Month: December 2020

1. Bring Out of Affliction

Exodus 3:17 And I have said, I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt unto the land of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, unto a land flowing with milk and honey.

The call of Moses out of the Burning Bush contains a promise for the children of Israel stuck in slavery in the land of Egypt. God will bring them up out of the affliction of Egypt to a land flowing with milk and honey. The “you” includes not only Moses but also all the people descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This promise literally came true, although it took many miracles and a long time.

Spiritually, the Bible stories were written for our learning and edification, that by patience and comfort of the Holy Scriptures we might believe and have hope. Spiritually the promise is for us. We are in the “Egypt of affliction,” which is the world with it slavery to false gods, empty promises, lies, sins, evil, and death. While we live in the world we suffer much affliction (bad things happen) because of our own sin. God promises to bring us up from that world into a different land, a land of promise and paradise flowing with milk and honey. Spiritually that Promised Land is the Kingdom of God, eternal life. Jesus brings us up from the kingdom of darkness and death into the kingdom of light and life. He takes us from bondage to sin, death and Satan and sets us free to live under Him in His Land.

The Lord will make for us an Exodus of Deliverance from sin to forgiveness, from death to life, from slavery to freedom, from darkness to light, from hell to heaven, and all the other metaphors of salvation. This “Exodus” happened at the cross. The Exodus happens to us personally when we are baptized and believe. It wasn’t an easy trip, hampered by sin, complaints, and rebellion, and after grace brought us into the “Land” we were faced with all the “-ites” still living there. All the false gods, pagan idols, evil, sin, demons and immorality are still resident living in their land, which God gave to us. The Kingdom in the heart isn’t as great as promised because of the unbelief that still fights to keep its hold on the soul. But Joshua (Jesus) leads us to victory with the help of the Holy Spirit of God. The affliction of Egypt may be a thing of the past (we are saved), but the devil, the world, and the flesh are still contesting the takeover of the Kingdom of God. In addition to deliverance and a new land God does also promise victory. We apply the Gospel and enjoy the new Kingdom, even though irritants remain to fight us.

1. The King will Come

Genesis 49:10 The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be.

Jacob gives his blessing, from God, to his son Judah before he dies. It is a promise that out of the line of Judah a king will come. The first fulfillment of the promise is King David, but the real fulfillment of the promise is King Jesus.

The implication is that one authority, rule and power will come for all the people, and this rule will be forever. One man from Judah will rule for all time and for eternity. There will be a king who will come and bring people into His Kingdom. This authority will not leave the line of Judah until the One comes to whom authority and rule and Kingship belongs, that is, the Messiah.

“Until Shiloh comes” should probably be translated “until he comes to whom it belongs.” In other words, the children of Judah will keep having boys until the One is born to whom all eternal authority belongs. It is Jesus.

The promise to us is that we have, and will eternally have, a King who will rule us for our good, and we have a Kingdom in which we can enjoy the life of God and life with God in an eternally wonderful place. We could not have a better king to rule, protect, provide, and serve with love. We have Jesus; He is our king; and it will never get any better than that. But in fact, it will get better, for One Day all sin and evil that is opposed to a perfectly enjoyable life will be destroyed. “Come, King, Save us.” Or, “Hosanna to the son of David.” 

1. An Everlasting Possession

Genesis48:4 And said unto me, Behold, I will make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, and I will make of thee a multitude of people; and will give this land to thy seed after thee for an everlasting possession.

Jacob is speaking to Joseph telling him that God Almighty appeared to him at Bethel and promised him in these words. “The Lord will make me fruitful, multiply me, make a multitude of me, and give my seed this land.” The kicker is in the last two words: everlasting possession. The seed of Jacob will have the land as an eternal holding.

The seed of Jacob, Israel, is everyone who has received this promise by faith in the Seed, Jesus Christ. We are the seed, and therefore, the recipients of the promise. The land cannot be the geographical area of Palestine, for it is not everlasting. The earth, the ground, the soil will pass away when it is burned with a fervent heat. Neither can it be said that any person or family or group of people possesses the land. We may own some land, but all of us cannot own the whole land. Therefore, the land must be something spiritual and eternal: it is the kingdom of God, heaven, or the spiritual realm that God dwells in and rules. Although it is called the kingdom of God, and God does own it, He gives it to us as a possession.

All believers indeed have (own, possess) eternal life. It is given to us by grace and received by faith. Faith claims it, faith owns it, and faith has it. And it is secure forever. No foreign enemy or power will ever take it from us. We own it now, and we will own it forever.

God is so gracious that even though He owns it all, He has given it to us to own. He gives us His own life to enjoy forever. And we possess it now. We are surrounded by death: things die, people around us die, loved ones die, and we are dying. But in the midst of death we have life, now and forever. We live in a kingdom ruled legitimately by evil, death and Satan. But in the midst of that world God entered, lived, died, and rose again. We have been rescued from the kingdom of darkness and death and transferred into the kingdom of light and life. This is the promise given to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and each one of us.

1. Bring you up again

Genesis 46:3, 4 And he said, I am God the God of thy father: fear not to go down into Egypt; for I will there make of thee a great nation: I will go down with thee into Egypt; and I will also surely bring thee up again: and Joseph shall put his hand upon thine eyes.

God gives this promise to Jacob as he is going down to Egypt to see Joseph. The Lord assures him that he may go to Egypt even though He promised him the land of Canaan. God promises to make of him a great nation in Egypt, that is, the Lord will grow his family and his descendants greatly when they are in Egypt. Jacob believed God, but he did not know the family would be in Egypt for 400 years as it turned out. During all that time the family of Israel became a great nation, but they never forgot the promise of Land given to the patriarchs.

The best news of this promise is that the Lord promises to bring him up again. This literally happened when Joseph brought Jacob’s body to be buried in Abraham’s burial plot. This figuratively happened when Moses delivered the nation of Israel from bondage in Egypt to bring them to the land flowing with milk and honey. This spiritually happens to us when God brings us up again from the world and our bondage to it. He sets us free from Sin, Death and the Devil and places us in the kingdom of God; or rather, He places the kingdom in us. In our baptism, conversion and salvation by faith the Lord has “surely brought us up again” from the world.

This is truly a great promise for us who believe God for what He did in Christ. It is our own sin and guilt that put us into slavery to the Enemies that rule the world. It is God’s grace in Christ that rescued us from the world and set us free from the Enemy. The Lord Jesus Christ has certainly kept His promise: He “brought us up again” from the land of sin and death to the land of life and righteousness, innocence and blessedness.

1. Land

Genesis 35:12 And the land which I gave Abraham and Isaac, to thee I will give it, and to thy seed after thee will I give the land.

Once again God repeats the promise of Land. The Lord had already promised the Land to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob. Now He reaffirms the promise to Jacob again. This promise must be very important to God since He repeats the promise over and over to the three patriarchs. The patriarchs themselves never actually received literal, physical land to own and control. Their descendants, to whom the land was also promised, did establish a nation in the Promised Land for several centuries, until the Lord took them out of it.

The Land must mean something else and something more than just physical ground on the earth. And the New Testament tells us what it means: it is the spiritual kingdom of God in the spiritual realm of heaven. The kingdom of heaven is what has been promised (and fulfilled) to the believers in Jesus Christ. These believers are the real seed of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They have the same faith in the same promise, which turns out to be Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He is the seed who brings the Land (kingdom) to all who will receive Him, and they become the seed inheriting the Kingdom of Heaven.

This is the goal, the purpose, the theme, and the end result of the story of God’s Salvation recorded for us in the Word. This was God’s purpose in the Creation of the universe, the inhabitable earth, and human beings to live on it: God will have a people who are His to live with Him in a loving relationship forever, without sin or death or evil of any kind. God the Father, through His Son become Man, and through the work of the Holy Spirit, is restoring for created and redeemed humanity the Land and the Paradise in which He placed them. Man had it once, but lost it. Now the Lord will re-place saved people in the New Recreated Land forever. 

Three times the word “give” is used. The Kingdom is a gift, given for free, earned by Jesus, personally placed in the heart by the Spirit through the Gospel. God does it all: He gives the kingdom. God Himself fulfills the promise. This is Grace.

1. Be With and Not Leave

Genesis 28:15 And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whether thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.

In addition to the threefold promise to Abraham, the Lord, at the ladder, adds the promise to Jacob “I am with you and will keep you in all the places you go and will bring you again to this land.”  While Jacob is away from home and from the land God will be with him and keep him. God was with Jacob where he went to, and He did bless him with wives, sons, and flocks of sheep; then He brought him back home.

The Lord also promises Jacob that He will not leave him. Jesus promises the same thing for us in Hebrews: “I will never, ever, no never, not ever, leave you nor forsake you.” Not only will the Lord be with us wherever we go until the end of the age, but also He will never leave us until we stand before the throne and the Lord lives with us forever. There is always danger and threat when we are outside the safe confines of our own home. We are always under the threat of danger and fear while we live in this foreign land, the world.

We are also on a sojourning journey away from home, the land, the kingdom, for a period of time in this world. While we are not at “home” Jesus comes to live with us and make His home in our hearts. Thus we carry home with us wherever we go, and then He will be with us forever. By faith we see the homeland in our hearts; by faith we see our city afar off in our future; by faith we make the promise real and present; by faith we converse with our Lord who is always there, here, with us, making a home in the heart; by faith we receive the promise of life and a kingdom.

1.  Promise to Jacob

Genesis 28:13, 14 And, behold, the Lord stood above it, and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed; And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.

Jacob is camping out overnight on the way to his uncles Laban’s house. The Lord speaks to him from the top of a ladder stretching from earth to heaven. Now the threefold Abrahamic promise is repeated to Jacob: 1) I will give the land you are lying on to you and your descendants; 2) Your descendants will be great in number and spread out to cover the earth; 3) in your Descendant all the families of the earth will be blessed. All of this was fulfilled as God’s story in history was played out in the Bible, and it is still being worked out in our lifetime. The promise is for us, for we have the Kingdom of God in us forever; we have the Church people made up of believers; and we have the Great Descendant, Jesus the Messiah, who is the Blessing to all the people of the earth.

All the families of the earth will be blessed in Jacob and his seed. God entered our world through his family to save and bless us. That Entrance is remembered and celebrated in faith at Christmas. It is noteworthy that the word “families” is used in place of “nations.” A family is a smaller and closer bonding than a nation or a people. Every earth person is in some way a part of a family. In Christ, the Seed, God will bless the family. We may take that promise to heart. We may pray with faith that God will bless our family, the people we love and care about, in Christ. We may claim that promise when we pray for the Blessing on our family. We may also pray for our descendants for at least three or four generations. God blesses by family. God created the family. God loves the family, and God saves the family. All families are blessed through Christ; unfortunately, many families haven’t accepted the blessing. It doesn’t mean they weren’t blessed; it just means they haven’t received the blessing. Thank God, we have this promise for our family.

1. The Blessing of Abraham

Genesis 28:3, 4 And God Almighty bless thee, and make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, that thou mayest be a multitude of people; And give thee the blessing of Abraham, to thee, and to thy seed with thee; that thou mayest inherit the land wherein thou art a stranger, which God gave unto Abraham.

The promise to Abraham was threefold: land, seed, blessing to the nations. God repeated these blessings to Isaac and added a fourth: the Lord will be with him. Isaac passes the promise on to Jacob in his blessing for him. He gives him the Blessing after he instructs Jacob to go to the house of his relatives and take a wife from the daughters of Laban. “Go with God’s blessing.”

God bless you and make you fruitful and multiply. Spiritually, the promise applies to us as well, that the Lord will make us fruitful and multiply. We do good deeds for others and help grow the Church. In the fear (faith) of Isaac and Jacob we are multiplied into a multitude of people, an innumerable host. The one, true, and invisible Church of all believers is literally huge.

Isaac passes on to Jacob the blessing of Abraham. God will give it to Jacob’s seed. The seed is we, the believers. We shall inherit the land. The land is the kingdom of God, given to those who are born from above. Eternal life is our inheritance. We will indeed and for sure live in that Promised Land of eternal heaven with God. We, with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, will inherit the land, although for now, during this life, we are strangers and sojourners in a strange land, the world, which is ruled by the prince of the power of the air. One Day the kingdoms of the world will become the Kingdom of God and of His Christ. The Lord will usher us into the Eternal State of the new heavens and new earth. This inheritance belongs to us. 

“Fear not, little flock, it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” The land may seem small to us, since we don’t see clearly, but it grows and is still growing to become an innumerable host. Fear not. Take heart. Be strong and of good courage. The blessing of Abraham is yours in Jesus Christ.

1. With, Bless, Multiply

Genesis 26:24 And the Lord appeared unto him the same night, and said, I am the God of Abraham thy father: fear not, for I am with thee, and will bless thee, and multiply thy seed for my servant Abraham’s sake.

The same promise is repeated to Isaac, the same promise given to him earlier and the same promise as the one given to Abraham. The promise to Isaac comes with the addition of the words, “I am with thee.” The blessing and multiplying of seed is the same part of the promise given to Isaac’s father Abraham. 

God will bless Isaac. God is present everywhere, but He is present in a special and personal way to bless. (God may sometimes be present to judge or curse.) God comes into our lives from time to time to be with us to bless. Though He is always with us, as promised, at times He will come to be with us to bless. This sense of the Presence of God actually happens more often than we may even be aware. Sometimes we can look back on an event and say, “God was there.” We often miss these God sightings because we see only what we see. We miss seeing God in other people and in human events because we don’t see the spiritual activity behind it. Just so, many people missed the God in human flesh in the person of Jesus of Nazareth because He looked just like another plain human being, for He truly is human. It took a special event, like the Transfiguration and other miracles, to see what was really going on.

When God comes into our lives to be with us to bless us with His presence we don’t see the angel or the Presence of the Spirit. “We entertain angels unawares.” If the eyes of the heart are open to God’s presence to bless we can say, “God is here,” instead of remembering an event and saying, “God was there.” Nonetheless, the Lord promises to be there always, whether we sense it or not, and we may take this promise and call upon Him whenever we need to. He is there to hear our prayer.

“Withness” does not only mean around or nearby; it also means in. The Spirit of God dwells within. This is the wonderful promise of the NT repeated by Jesus many times. Jesus pours out the Holy Spirit so that He may always be with us, fulfilling the promise given to Isaac. Jesus’ presence is the fulfillment of the promise in our lives. So we pray and believe: “Hallowed by Thy name, Thy kingdom come.” When we pray this prayer we expect the Lord to be with us to bless.

1. All Nations Blessed

Genesis 26:3, 4 Sojourn in this land, and I will be with thee, and will bless thee: for unto thee, and unto thy seed, I will give all these countries, and I will perform the oath which I sware unto Abraham thy father. And I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of haven, and will give unto thy seed all these countries; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.

The promise to Abraham that all the nations of the earth will be blessed in him and his seed is repeated to Isaac. God repeats the promise, and He repeats the promise to all of us. We are the seed of Isaac as well as the seed of Abraham. Abraham, Isaac, and you and I all believe in the same thing: the same God, the same Promise, the same Son of God, and the same Savior. Hard to believe, but true: all people will be blessed through us, the Church, the believers in Christ.

Jesus Christ is the Seed of Abraham and Isaac, and through Christ all peoples of earth will be blessed. The fantastic blessing is salvation and eternal life, spiritual blessings beyond imagining. We, you and I, have received the blessing of The Seed by faith; and, we, you and I, are the blessing to the nations by faith. We have been blessed to be a blessing. We receive it and we give it. “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” The power of love, grace and forgiveness is an awesome blessing. Believe the promise: you are a blessing.

The additional promise given to Isaac is that God will be with Him. God says, “Don’t leave the land to go to Egypt. I will be with you here. Stay here, sojourn in this land, and I will bless you.” God says to us: “Don’t leave the Kingdom to go to the World. I will be with you where you are. Stay in the world where you are sojourning, and I will bless you there.” We are sojourners in a land to which we don’t belong. “Sojourning” means traveling through a country for a time, a country in which we are not citizens. We don’t belong there. We are not “at home.” So we don’t make a home in the world. We don’t pound the tent pegs in too deeply. Our citizenship is in heaven and that heavenly home is in us by faith. In this way, the promise is that the Lord of the eternal kingdom is with us wherever we are. We carry “home” with us while we “sojourn” in a foreign country. And God promises to be with us in a world that seeks to destroy us and take away our life. But the Lord won’t let it happen.