COME AS A CHILD - LESSON 44 - WHAT HAPPENS WHEN BAD LEADERSHIP AND UNCONDITIONAL GRACE COLLIDE

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

Funny, when things didn’t work out just like Sarai wanted them to and Hagar despised her after she became pregnant; that Sarai’s comment to Abram was “this is all your fault.”

The whole scheme of using Hagar as a concubine to give Abram a son to fulfill the prophecy because Sarai had passed the years of child bearing  had been Sarai’s idea; but now it was Abram’s fault! 

Well, guess what?  It was!  

This was basically the same scenario that Adam and Eve had in the Garden of Eden when the woman came up with a plan that was not the plan of God and the man said “OK, Let’s do it.”

 Just as Adam did not consult God as he ate of the tree, neither did Abram consult God when Sarai gave him a plan that involved her handmaiden.  The end results both times brought uncomfortable consequences that had to be dealt with.  Isn’t this just the way of the world?   Both times the man could have consulted God and made a different decision.  Abram could have refused Sarai’s offer of her concubine, but you never hear of him making one argument against it.    

Women look to men to be their leaders but sometimes men forget to lead.  That is when things, no matter how equally guilty the woman is by presenting wrong and impatient plans and ideas, become the fault of the man.    If a man is totally tuned in to God and following His exact will, the woman living with him will always be better off in the long run because he will not make unwise decisions without consulting God in prayer.  This may bother a woman for a short while, but in the end she will find herself praising God for it.  

This quality in a man requires strength and wisdom and patience.  Every man alive should be praying for these three godly traits.  Every woman married to a man should be asking God to grant these special qualities to her husband.   Every unmarried woman should look for this in a husband, and every single man should develop these characteristics in his personality before he takes marriage vows. 

That God intended for men to be leaders is a serious charge and it is not to be taken lightly.  Does this put the woman underneath the man?  Certainly not, Sarai and Abram led together, side by side, not one over another.  

As we have seen over and over Sarai and Abram were only human just like all the rest of us.  They made their share of mistakes.  They had developed very  godly  traits early on, but slipped up as they grew older and accidentally set them aside in their old age in their impatience to see the promises of God fulfilled in their lifetime.  

Age should make one wiser and more patient, not weaker and less patient.  If the eyes are focused on God, this will be the case; but if you look away, even for a split second, it is easy to begin to operate in the flesh.  

As people age they often lose their focus and grow weak simply because they are looking at their age and their flesh instead of looking at God and how timeless He is.  The enemy of God looks for us to hit these weak points of time in life and then tries to break down our testimonies and destroy them by making us think we must hurry and do some things ourselves instead of waiting on God's timing.  

As we all grow older we must carefully seek for God to strengthen our focus and will-power to live kingdom lives and not be listening to the wrong voices that will present themselves to us and try to trap us into bad decisions and circumstances because we suddenly find ourselves aging.  Now, more than ever, it is important to keep our faith in God's ability to bring about the right and perfect plans for our lives.

So why didn’t God just walk away from Abram and Sarai when they forgot to wait on His plan and follow His will?  God had made an unconditional covenant with Abram.  God always keeps His promises and He never breaks His covenants.  

It is the same for us as we live under the covenant of the New Testament in Christ Jesus today.   We too, from time to time, will forget to follow God and we too will make our own mistakes; but God has given us an unconditional blood covenant as His people, and He will alway honor it.  

Just like Abram and Sarai, We will always have to live with the bad circumstances we create for ourselves when we sin, but God will never desert those who have given their lives to Him.  He will always see us through even the hardest of times, even when we make mistakes and try to change His plans for us.  We may take a detour in the plan, but He will bring us back on track in our journey and if we follow Him we will always find our way back home.  


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COME AS A CHILD - LESSON 41 - SERVING A COVENANT KEEPING GOD

After Abram was blessed in the valley by Melchizedek, whom Abram also broke bread with and drank wine from and gave one tenth of his possessions to as a tithe; God spoke to Abram again. 

It is important to notice that this High Priest of God, The King of Peace, The ruler over Jerusalem named Melchizedek laid the ground work and prepared Abram’s heart to hear from God. He fed Abram wine and bread from Heaven.  He blessed Abram and reminded him that it was God who had won the battle for him.  He received Abram’s offerings in The Name of The Most High God.  Are you getting a glimpse of who Melchizedek really is?  The offerings were received and taken because Abram had not given of the spoils of war, but he had given of the best that he possessed.  This has been the pattern with every man that God has called righteous, all the way back to Abel.

Now we notice the progression and emphasis of this worship of Abram when we hear of a new character in the story named Melchizedek.  Who was this High Priest of God Most High?  We shall see more and more of His truth as our stories of Abraham unfold.  This very necessary High Priest took care of the things that were required for Abram to meet with God.   At that time no other way was available.  At that time certain conditions must be met for a man to actually be in the presence of God.  These conditions were strict and must be carried out with caution and detail.   Melchizedek paved the way for Abram to meet with God.  He laid the groundwork and made the preparations for all things to be done properly and in order. 

This was a very special time and Abram needed to be ready.   Abram had asked a question of a God who loved him very much.  God had spoken with Abram before, but this time was different.  God was going to give Abram the sign that he had requested to know for sure that God was going to keep His promises of giving him a son from his own flesh and blood of which nations of descendants (as many as the stars of the heavens) would descend from.  God was also promising to make the land where Abram was living come into his possession and the possession of his children.   God’s words were:  “I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.”

Once again Abram was puzzled but believed.  He did not know how it would happen and he asked God how he would know that he would gain possession of the land.  The act of covenant that followed was God’s answer to that question.  The Hebrew word for covenant is” karath berith.”   It means “to cut.”  

In those days a covenant was the most significant legal document you could have.  It was “to cut” an agreement out with someone.  There were different types of covenants, but the most significant and binding covenant was a blood covenant.  That is what God was making with Abram in this portion of the story.  They were cutting an agreement in blood.  A blood covenant was the highest, most significant covenant that could be made.  It was a visual symbolic enactment of a promise and an oath.  The animals were slaughtered and cut in half and laid out with a pathway between each half.  The parties involved would usually walk through the path between the two parts of the cut or divided slaughtered animals to say:  “May this be done to me if I do not keep my oath.”    A blood covenant was a very serious oath between two parties.  In this case, as we will see later, the agreement was all from God.  Abram did not have to do a thing.  God was saying “I will keep my word to you unconditionally – no strings attached.”

The Lord told Abram to bring Him a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old along with a dove and a young pigeon.  Does that sound like an odd request?  What if God spoke to you today and told you to bring such things; would you? 

What were these offerings about and why were they required? 

First of all notice that three offerings were required as the offerings for the cutting; the heifer, the goat and the ram.  God would have Abram to cut the heifer, the goat and the ram into halves and then God would come and walk through them.  Usually both parties walk through the cutting, but in this agreement Abram did not walk, only God. 

Not only were there three animals to be cut but each of them were to be three years old.  Two threes here remind us of the age of Christ when He died on the cross and became our resurrected Messiah.  The sacred number of three is also the number of the Holy Trinity.  There were also two other offerings – a turtledove and a pigeon.  These were not cut.  The 3 cut offerings and the 2 uncut offerings totaled five animals.  In Hebraic thought five is the number that represents the grace and goodness of God poured out in His works.  It is the number that stands for redemption and is almost always associated with the coming of the Messiah.

In case you were not raised on a farm, a heifer is a female cow.   If you want to get technical many do not understand that once a heifer has a calf they are no longer called a heifer, but they are then called a female cow.  It is not good to breed a heifer early, so three years old is a pretty safe time to know that a heifer is ready and fit to deliver a calf without any problems.  If you breed too young, there may be problems.   Heifers were never used for plowing.  They were used for calving until they passed that stage then they were used to tread out the grain.  The male oxen were used for plowing, but these female cows, once they had given birth to calves and passed the time of birthing calves and raising them, were used for treading out the grain of the harvest.  Much like human beings, even a cow has different seasons of life for different functions.  At three years old the heifer would be at the most physically fit stage of their life; strong and healthy and ready to become most useful to their owners.  This would be the stage where the heifer is the most fertile. They raised their calves, then they were yoked to a board attached to a tread wheel and walked around in circles grinding the grain of the harvest with their constant motion of pushing the wheel.  A feeding trough was set in front of them on the part of the wheel they were harnessed to and they ate from it as they did their work of turning the wheel.  This latter part of being a female cow wasn’t hard.    A three year old heifer, however would have been untrained and not have had a yoke applied to her neck yet.  A three year old would not have given new life yet, but would be ripe for this time to happen.

Heifers eventually became known as the symbolic animal sacrifice offered for the national sins. This was a foreshadowing of the red heifer that would be used in temple times to show God’s love and mercy and forgiveness for the people of the congregation as a whole.   The heifer in Abram’s covenant was provided for the purification of Abram and of the people who would become his descendants.  Remember that Israel was not yet a nation.  God had told Abram that nations would come from his flesh.  Because of the fact that there was not even one son, let alone one nation yet, one could go out on a limb here and say that the heifer was offered for the purification of all the nations that would come from Abram.   If you wish to read more of the meaning of the red heifer that came to be symbolic of this at a future time in the temple click here: http://dancinginseason.blogspot.com/2014/10/pieces-of-puzzle-mysterious-story-of.html

In this time of this covenant the law had not yet been given.   Men knew what was righteous and good before God in a natural way, but it had not been spelled out in writing and written down in stone.  This covenant sacrifice was based on faith alone and always pointed toward the pure obedience of men’s hearts toward God.  This was an offering that began in a time before mankind knew the grace of perfect atonement.  It was a foreshadow of the coming of the law and eventually an even better way.  This was the first glimpse of how the ashes of the red heifer would be used later.

The second animal G0d told Abram to bring was a three year old goat.  Leviticus 9:15 tells us that a goat was used as a sin offering.  The heifer was for cleansing and the goat was for bearing the sin that was removed and cleansed.  There cannot be any cleansing unless the sin is removed.  The goat was used to bear the sins of the people of Abram and to carry them away.  This is a first glimpse of the Azazel goat we know about that came to be sacrificed during the Day of Atonement.    

The third and greatest covenant was represented by a three year old ram.  The great significance of the ram will be revealed to Abraham later in the story of his life a very graphic way.  He will see this because he was an obedient servant of God.  The Ram is symbolic of The Messiah, The Christ, The Son of God, The Savior of The World.  The heifer was for cleansing, the goat was for bearing away sin and the ram was for atonement of sin.   

Now we see that God told Abram to take all three of these sacrifices and cut them into.  The word covenant means “to cut an agreement.”  So the three covenants were “cut” or “made.”  

The dove and the pigeon are not cut.  The other offerings happened in time periods of history where if they did not happen men would be cut off from God.  After Christ came men were no longer cut off from God by their sins.  The perfect atonement had been made and freely given.  These two animals represent what came after the perfect atonement of Christ.   They represent the future prophetic progression of this covenant which God will keep with Abram and all nations.  The dove represents the giving of The Holy Spirit at Pentecost.  The pigeon represents The Word of God and the spreading of the gospel throughout the earth before end times come.

Abram laid out all of these sacrifices and birds of prey came to try to take them away.  They were open laying opposite each other with the insides visible to the eye, except for the two birds.  The insides of the two birds could not be seen with the eye.  This is a picture of how all sin will one day be laid out and revealed before God.  There will be no hiding it.  This is the picture of the three cut animals.  The two birds represent the divine attributes that cannot be seen with the eye when The Holy Spirit and The Word of God come to live inside of God’s people.  Faith, love, hope – these things are very necessary and important but are not visible to the eye.  These were all laid out and the vultures passing by wanted to take them and consume them.  Abram had to stand guard and chase them away.  The same is true for all practicing the faith today.  If you do not stand guard over the things that God puts on your heart to do and if you are not careful to guard your heart the devil and his demons will come and try to steal, kill and destroy the sacred things of your life.  Abram gives the perfect example of standing guard.

Then a great darkness came and Abram fell into a trance in which God came and walked through the cut pieces of the covenant.  Abram falling into a deep sleep or a trance is a picture of how Christians must all die to their selves in order to receive the higher promises of God. 

God ratified the covenant by walking through the blood as a burning torch and a smoking oven.  The torch represents the flame of The Holy Spirit that God’s covenants with man would bring about.  The Smoking Oven represents the glory of God that would fall on His people in that day.  The burning torch and the smoking pot are a picture of how incense is used at the altar of the temple.  This is a picture of the prayers of the people, a sweet aroma going up to heaven as the smoke of God’s peoples prayers are presented at His altar throughout eternity. 

The fulfilling of each piece and part of the covenant is all very progressive.  Significant things evolve and unfold slowly and in perfect step with God’s timing and His plan to bless mankind through Abram.

God laid it all out for us all the way back in the days of Abraham, knowing how fickle and hard-hearted men can be.  God knew how long it would take us to turn.  He wanted each man to have all the time he needed to make his heart ready for life in The Kingdom of God. 

This steady progression of the fulfilling of God’s covenant reveals all things in their own glorious light in such a perfect way.  Men’s hearts are not strong enough to absorb all of God’s majesty at once, so He broke it down for us into little doses, a miracle here, a miracle there, a revelation now, a revelation later.  Our Creator knows how we respond to things.  He deals with us like a lover would deal with someone they were lovesick over.  He is blind to our faults and patient with our short comings.  He waits for us to see the surprises and treasures He has hidden for only us.

Here is another example of how the number three in this passage plays out.  It will also be in the symbolic “third day” or a day when we should be living out the truth of resurrection, that the covenant opens up to act out its five-fold ministry that we read about in Ephesians 4:11.  God’s word and the ministry of His saints will be raised up under the power of the covenant promises.  We read about this in Ephesians 4:12-13, "For the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ."   

Because God was careful and thoughtful to lay out the pattern way back in the days of Abraham, we have the opportunity NOW to live this out.  All of the animals together, the total of five of a heifer, a goat, a ram, a dove and a pigeon, represent a five-fold ministry that God has destined for mankind to participate in that will usher in the fullness of The Kingdom of God.

And you thought the passage about the covenant sacrifices was dull and confusing and antiquated?  Well, so did I until I prayed and asked God to reveal His word and make some things clear.  He came through in a million little ways to help me see this.  There is SO MUCH here that it could go on for days and it would be impossible to write it all down.  Remember this passage of the story because thoughts of it will come back to you as we continue to study more of the life of Abraham.  More of the truth of this covenant will be revealed throughout the whole of the scriptures.  It is noticed over and over in story after story.  The longer you let your heart dwell here the more you will see.   

 The point is that we all must realize how important covenants are to God.  He started with Adam.  He kept it up with Noah.  Now we see Abraham is also receiving a covenant.  We will go on to look at Moses and David and eventually the very best – Christ.  God loves and keeps covenant with His people.  Never, ever forget this. 

In the story of Abram we are reminded again and again of the fact that as he faithfully brought the elements of  the covenant as God had directed and laid it all out exactly as requested, vultures came down and tried to steal it away.  This will happen every time God is doing something important and significant.  As previously emphasized, the vultures  are symbolic of the demons of Satan that come to kill, steal and destroy.  The scriptures tell us that Abram ran off the vultures.  He guarded the things of God and chased off anything that wasn’t supposed to be in his life.  That is what we must do also.  Guard your covenant with God.  Guard it with all your might.  Chase away any person, place of thing that the devil sends to destroy your promises to God.  Don’t let the vultures steal your joy.  Abram knew this and did not let them near.

How important was this ancient covenant that God made with Abraham?  It is amazingly important.  Everything that happened afterward in the history of mankind and God reflected it in some way.  When the people of Israel were in the wilderness and sinned by making a golden calf God almost decided to rid the world of the descendants of Abraham and start over with the descendents of Moses, but Moses quickly reminded God of this covenant and God changed his mind and had mercy on the people.

Covenant is one of the ways of God.  We live in mercy and forgiveness because we serve a God who keeps covenant with His people.