Questions and Covenant: Day 3

You will need your Bible today.

Sometimes the Old Testament can be challenging to read and understand because the things that took place thousands of years ago are so foreign to us. Sacrifices, covenants, cleanliness and dietary laws have little if any resemblance to any modern day counterparts. However as strange as some of the Old Testament stories are, with a little background and a little foreground (thank God we have the Whole Bible) we can begin to see their importance and relevance.

Today's text, by any modern standard, is a bizarre account. There is much debate over the importance and meanings of each detail, but one thing should become crystal clear, God takes His promises very seriously.

Please read Genesis 15:7-21.

What was Abram's concern?

How did the LORD respond to him?

Once again (actually within the same conversation) Abram is concerned with one of God's promises to him. Since he was just commended for his faith in verse 6, it seems unlikely that Abram doubted that God would fulfill His promises, but maybe he was having a hard time wrapping his head around how all this was possible (I find both interesting and telling that God responded, in both cases, gentlely but firmly and in neither case does He actually give Abram the blueprint. God simply promised Abram that He was trustworthy).

To prove His faithfulness, God told Abram to bring Him 5 very specific animals, which Abram gathered together, cut in two (except the birds) and laid out across from eachother. It's kind of a grotesque picture, Abram standing in the desert with halved animal carcasses strune about, but God was speaking to him in a way that Abram would no longer need to worry about the "how".

Though there is some debate about the exact nature of this covenant ritual (in Genesis 15), it is clear from history that the concept would not have been foreign to Abram, in fact he was likely familiar with this process of making a contract in his culture.

According to tradition, when men needed to make a binding contract they would take an animal and cut it in half. After working out the terms and conditions of the arrangement they would walk together between the pieces, reciting the terms of the of the contract. The idea was that if either partner broke the pact it would be to them as it was to the animal, death.* This was a very serious oath and no one entered into it lightly.

In fact in Jeremiah 34 we learn the gravity of going back on a covenant of this kind.

The king of Judah had made a covenant with his people, before God, that they would all free their slaves, which they did. However after a while the people who had made the covenant began to enslave once again the people they had set free. God did not take this lightly.

"Therefore, this is what the LORD says: You have not obeyed me; you have not proclaimed freedom for your fellow countrymen. So I now proclaim 'freedom' for you, declares the LORD- 'freedom' to fall by the sword, plague and famine. I will make you abhorrent to all the kingdoms of the earth. The men who have violated my covenant and have not fulfilled the terms of the covenant they made before me, I will treat like the calf they cut in two and then walked between its pieces. The leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the court officials, the priest and all the people of the land who walked beween the pieces of the calf, I will hand over to their enimies who seek their lives. Their dead bodies will become food for the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth." Jeremiah 34:17-20

When Abram asked the LORD for confirmation that someday the land would actually be his, God responded by have Abram prepare a covenant ritual to show the seriousness of His promises. Certainly God did not need to preform this ritual, He is incapable of lying or failing to follow through. He was hardly saying to Abram that if He failed to give him the land He would die. Yet God chose this ritual, that symbolized the most serious agreement that men could enter into because He knew that Abram would understand the gravity of the agreement. Without understanding the "how" Abram would be able to rest knowing God would fulfill His promise.

God almost never gives us the detailed blueprints of our lives. I'm not sure it is because the faith it takes to walk with Him one step at a time gives Him glory (which of course it does) or because if we knew what was coming we'd still have doubts and fear. Either way what God does want is for us to be able to rest in Him. We can trust Him.

The more sure we are that He will keep His word to us the less we have to wonder about how. I'm a big fan of journaling (though I've slacked off a bit recently). When you write down your prayer requests, your struggles and what you hear from God you can always look back on them and see the how.

Years ago I was really struggling with wanting to serve God, but we had just moved and didn't really know how to find a place to serve. In a matter of a few weeks, God put me in a place where was able to help out with a youth group and a church we had just started going to. Within a few months I quit my job, and began working as the Youth Pastor's secretary. It became the best job I've ever had (to date) and one of the most blessed seasons in my life. The fact that I journaled then has given me a great reminder that God has a plan, I just need to trust Him.

"God is not a man that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should change His mind. Does He speak and then not act? Does He promise and not fulfill?" Numbers 23:19



*McGee, Dr. J. Vernon. Audio Commentary on Genesis 15:6-21. www.blueletterbible.com