The Psalm 23 Adventure, Part 55
September 1, 2017
We were just getting
started last week in the picture of God's goodness and mercy in the life of
Abraham, and the constant display of that goodness and mercy as Abraham slowly
but surely overcame the fears that had so programmed his life during his early
years in Ur of the Chaldees, and the subsequent 25 years he spent in Haran
prior to his father's death. Let's pick
up this narrative where we left off last week.
Before
God can continue with his development in Abraham’s life, there must now be a
separation between he and his nephew, Lot.
Lot is not part of the covenant, and Lot cannot participate in what God
is about to unfold.
As
we see what happens, it is clear why Lot could not be a participant in that
covenant and the blessing and approval of God that would come with it. As is always true when you have a
relationship — particularly a family relationship — with someone who is
unresponsive to the things of God, strife and division take place.
Genesis 13:7-13:
And there was a strife between the herdsmen of Abram’s cattle
and the herdsmen of Lot’s cattle: and the Canaanite and the Perizzite dwelled
then in the land. And Abram said unto
Lot, Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my
herdsmen and thy herdsmen; for we be brethren. Is not the whole land before thee?
separate thyself, I pray thee, from me: if thou wilt take the left hand,
then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, then I
will go to the left.
And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan,
that it was well watered every where, before
the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the LORD,
like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar. Then Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan;
and Lot journeyed east: and they separated themselves the one from the other. Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot
dwelled in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent toward
Sodom. But the men of Sodom were
wicked and sinners before the LORD exceedingly.
Now,
with the separation of Lot from Abraham, a new dimension in the realm of the
Spirit is going to unfold for him. Great
change is taking place.
Genesis 13:14-18:
And the LORD said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from
him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward,
and southward, and eastward, and westward:
For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy
seed for ever.
And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a
man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be
numbered. Arise, walk through the land
in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give it unto
thee. Then Abram removed his
tent, and came and dwelt in the plain of Mamre, which is in Hebron, and
built there an altar unto the LORD.
And
for the third time in Abraham’s adventures, we see worship. The first time was when he first arrived in
the land of Canaan. The second time was
when he returned from Egypt. Now, with
the promise of God and an expansion of God’s covenant with him unfolding, he
builds an altar again — smack dab in the middle of the land of the Amorites, a
people who were, perhaps, among the most wicked and evil of the nations
inhabiting the land; and there he establishes a monument of worship to the
Almighty God!
Without
reciting all of the details of Genesis 14, we see that there has been real
progress in Abraham’s deliverance from the Fear of Death. It isn’t complete yet, but — wow—
what a demonstration! A holy boldness
has been developing in his character because of the constant demonstration of
God’s presence with him. It is also a
picture of what God has been doing in our lives as we have followed the Lord in
these Paths of Righteousness. His
goodness is developing in us!
What
follows is a narrative of the four most powerful kings of the earth joining
forces together and making war against the king of Sodom. Four kings of the Amalekites, the Hittites,
the Amorites and the Hivites join forces with the king of Sodom to fight in
this war. A slaughter takes place of
unimaginable proportions with families many of the giants in the land being
taken and killed: the Rephaims, the Zuzims, the Emims and the Horites.
In
the process of the unfolding war, the king of Sodom is taken captive, along
with Lot, his wealth and substance, along with the wealth and substance of
Sodom.
A
young man escapes the battle to tell Abraham about what has just taken
place. The holy boldness of the Lord
rises up in Abraham. Brother, has
something ever happened to him by this time!
Over
the years, Abraham has developed and trained a household of servants who are
skilled warriors: 318 of them! In what
would normally appear to be a suicide mission, he takes those servants and
chases after the four kings who’ve taken Lot captive. And let’s not forget that these are easily
the most powerful kings on the planet at that time. Sounds nuts, doesn’t it? But the Lord is with him.
Genesis
14:17 tells us that Abraham and his 318 servants literally slaughtered those
four most powerful kings and their armies.
David sure understood the principle when he wrote the following.
Psalm 91:7-8: A
thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but
it shall not come nigh thee.
Only with thine eyes
shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked.
Moses, likewise, understood what God had
done with Abraham when he wrote this:
Deuteronomy 32:30-32: How
should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, except their
Rock had sold them, and the LORD had shut them up? For their rock is not as our Rock,
even our enemies themselves being judges. For their vine is of the vine of
Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah: their grapes are grapes of gall,
their clusters are bitter:
Part
of the description of the Hebrew, toob, translated
“goodness,” is “Kingdom.”
Abraham
had the Kingdom of God working with him when he went out against those kings
and their armies with only 318 servants.
God had positively shut up and shut off the military might of those
armies when Abraham came up against them.
They were powerless against the might of God’s Kingdom!
Abraham
returns from the battle after recovering Lot, along with the king of Sodom and
we see another expansion of the blessing of the Lord and His covenant with
Abraham.
Genesis 14:18-20:
And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and
he was the priest of the most high God.
And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high
God, possessor of heaven and earth: And
blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand.
And he (Abraham) gave him (Melchizedek) tithes of all.
Notice
that Melchizedek brings bread and wine to Abraham. These are the elements of covenant and they
are the manifestation of a rich blessing.
I don’t want to get off-track here, but it is really incredible to me
when I look back and see that Shem (who is Melchizedek) was the recipient of
the blessing following the flood.
Whereas God pronounced a curse on the seed of Ham because of his
homosexual act against his father, Noah (see Genesis 9:21-27), the blessing is pronounced on Shem and on his
seed. Abraham is the 10th generation
descendant of Shem.
Genesis
15 expands again the covenant God made with Abraham. We continue to see the progression with
Abraham’s development in his walk with the Lord and the growth of God’s
goodness in Abraham.
Genesis 15:2-6: And Abram
said, Lord GOD, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward
of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus?
And Abram said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed: and, lo, one born
in my house is mine heir. And, behold,
the word of the LORD came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine
heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine
heir. And he brought him forth abroad,
and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number
them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.
And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for
righteousness.
Now
the Lord prepares Abraham for a dimension of His covenant with Abraham and
instructs him to do the following:
Genesis 15:7-11 (NASB): And He said to him,
“I am the LORD who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this
land to possess it.”
He said, “O Lord GOD, how may I know that I will possess it?”
So He said to him, “Bring Me a three year old heifer, and a
three year old female goat, and a three year old ram, and a turtledove, and a
young pigeon.”
Then he brought all these to Him and cut them in two, and laid
each half opposite the other; but he did not cut the birds. The birds of prey
came down upon the carcasses, and Abram drove them away.
The
covenant that God has made with Abraham now takes on a physical demonstration
with an illustration that Abraham will never forget, and something that will be
a constant visual in his memory. Watch
what the Lord does.
Genesis 15:12-21 (NASB): Now
when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, terror and
great darkness fell upon him. God
said to Abram, “Know for certain that
your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they
will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years. But I will also judge
the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many
possessions. As for you, you shall go to
your fathers in peace; you will be buried at a good old age. Then in the fourth generation they will
return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.”
It came about when the sun had set, that it was very dark, and
behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a flaming torch which passed
between these pieces. On that day the LORD
made a covenant with Abram, saying,
“To your descendants I have given this land, From the river of
Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates: the Kenite and the
Kenizzite and the Kadmonite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Rephaim
and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Girgashite and the Jebusite.”
The
Hebrew metaphors abound in these verses.
The smoking oven and the flaming torch are a picture of the passion of
the Lord. HE is the one who is
fulfilling every part of this covenant — including the part that Abraham might
have normally played in it, but couldn’t because he was ineligible.
The
significance of what God has done here will never be lost on Abraham because he
understands the nature of covenant and realizes that God is performing
something on his behalf that is absolutely supernatural. The goodness of the Lord towards Abraham is
preparing him, not only for the years to follow in Abraham’s life, but also for
the generations to come — including all of us who follow and walk in that same
faith that Abraham did as he believed God.
The
years pass. Abraham is now 86 years
old. He sees nothing that evidences the
covenant and promises that God made to him.
And he falls into a trap. Sarah
convinces him that he must do something in order to see the fulfillment of the
covenant. After all, God helps them that
help themselves! Right?
Hogwash! (Excuse me, but God help them that get caught
helping themselves!)
And
Sarah (still Sarai at this time) convinces Abraham to take her maid, Hagar, as
a concubine, have a child with her who will become Sarah’s child.
We
all know the story of Ishmael, what a pain he turned out to be, and the
centuries of opposition and persecution his descendants became to the real
covenant child of promise, Isaac.
If
it seems like I’m belaboring this whole story, it’s just because I want you to
see how God continues to generate His goodness in spite of Abraham’s screw
up. It’s the same goodness that is
eventually going to follow Abraham for the rest of his life, once his obedience
to the Lord and his final act of faith in the face of death are complete. Let’s not forget. Abraham has suffered with the Fear of Death
his whole life. God is about setting
him free from that fear — not only for Abraham’s sake, but for the sake of his
descendants.
We
will finish this picture of Abraham next week and consider the goodness of the
Lord being demonstrated in him and with him.
For those of you who’ve been participating in
our Monday night Healing Prayer Conference Call, we just want to let you know
that beginning with the month of July and continuing until the first Monday
night in October, we will be taking a break for the summer. We’ve found during the past three years of
doing this call that participation during the summer months drops significantly
because of folks taking their vacations, and being involved in other
activities. That said, we will resume
our prayer calls on Monday night, October 2nd.
At the same time, in
case you are missing out on real fellowship in an environment of Ekklesia, our
Sunday worship gatherings are available by conference call – usually at about
10:45AM Pacific. That conference number
is (712) 770-4160, and the access code is 308640#. We are now making these gatherings
available by Skype. If you wish to
participate by video on Skype, my Skype ID is regner.capener. If you miss the live voice call, you can dial
(712) 770-4169, enter the same access code and listen in
later. The video call, of course, is not
recorded – not yet, anyway.
Blessings
on you!
Regner A. Capener
CAPENER MINISTRIES
RIVER WORSHIP CENTER
Temple, Texas 76504
Email Contact:
CapenerMinistries@protonmail.com
All Coffee Break articles are
copyright by Regner A. Capener,
but authorization for reprinting, reposting, copying or re-use, in whole or in
part, is granted –provided proper attribution and this notice are included
intact. Older Coffee Break archives are available at http://www.RegnersMorningCoffee.com.
Coffee Break articles are normally published weekly.
If you would like to have these articles arrive each morning in your email,
please send a blank email to:
AnotherCoffeeBreak@protonmail.com with the word, “Subscribe” in the subject line. To remove yourself from the mailing list,
please send a blank email to
AnotherCoffeeBreak@protonmail.com with the word “Unsubscribe” in the subject
line.
CAPENER MINISTRIES is a tax-exempt church ministry. Should you desire to
participate and covenant with us as partners in this ministry, please contact
us at either of the above email or physical addresses, or visit: http://www.RiverWorshipCenter.org.