“And in your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because you have obeyed my voice.”
The above text was a promise that was made to Abraham in Genesis 12:3 with the exception of “because you have obeyed my voice.” Abraham’s obedience in this case is one of the hardest passages in the Bible to read. God had called upon Abraham to go to one of the mountains of Moriah and to sacrifice his son, Isaac. This was the son that Abraham and Sarah had waited for all of their lives, when Abraham was one-hundred years old and Sarah was ninety years old. When Abraham was about to offer Isaac, God stopped him and furnished a ram for the sacrifice. Then the promise was made to Abraham about his “seed.” Specifically, the promise was “That in blessing I will bless you, and in multiplying I will multiply your seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the seashore; and your seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; 18. And in your seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed; because you have obeyed my voice.” This text says something about Abraham. It tells us of his total faith in God. He believed the promise of God that he would be a great nation. In Genesis 15:6, after the promise had been made to him, it was said of Abraham, “He believed in the Lord; and He counted it to him as righteousness.” We need to learn from Abraham and put our total faith in the Lord. Remember, Abraham was a flesh and blood human being just as we are. Like all of the other great men of the Bible, Abraham was a man of his time and was by no means perfect, but “he believed in the Lord as it was accounted to him as righteousness.” Being a human being is no excuse for a lack of faith in God. We can doubt our own abilities, and probably should, but we do not need to doubt God’s abilities to do what He has promised. The incident with Isaac proved that Abraham would implicitly obey the Lord. The Lord will not ask us to sacrifice our children, but He will place demands on our faith, and we should obey Him. We should determine that our faith will be radical. Our modern sensibilities flinch at this demand on the faith of Abraham, but that is our problem and not God’s. The text says something about God. In fact, it says a lot about God, but the main thing that we can draw from God’s promise to Abraham is that He keeps His promises. Do you realize that after Genesis 12, where God made His promise to Abraham, the rest of the Old Testament is about Abraham’s family? There are side stories about other people, but the main focus is on the family of Abraham. God made a promise to Abraham. God tested Abraham’s faith. Abraham passed the test and he realized the promise of God. God has promised you that if you will trust Him, He will bless your life as well. This does not mean that you will have no hardships, but it does mean that God will be with you through whatever hardships you encounter. The same God who kept His promise to Abraham will keep His promises to you. Do what the old hymn says, “Trust and obey, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey.” The text says something about Jesus, the Son of God. Do you realize that God did not hold back on sacrificing His own Son on Calvary? This is what God meant when He told Abraham that through “his seed all families of earth would be blessed.” I do not have the time nor the space to relate to you the whole story about Abraham and Christ’s coming into the world, but suffice it to say that Christ’s coming into the world was the main result of this encounter on Moriah. It was through Christ that “all the families of the earth would be blessed.” It was through Christ that Gentiles, which is all of us who are not Jews, could be saved. The Bible story is one of redemption, and this text is at the heart of the story. Believe it and practice radical faith. Bro. Joe
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AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
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