Thursday, Feb. 28

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But Abram said, “O Sovereign Lord, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?” So the Lord said to him, “Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.” Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half.  - Genesis 15:7-10

Dr. Timothy Keller wrote, “There is no greater picture of the gospel in all of the Bible than the second half of Genesis 15.” 

I have to admit, that statement at first sounded a little extreme to me because I don’t think I ever really understood what was going on in this encounter between God and Abraham.

Notice that God does not tell Abraham what to do with these animals. He just tells him to bring them. Somehow Abraham just knew what to do. Apparently, God and Abe know what is going on, but we don’t (yet). As soon as God told him to go and get these animals, Abraham knew that God was about to make a “covenant,” a solemn, binding contract. (The common method for contracts or covenants in the ancient world.)

When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates.  - Genesis 15:17-18

I think we need a little explanation for what is going on here. We live in a written/literate culture. The written word has great importance in our culture. We have covenants or contracts too.  If you hire a contractor to build an addition on your house, you both sign a contract that is meant to bind you both to the terms of the agreement.  Abraham lived in an oral culture, a storytelling culture. Contracts were dramatized; they would act out the terms or penalties of the covenant. 

Jeremiah 34:18 – “The men who have violated my covenant and have not fulfilled the terms of the covenant they made before me. I will treat them like the calf they cut in two and then walked between the pieces.” 

This was how you made (“cut”) a covenant in those days, ritually identifying with the cut up pieces if you failed to fulfill your part of it. Both in our day and in Abraham’s day, parties were meant to be held accountable to the contract. (Next time you build an addition or hire a contractor, try this Old Testament method instead of a signed contract.)

This was such an effective method that it was the method used between kings and those who wanted to enter the king’s service. But it was usually just the servant that would pass through the pieces. So, here we have God (King above all kings) and He is about to enter into a contract/covenant with Abraham. But God does two stunning things (15:17-18) that must have totally astounded Abraham. And there are no more doubts from Abraham after this.

The first astounding thing is who passes through the pieces. (Gen 15:17) A smoking firepot and a blazing torch (smoke and fire). These are strange images and hard words to translate from Hebrew.  These are the same two words used to describe God’s presence at the top of Mount Sinai and the same two words used to describe the pillars of cloud and fire that guided Israel in the wilderness. These are the symbols of God’s glory and presence. God (the King) in His glory and power passes through the pieces! This is God’s answer to Abraham’s doubts about God.

The second astounding thing is who does not pass through. Notice that once God passes through, the covenant is made/ cut. Abraham does not pass through!? What kind of covenant is this that only the King passes through? Only the Master is made accountable? This is God’s answer to Abraham’s doubts about Himself. 

God says (in effect) I will hold up my end of the covenant and I will even bear the penalty if you should fail! This is a one-sided covenant. We have a King who says I’ll take the punishment for both sides!!  Abraham could have no idea of the eventual cost of this covenant (the cross).  

Isaiah 53:8 –  By oppression and judgment he was taken away.  And who can speak of his descendants?  For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken.

“He (Jesus) was cut off from the land of the living.” This is covenant language.  Jesus passed through for us!  He was cut off for our sake!  He kept the covenant even when we break it!

Jeff Frazier

Wednesday, Feb. 27

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After this, the word of the Lord came to Abraham in a vision, “Do not be afraid, Abram.  I am your shield and your very great reward.”  - Genesis 15:1

“But Abram said, “O Sovereign Lord, what can you give me since I remain childless...?”   - Genesis 15:2a

He took him outside and said, “Look up at the heavens and count the stars - if indeed you can count them.”  Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”  Abram believed the Lord, and he credited to him as righteousness.”  - Genesis 15:5-6

When I am really afraid of something and someone tells me, “Don’t worry about it…stop thinking about it,” my fear and anxiety only increase.  Have you ever tried to make yourself stop thinking about something?  It doesn’t work does it?  You only end up thinking and worrying about that thing even more.

When I am anxious and scared, there are two things that help enormously: One is to talk about my fear with someone who will listen; the other is to be given some sort of sign, or symbol, that I can look to as an indicator that things will be all right.

In the book of Genesis, we meet a marvelous character, Abram (later, Abraham), who is not only the Father of our faith, and a very significant figure in world history, but he is also a vulnerable, fearful, questioning human being. God has called him and his wife Sarai to leave their homeland and to become together the founders of a new people. They obey, leave home, and journey to the landof Canaan, as instructed. But they have no child; Sarai is barren (Genesis 11:30).

The strength of Abraham’s relationship with God in Genesis is borne out by their frequent “conversations.” Clearly, Abraham feels free to question, doubt, and express fear directly to God.  Abraham spoke to God as one speaks to a trusted friend.  In fact, three times Abraham is called “friend of God”.

2 Chronicles 20:7 - O our God, did you not drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel and give it forever to the descendants of Abraham your friend?

Isaiah 41:8 - But you, O Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, you descendants of Abraham my friend.

James 2:23 - And the scripture was fulfilled that says, "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness," and he was called God's friend.  

What turned Abraham into Abraham the friend of God?  the answer is faith.  It was the faith of Abraham, his consistent belief and trust in God despite his circumstances that made him a friend of God.  

When God says, “Fear not,” Abraham counters with  very real and concrete concerns: How can my reward (an heir and descendants) be great when I don’t have a child, an heir?  This reminds me of Frederick Buechner’s statement: “The opposite of faith is not doubt; it’s fear.”  The life of Abraham demonstrates that doubt can and often does coexist with faith.

God gives Abraham a sign, something  Abraham trusts as a symbol of God’s promise: “Look toward heaven and count the stars; so shall your descendants be.”  I don’t know about you, but I have gazed up at the night sky and felt both incredibly small and insignificant, and full of awe and wonder at the power of my God.  God uses an outward and visible sign in the ordinary world to point Abraham toward hope and trust. 

In his excellent Genesis commentary, Walter Brueggemann asks, “Is it okay for us to ask God for a sign?  Apparently, yes!”  Then Brueggemann astutely adds:  “The same God who makes stars beyond number can also make a son for this barren family, and we understand no more about one than the other.”

Help us, O God, in the midst of fear, to speak to you from our hearts, and then to look expectantly for a sign that all will be well - Amen.  

Jeff Frazier

Tuesday, Feb. 26

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Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness - Genesis 15:6

Paul refers to this verse in Romans 4:3. He reminds us that Abraham believed God before he was circumcised (before the covenant), that is before he had any continual guarantee that God would do what He said. Paul infers from this that acceptance before God has nothing to do with circumcision (or external symbols), as the Jews were insisting.  Paul says that when Abraham heard God say, “So shall your descendants be,” that he looked up into the stars and saw their vastness and their multitude and relaxed—resting in faith upon the power of God.

If we focus our view on Abraham's faith, we are going to miss the point of this whole matter.  You know sometimes I think we make far too much of these heroes of old and their faith.  “What mighty men of God,”  and of course, in one sense they were.  We say, “How amazing they were to believe God against all the evidence of the circumstances around.  If we only had faith like that, we could do the things they did!”  Then we compare our feeble faith with theirs and try to work up a feeling of faith within us until we are turned into spiritual hypochondriacs, always going about taking our spiritual temperature and feeling our spiritual pulse. 

It is indeed true that when God saw Abraham's faith, it was credited to him as righteousness; but the point is that when Abraham saw God, he credited Him able to do what He had promised, so he was able to rest his faith on God's ability and not on his own faith!

What was it that made Abraham's faith so strong?  The answer is that he did not look at the difficulty so much as he looked at the One who had promised.  His eye was not resting on the problems, but upon the Promiser.  When he saw the greatness of God, the might and majesty displayed before him on that summer's night, he said to himself, “It makes no difference how I feel or what difficulties may be involved.  The Creator of that multitude of stars is quite capable of giving me an equal number of descendants.”

So we read the great sentence, “He believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.”  Keep in mind that the concept of righteousness in the Bible has to do with our relational status, our being “right with” God.  This does not mean that this was the first moment that Abraham was reckoned righteous before God—that is, this is not the moment of his spiritual regeneration.  The book of Hebrews makes clear that when he left Ur of the Chaldeans, in response to God's command, his obedient faith was also credited to him for righteousness.  This incident under the stars is simply one instance out of many that illustrates the way in which God credits righteousness to the person who believes.  Abraham believed God about the promise of a son who would come in the future and was reckoned righteous by faith.

Today we are called to believe God about the Son who has already come, and when we cease our own works and rest in helpless dependence upon that living Son, we too are counted righteous by faith.  

This act of faith that first introduces us to the power of God exercised on our behalf must become an attitude of faith governing each moment of our life.

Father, teach me the folly of self-dependence and the glory of God-dependence. In every moment of fear, lead me to cast myself upon You, reckoning upon Your promise to be my shield and reward  - Amen.

Jeff Frazier

Monday, Feb. 25

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Monday

After this, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision:
“Do not be afraid, Abram.
    I am your shield,
    your very great reward.”
But Abram said, “O Sovereign Lord, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?” And Abram said, “You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir.”

Then the word of the Lord came to him: “This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir.” He took him outside and said, “Look up at the heavens and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”
Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.
He also said to him, “I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.”

But Abram said, “O Sovereign Lord, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?”  So the Lord said to him, “Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.”

Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half. Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away.

As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him.  Then the Lord said to him, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years.  But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions.  You, however, will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”  

When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates.  - Genesis 15:1-18

This is a fascinating passage with admittedly some strange and mysterious images: smoking firepot, blazing torch, animals cut in half. We’ll get to all of these in a moment. But at its heart, this passage is about Abraham’s doubt and his need for assurance, and how God handles Abraham and his doubts. There is much we can learn from this story about us, about our doubts, and about how God handles doubters.

When our kids were younger, they were (like most) continually in need of assurance from us as parents. Usually this assurance came in the form of a “promise” from mom or dad.  Our children were always trying to get us promise them, they would ask us, “Do you promise?”  In their minds, a promise from mommy or daddy was a sure thing.

As adults, we also are in need of assurance: of our future, of our health, of the love of those we love, etc. We are insecure creatures and doubt is a natural part of being human. When it comes to matters of faith, spiritual matters, doubt can be an especially acute problem. Which of us hasn’t, at one time or another, had some degree of doubt about the existence of God, the goodness of God, or the will of God?

One of the lessons this story from the life of Abraham teaches us is that not only is doubt natural to human experience, it is also necessary in the growth of our faith.

Abraham has experienced a very special prophetic revelation from God. I have heard many people say things like: “If I could just see or hear from God, if He could only speak clearly to me, if only I could be sure it was really God.” But here is Abraham who has just experienced a clear, specific, definitive, audible revelation from God. What is his response? Does he say, “Whew! I was starting to lost it, but now I feel much better.” Gen. 15:2-3. 

No, he says something more like, “Um, well God, since you brought up this reward thing, um, about that son you promised, um, where is he!?” Abraham’s response to this incredible revelation from God is more doubt!

Now here is the amazing part. Look at how God responds to Abraham’s question and doubt. Gen. 15:4-5. “Don’t worry; come with me, let’s go outside for a little walk.” God doesn’t say, “How dare you doubt Me!” or “How dare you question my word!”  God takes Abraham outside for a little object lesson, and He reminds him of who He is and what He has already done for Abraham (Gen. 15:7).

How gentle God is; how patient God is with Abraham and his doubts!  How gentle and patient He is with you!

Jeff Frazier

Friday, Feb. 22

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By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.  By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.  For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. By faith Abraham, even though he was past age—and Sarah herself was barren—was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise. And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.  All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.   - Hebrews 11:8-16

Get the point?  Abraham lived “By Faith”, and what an incredible life he lived?  Abraham left, but he never really arrived, he remained a pilgrim, a traveler whose true home was not a place on this earth, but in the presence of his God. 

I have often heard authors and speakers describe the Christian life as an adventure. It is an exciting and adventurous life. Recently I heard a literary scholar discussing the difference between an adventure and a quest by using J.R.R. Tolkien’s books as examples.

The Hobbit – An adventure story, “there and back again,” something you choose, adds a little spice to your life, but then you come back from your adventure and pick up where you left off.  

LOTR – A quest. You don’t just come back from a quest.  A quest chooses you or it calls you. It changes your life.  You never really return from a quest, because even if you do come back, you are not the same person you were before.

The Christian life is really more of a quest than an adventure! It chooses you and it changes you. 

The key question is “how?” How can I surrender this completely?  How can I live this kind of life?

First, it does not always happen all at once (as we will see in the life of Abraham). It is a process and we experience setbacks. So you don’t have to be perfect all of the time to respond to the call, but you do have to want God above all else—above your own agenda and plans.

Abraham lived his entire life in this gap between promise and reality. 

Miroslav Volf writes, “The courage to break cultural and familial ties, to abandon the gods of his ancestors and to answer the call of God of all cultures and all peoples.... This is the original Abrahamic revolution..In the same way Christians must be willing to depart, to leave in order to make Christ their first allegiance.” 

It is always far easier to stay where you are or to know where you are going than to go and not know.

Abraham was given all of these promises by God, but underneath them all was the one central promise. The promise of a son!

All of the other promises hinge on this central promise:
Make your name great
Make you into a great nation
Bless all peoples through you
All these promises require a son, an heir.

Do you see that it is no different for us today? Every promise we have from God hinges on the promise of Jesus Christ! Everything comes down to the promise of the Son!

Sarah was barren and Abraham was old. That meant the son was going to be an act of miraculous grace. God in effect says: “Abraham, you can’t make this happen yourself, you’re just going to have to live with the faith in the son.” 

We are in the same position as Abraham. Responding to the call means to “get out,” to leave behind whatever holds us back, whatever competes for our allegiance, and live each day with faith in the Son!

Jeff Frazier

Thursday, Feb. 21

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Thursday

So Abram left, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Haran. He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there. Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the great tree of Moreh at Shechem. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him.  From there he went on toward the hills east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord. Then Abram set out and continued toward the Negev.  - Genesis 12:4-9

This is more than just a record of what happened to Abram when he first entered the land. It is also a very accurate picture of the conditions of the Christian life.  The first thing we are told is that Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh.  

These names are very revealing.  Shechem means “shoulder.” and to the Hebrew, the shoulder is a symbol of strength.  We think of the shoulder of a mountain in the same way.  The name Moreh means “instruction,” and when we combine these two words, we get our first glimpse of what it is like in the land.  

It is only as we are taught and instructed in the Word of God that we find strength to live.

The second picture we have here is that life in the land is to be a life of constant conflict. These Canaanites were the pagan tribes that afflicted Israel all through their history.  They are an accurate picture for us of those manifestations of evil we live with and continually wrestle against.  They are named for us in the New Testament in many places: lust, envy, jealousy, impatience, intemperance, irritability, and touchiness. They are our enemies—these manifestations of self that make our existence a life of continual conflict.

Third, it is also a life of continual cleansing, for we next read, “So he built an altar there to the Lord.” We think of an altar as a symbol of worship, which it is, but that is not the essence of its meaning. An altar is first a place of cleansing, which provides the basis for worship. The reason for a daily altar is the urgent need for cleansing in the pilgrim life. All pilgrims need the cleansing of blood, the cross of Christ, to which they can come and judge themselves throughout their lives. Therefore, a life of the Spirit's fullness must be continually cleansed by the cross of Christ.

Finally we see that the life of following God is a life of continual choice.  Abram pitched his tent between Bethel and Ai.  Bethel means “the house of God”;  Ai means “ruin.” This is just where we must live the Christian life, always looking either to the things of God or to the ruin of the world.  We can choose to go to Bethel or to Ai, to Christ or self— it can never be both.

Even Abraham’s tent is an important symbol to us.  He was not a permanent resident.  He lived in a tent because he was a pilgrim in the land.  

By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.  - Hebrews 11:8-10

All through the New Testament, the Christian pilgrim is told  to walk in the Spirit. Walk, walk, keep walking, don’t stop!   You have not ended your walk when you have learned a lesson from God. Tomorrow there is another step to be taken, and another the day after that, and another the day following.  

being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.   - Philippians 1:6

I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.  - Philippians 3:14

Father, use these lessons from Abram's life to lead me out, that I may rise up to go into the land of the fullness of blessing in Christ - Amen.

Jeff Frazier

Wednesday, Feb. 20

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Wednesday

The LORD had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you” - Genesis 12:1

In this meeting, Abram came face to face with a command. Abram was commanded to do three things: leave his country, his people, and his father's household. This is exactly the command that comes to every person who hears the call of the gospel today. We are called to leave our country—the place where we have been living, our residence since birth. This does not mean, of course, our physical residence, but rather the old life with all its ambitions, its loyalties, its worship of money and fame and power, and its imagined independence—which is really slavery—all that we have been by nature since birth. This is clearly a picture of the world-organized society with its philosophies and value systems.

Abram was also told to leave his relatives. In the spiritual sense, these are the moral forces that shape our lives. Just as blood relatives affect us greatly on the physical level, so these moral forces at work today change our lives constantly and color all that we think and do. Others' opinions, human traditions, pressures from family and friends, the attitudes of our employers and others around us—these are the relationships we must be willing to forsake when we hear the call of God. We are to renounce this concern about what others think and be preeminently concerned about what God thinks.

Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.   - Luke 14:25-27

This is one of the really hard sayings of Jesus.  However, when we consider it in light of the story of the call of Abraham, we see that this has always been part of what it means to answer the call of God.  Jesus is not telling us to actually think and act in hateful ways toward our family members.  He is showing us that answering His call means we love nothing, not even our dearest friends and family, more than we love Him.

The third thing Abram was to leave was his father's house—that is, the ties with his “old self”, his old identity and nature.  In ancient patriarchal cultures, a man was identified by the name of his father, i.e. the “house” he came from.  We are called to leave this, to no longer put any dependence upon our looks, talents, heritage, or any of our normal resources, but to begin to walk in dependence upon another to do through us what we cannot do ourselves.

Perhaps you have heard the living God of glory say to you, “You must no longer depend upon what you have been depending on—the opinions, the attitudes, the philosophy in which you have been reared. These are wrong. They are based upon the lies of Satan, and you must not live on this basis any longer. You must learn to accept the truth reflected in the Word of God, though it cuts right across the philosophy of this world. You must, above all, leave your father's house, which is dependence upon yourself.”

It is a simple but vital decision—you cannot stay in Ur and go to the land at the same time.

Lord, grant me the grace to follow You, regardless of what I must leave behind - Amen.

Jeff Frazier

Tuesday, Feb. 19

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Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Haran, they settled there.   - Genesis 11:31

The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.   - Genesis 12:1

There is a radical nature to this call;  (NIV) “Leave your country.” (KJV) “Get thee out!”
There are two Hebrew words here. Literally it translates to “Go yourself,” “Get yourself out.”  I think the old KJV actually does a better job of translating this command from God.  God is not suggesting or hinting to Abram, He is calling him in a radically personal way!

There is something very interesting in this story of the call of Abraham that many people miss.  Look at verse 31 in chapter 11. Notice the word “but.”  “But when they came to Haran, they settled there.”  Why did they stop in Haran? His family had stopped part way—didn’t want to go any further.  they were on their way to Canaan, to the promised land!  Now notice that in 12:1, the text actually says that the Lord had said to Abram, past tense, God had already called him to go to Canaan.  The book of Acts makes it even more clear that God had called Abraham before he and his family settled in Haran,
The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran.  ‘Leave your country and your people,’ God said, ‘and go to the land I will show you.  - Acts 7:2-3

Now Haran was just about half way from Ur to Canaan.  What does that tell you?  Abraham and his family were on their way, they were following God’s call, they were making some progress, but then they stopped and they settled.  They did not come all of the way.  

Can you imagine Abraham saying to God, “Well, I’ve come 1⁄2 way God, but I just can’t get Terah and Nahor and the rest of them to go any further. They are very stubborn. You know how dad can be. And God says, “Then come yourself.”

This is why God says to Abraham, “Get thee out!”  Come all the way!  Even if everyone around you refuses, if they all think you’re crazy for following me, you come yourself!

You see, the call is personally radical. You can’t come in on anyone else’s coattails. Abraham must go on even if all those around him do not. It is not enough just to come to church.  It is not enough just to be around the Christian environment. You must meet God yourself! You must respond to His call yourself.

Here is the really difficult part. The call does not permit us to hedge our bets because we do not know where it will take us. Notice that God is not explicit/clear about exactly where Abraham is going “to the land I will show you.” You cannot answer the call of God and still try to control your life.

Abraham was not given such answers, and neither are we. 
God says to Abraham:
“Get out.” – Where? – “I’ll show you later.”
I’ll give you a son.” – How? – “I’ll show you later.”
“Sacrifice your son.” – Why? – “I’ll show you later.”

At its core, the call of God is a surrender of the will. You cannot say: “If I know where it will take me.” “If it makes sense to me.” “If I can still maintain the kind of life I am used to.” 

Just go...just trust...just follow.

Jeff Frazier

Monday, Feb. 18

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Monday

Genesis 11:27-32 - This is the account of Terah.  Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran. And Haran became the father of Lot.  While his father Terah was still alive, Haran died in Ur of the Chaldeans, in the land of his birth.  Abram and Nahor both married. The name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife was Milcah; she was the daughter of Haran, the father of both Milcah and Iscah. Now Sarai was barren; she had no children.  Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Haran, they settled there.  Terah lived 205 years, and he died in Haran.  

Genesis 12:1 - The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.

Abraham is first introduced to us in the closing verses of Genesis 11 and the opening verses of Genesis 12. His name was originally Abram, and it was not until years later that it was changed to Abraham.  In Hebrew, Abram means “exalted father” (Daddy), Abraham means “father on many” (Big Daddy).  There is no doubt that Abraham is incredibly significant in the history of our faith. Even from a secular perspective, Abraham is a big deal, he is a towering figure in the history of civilization.  Monotheism is kind of taken for granted by most people today, but it was not so in Abraham’s day.  He went against his family, his culture, and the conventional wisdom of his day.  Today, the three major world religions all claim Abraham as their spiritual father; Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

What made Abraham so great?  How did he become this remarkable figure on the world stage?  What gave him such great faith and courage?  

Simply put, it was the call of God!  The call of God shaped and defined his life, it formed him into the father of our faith!

The story of Abraham, how the call of God came to him, his response, and what happened to him as a result have tremendous importance for us, not just in a historical sense, but also in that it serves as a kind of metaphor for the life we are called to live in Christ. Woven throughout the story of Abraham are many wonderful references to Christ. Some are obvious and some are more subtle. But they all point to Jesus.
I have often made the mistake of beginning the story of Abraham in chapter 12. But the last few verses of chapter 11 tell us some very important information.

Genesis 3-11 tells the story of a kind of downward spiral of the human race. Since the Garden, things are getting worse. Genesis 4 - first murder, Genesis 6 – flood, Genesis 11 – Tower of Babel. People are turning away from God. They have forgotten and no longer know of the one true God, with the exception of a single family line, the line of Seth (Gen. 4).
But even this faithful family line was deteriorating into false worship. Ur of the Chaldeans was the center of lunar worship at the time – the last family has forgotten God. 

Joshua said to all the people, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Long ago your ancestors, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the Euphrates River and worshiped other gods.  - Joshua 24:2

Walter Bruggerman (commentary on Genesis): “The barrenness of Sarah is an effective metaphor for hopelessness. This text (Gen. 11:27 – 12:1) tells us that there is no foreseeable future and no human power to invent a future.” It’s a dead end.

They have lost God spiritually and because of Sarah’s barrenness, it is nearing the end biologically. Spiritually speaking, all human history has come to a dead end...and then the call of God comes!

This is the power of the call of God. Abraham was in the best family on the earth, but without the call of God, he is spiritually dead, hopeless. It does not matter your family (good or bad). Each must answer the call!

We are all at a spiritual dead end without the call of God! So the call of god is absolutely critical to the Christian life.

Jeff Frazier

Friday, February 15

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Genesis 7:12-23

For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth. The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than twenty feet. Every living thing that moved on the earth perished – birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind. Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out, men and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds of the air were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark.

At 11:20 pm on April 14, 1912, RMS Titanic, the greatest ocean going vessel ever engineered by man, struck an iceberg on her maiden voyage and sank to the bottom of the sea in less than 3 hours. 

We all know the basic outline of the tragic story. Of the 2,200 and some passengers and crew on board the great ship that night, over 1,500 perished in the frigid waters of the north Atlantic. But the part of the story that is particularly tragic is that of the 1,178 available seats on lifeboats, only 700 or so were taken, meaning there were almost 500 available seats in the lifeboats that were not filled. In some cases the boats launched before passengers had time to understand and react to the gravity of the situation. But in other cases, passengers simply refused to get in the lifeboats because they could not fathom that the great ship could sink.

As we noted earlier in the week, the story of Noah and the Ark is not a children’s story. It’s a story of sin, judgment, faith and salvation; it’s the story of the world in a nutshell; it’s the story of the gospel.

By Genesis chapter 6 the world had become a very broken place; and the world is still a very broken place. 

Just this week I saw a story in our local newspaper about an 18 year old girl who was beaten to death with a hammer and her body then set on fire. 

The Bible says God sees the wickedness of the people he created and that his heart grieves. Even our hearts tell us that such wickedness cries out for judgment. Genesis tells us that long ago God judged the wickedness of humanity through a great flood, saving only a righteous and obedient man named Noah and his family. 

But God has promised never again to destroy the earth with a flood. God promised to deal with our sin in a different way; not through judgment but by grace. God promised to provide salvation to those who believed his word; not through a boat, but by his Son. 

In Romans, Paul writes:

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! Romans 5:8-9

And just as those who entered the doorway of the ark were saved, Jesus says that those who put their faith in him will be saved.

I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. John 10:9

So, just as the ark was God’s salvation for the few; Jesus is God’s salvation for the many.

In that sense, then, Jesus is like the lifeboats on the Titanic. The ship itself is like the broken world in which we live; the brokenness of our own sin. The Bible says the ship is taking on water and is going down. No matter how much we insist that it is not true; no matter how much we would like to believe the ship will sail on forever; no matter how we try to ignore the captain’s warnings; the ship is sinking.

But there is a lifeboat and there is plenty of room.

Brian Coffey

Thursday, February 14

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Genesis 9:8-17

Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: “I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you and with every living creature that was with you—the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you—every living creature on earth. I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”

And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”

So God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth.”

When our boys were very young my wife and I shared “bedtime duty.” She would most often take care of bath time, brushing teeth and getting them into their pajamas. Then I would take over for story time and tucking them into bed with a prayer. 

One particular evening my wife finished her part of the nightly ritual and let me know the boys were ready for me. I was involved with something important, like watching a Bulls playoff game, so I hollered back, “Tell ‘em I’ll be up in a minute!” Even though I intended to go upstairs to their room at the next commercial break, I got engrossed in the game and I simply forgot.

About 45 minutes later my wife walked by and said, “Did you say goodnight to the boys?” And I went (envision me slapping myself on the forehead), “Ohhhh, I totally forgot!” and I jumped out of my chair and hurried to their rooms fully expecting them to be dead asleep. But, I figured, when they asked me the next day if I came up to say goodnight I could at least say, “Yes, I did, but you were already asleep.” 

I checked on the son sleeping in the lower bunk and, sure enough, he was out like a light. But when I looked over the railing of the top bunk I was shocked to find my five year-old still awake. He looked at me and said, “I knew you’d come Daddy!”

I still can’t tell that story without tears welling up in my eyes because my five year old son taught me something about the power of a promise.

The story of Noah and the Ark begins with the judgment of God and ends with the promises of God.

And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life.

God makes two promises:

He promises never again to destroy the earth by flood; and he promises to establish a covenant with all generations.

He says,

“Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”

In other words, God will always be holy; people will always reject his holiness; but God will find a different way to deal with the problem of sin.

Then he says,

This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come…

Here God is talking about the rainbow, which is to be a sign of the covenant. The word “covenant” simply means, “holy promise,” but in the context of the Bible it means “God’s promise of salvation.” 

God promises to deal with human sin in a different way; not through judgment but by grace. The rest of the story of the Bible tells the story of how God keeps this promise; first through the giving of the law (The Ten Commandments); then through the sacrificial system of the Tabernacle and later the Temple; then through the gift of his presence (the pillar of fire by night and smoke by day); then through the prophets; and, finally, when the time was right, the gift of his Son.

The Apostle Paul says it this way:

In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. Hebrews 1:1-2

Genesis tells us that following the flood God made several promises. The New Testament tells us that, in Christ, all God’s promises are good.

Brian Coffey

Wednesday, February 13

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Genesis 6:9-22

This is the account of Noah and his family.

Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God. Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth.

Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high. Make a roof for it, leaving below the roof an opening one cubit high all around. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks.  I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish.  But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you.  You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you.  Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive.  You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them.”

Noah did everything just as God commanded him.

There’s an old story about a preacher who went swimming in the ocean and got caught in a strong current. Fearing he would soon drown, he cried out to God for help. Not long afterward fishing boat went by and the captain called out to the preacher offering assistance. The preacher responded, “No thanks, God will provide.” Soon a helicopter flew overhead and the pilot called through a loud-speaker offering to pick the preacher out of the ocean. But the preacher replied, “No thanks, God will provide.” But eventually his strength ran out and the preacher drowned.

Upon his arrival in heaven he approached God and said, “Lord, while I am overjoyed to be here, I have a question: when I cried out to you for help, why didn’t you save me?” To which God said, “What are you talking about? I sent you a boat and a helicopter, what else did you want me to do?”

The story of Noah is a story about the judgment of God on human sin, but it’s also a story about the provision of God for human sin.

First: God provided a warning. Throughout the Old Testament the pattern is quite consistent. God gives his people the commands of his word. They disobey. Then God sends a warning through a prophet or prophets that if the people don’t repent and change their ways, judgment is coming. 

We tend to think of Noah as an old man who loved animals; but look at how the Bible describes him:

Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God. Genesis 6:9

…if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness… 2 Peter 2:5

According to Genesis, Noah spent some 120 years building the ark. Evidently, he did more than pound nails! As a “preacher of righteousness” Noah was likely taking every opportunity to explain to anyone who would listen why he was building a boat in the middle of the desert! 

Second, God provided an object lesson. For over 100 years Noah’s boat rose plank by plank, nail by nail, in full view of anyone who cared to pay attention. When you think about it, there’s only one reason to own or build a boat, and that’s to float it on water, a lot of water. It was the perfect object lesson for Noah’s preaching, “Judgment is coming!’ Or, to borrow a line from comedian Bill Cosby, “How long can you tread water?”

Third, God provided the means of salvation. One of the most profound and sad lines in the Bible is Genesis 7:16:

Then the Lord shut him in.

This simple sentence communicates a great deal. It tells us that God, not Noah, shut the doors of the ark. This protected Noah from the terrible responsibility of closing the door of salvation on many. But, beyond that, it also tells us that before that moment, the door of the ark was open. For over 100 years, the door was open. For over 100 years Noah preached the righteousness of God along with the warning that judgment was coming. And over the course of those 100 plus years, not one person responded to the warning, not one person that we know of responded to the preaching of Noah, not one person responded to the opportunity; not one.

The simplest answer to the question, “Why weren’t more people saved on the ark?” is, “They didn’t want to get on board.”

Brian Coffey

Tuesday, February 12

To download an audio version, click here. 

Genesis 6:9-22

This is the account of Noah and his family.

Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God. Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth.

Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high. Make a roof for it, leaving below the roof an opening one cubit high all around. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks.  I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish.  But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you.  You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you.  Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive.  You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them.”

Noah did everything just as God commanded him.

Years ago I saw a story in the newspaper that was so unusual that I still have the yellowed article today. One summer a local police department received dozens of phone calls complaining that a certain home in a certain neighborhood was emitting a terrible odor. Concerned about possible foul play, officers descended on the home, expecting the worst. Upon investigating, officers discovered not a dead body, but that the home in question was inhabited by an otherwise ordinary couple in their mid-60s – along with their 70 cats.

Not “7 cats”; not “17 cats”; but “70 cats” – that’s “7 - zero”!

Even if you happen to be a cat lover, and I know there are plenty of you out there, you know deep in your heart that’s too many cats!

The police reported that the cats had completely taken over and pretty much destroyed the interior of the house. The stench of cat waste was so overpowering that animal control units from three communities were called to help de-cat the property. After all the cats were removed, the house was declared unfit for human habitation.

I mention that story, not just because it brings me an odd sense of amusement, but because it bears a certain similarity to the story we look at in Genesis 6. The story we are currently studying also involves a large number of animals cooped up in a relatively small space, although I’m pretty sure Noah was grateful he only had to take 2 cats! 

What are we to make of the story of “Noah and the Ark”? Are we to believe that an ancient man named Noah actually spent over 100 years building a giant boat by hand, stuffing it full of pairs of every kind of animal imaginable, and then rode out a flood the likes of which the world had never seen before and has never seen since?

Or, as many do, are we to see the story as a kind of Biblical mythology that teaches certain ideas about God but isn’t intended to be understood literally?

There are three basic theories about the flood story.

The first is that the flood story is, indeed, mythological; a kind of allegory about sin and salvation, not an event that actually happened in history. Those who take this position point to the fact that there are thousands of “flood stories” found in over 70 of the worlds languages and across many ancient cultures (including the “Epic of Gilgamesh” that many of us had to read in college literature courses). What those who take this view fail to acknowledge is the possibility that all these stories might, in fact, stem from an original historical event.

The second position is that the flood story of Genesis 6-9 is to be understood literally; that it was an event that was both historical as well as a global. This is the classic view that water covered the whole earth deep enough to cover even the highest mountain peaks (think Mt. Everest), and that the ark contained male and female specimens of every species of animal and bird living on the earth at that time.

Now, obviously, this classic interpretation of the story creates a few questions. Where did all that water come from and where did it all go? That’s more water than has ever existed on the earth and the mixing of fresh water and salt water would have created tremendous problems. And how could the ark have contained the millions of species of animals and birds that must have existed at the time? 

Interestingly, some scientists have estimated that of the 2 million plus species on the earth at the time, most would have been insects or creatures that could survive in the sea, and that only some 35,000 “kinds” of creatures would have needed to be on the ark. Furthermore, others have calculated that some 70,000 animals would have easily fit into half of the arks space, leaving the rest of the cubic footage for 8 human beings and supplies. 

However, the most obvious answer to these questions is, of course, that God is sovereign and can do anything he wants to do! Once we accept that he created the heavens and the earth by the word of his mouth, anything becomes possible. God, after all, possesses adequate creative and engineering resources!

The third position is that the flood story is literal and historical, but that it was local in scope. This position assumes that, at the time of the flood, human civilization had not yet moved beyond of Mesopotamia, to say, regions of the earth like Antarctica, therefore the spread of human sin was limited. This view sees the flood as covering the world as far as a human being living at the time could see – that is as far as the horizon. This would be like my five year-old son describing the Fox Valley flood of 1995 by saying, “There’s water covering everything!” In defense of this position, there is geological evidence of a devastating flood in that region that took place some 7600 years ago (see “Noah’s Flood” by William Ryan and Walter Pittman).

All that being said, the most important things to see in the story of Noah is how serious human sin is to a holy God, and the lengths to which that same God goes to save his creation.

The seriousness of sin is seen in that sin brings death not only to human beings as individuals; but to human relationships and human society, as well as to all of creation itself. 

And the gospel is seen in that God provides salvation not only to human beings as individuals; but to human relationships, and human community, and to all of creation as well.

Brian Coffey