will I give this land: and there he built an altar to the LORD, who appeared to him.”

Genesis 12:7



So here we are, sat with Abram in the shade of some great tree in the plain of Moreh (The tree was either an oak or a terebinth). He has marched south with his huge travelling village of an entourage. He has undoubtedly made several stops on the way down from Haran. Perhaps Abram was chewing over the loss of his father. In his mind also would be thoughts of, “What is Lot getting up to?” Lot couldn’t always be in his sights. He obviously exercised great grace towards Lot, as will be seen in a later episode, but Lot’s mercenary perspective on the world, and life in general would have undoubtedly struck Abram by now. And then, there is the issue with Abram’s wife. God had promised him that he would make from Abram’s seed a great nation. Now, here he was, 75 years of age and childless! What on earth is going on? We read from Romans 4 that in this issue he literally, “hoped against hope”. He wavered not in his faith that what God had promised, He would bring to pass.



While all this data is being filed in the various pigeon holes of Abram’s thought processes, something literally breathtaking, not to mention awe inspiring, happens to him. As far as the Old Testament informs us, for only the second time in history since Adam and Eve were ejected from Eden, God appears to a human being in some physical (or at least visible) form. He appeared to Abram in godless Ur of the Chaldees (Acts 7 verse 2), and now here under the great terebinth tree at Moreh.

These theophanies happened again later in Abram’s life. Only once are we told what the appearance of God was like. Later in Genesis chapter 18, Jehovah appeared to Abram as a man with two angels beside Him. Many biblical scholars say that to be seen in this manner, means that it must have been Christ that appeared, for God the Father has never been “seen” per se. The fact that the three men appear and Abram talks with God, leaves the first time reader thinking that God appeared as three persons. If that was true,it would mean that we are seeing in the text a strong indication of a certain attribute of God’s personage that is later gone into in depth in the New Testament. I am referring to the biblical revelation that God lives in the reality of three persons i.e. The Trinity. That would be very simple and clear if it was true. The narrative, however, tells us, after Abram’s dialogue with the Almighty, that the other two “men” were actually angelic attendants merely accompanying Yahweh, and on a specific mission, not to suss out what was going on in Sodom so much as to release Lot from the destruction that was about to remove Sodom from the scene of time.



The fact that Abram doesn’t seem too surprised, or shocked that God would appear to him like this, suggests that he had seen the Lord in this manner of manifestation previously. Jesus said to His opponents in the Temple hundreds of years later, “Abraham saw my day and was glad.” Jesus was ridiculed for such a statement. Perhaps these momentous interactions between Abram and God were what birthed such an expectation in Abram’s heart.



God speaks clearly. “To your seed will I give this land”. Other translations say, “To your descendants I will give this land.” Is it possible to be plainer? Abram is told by the creator of the universe that the land he stood on would belong one day to his “seed”.



Abram’s seed, in this context, would be the entire physical descendency that we know in retrospect would become the nation of Israel. That is the logical understanding of the statement, by the empirical evidence of the generations that have passed since Jehovah spoke these words to Abram. Abram now had a concrete statement from God to live with, sleep with, dream about and meditate on. From this moment on, until the next time God spoke to him, Abram was chewing the cud on the fact that this land upon which he stood was going to be owned, lived in, and settled on by offspring that would come from him. Time was passing, however, and the glories of the divine vision of God Himself did not make any statement about the explicit parameters of the “seed”. In Abram’s time, even though the language of God was plain, it could – in extreme situations – actually refer to the chief steward of the campus as an heir if the master of the house had no issue from his loins. The challenge was to Abram’s comprehension that at 75 plus, he would have a child. Here we have again, God Almighty promising Abram “seed,” and a huge inheritance for that seed, while Abram is still childless.

What the Bible teaches of faith, is that there is ALWAYS a role to play for the human recipient of the Word of God. Faith is accepting that what God has promised is going to be done, for the simple reason that it is already done in the mind of God, otherwise, He could not have promised it. It is by believing and cooperating with the Almighty in what He has said (for what God states is surely part of His plan and purpose) that the promise then comes to fruition. Faith is the substance of things hoped for (in this instance….a child). Faith is the evidence of things unseen (again…the child). This suggests that once the believer has entered into this kind of relationship with God and believes that what God says is certain, by bringing the promise to such a nurtured reality in his own heart, the promise is set to be physically, factually, literally received in this time space world.



The human role is so necessary in the fulfilment of God’s addresses to mankind, otherwise why should the Gospel message insist that those who hear must believe? The Gospel, as brought by Christ, covers redemption, healing of the body and soul, deliverance, provision and protection. He has promised so many things in so many areas of life. So why do so many believers live with these very things omitted from their experience of life. “All the promises of God are Yes and Amen in Christ Jesus” (2 Corinthians 1:20). Abram’s faith would connect with God’s supply of the necessary seed to populate the land that had just been promised.



WHAT’S THE POINT? Think of all the promises in scripture that challenge your belief system and answer the question: “Why does this promise of God challenge my faith and understanding?”