Wednesday: A Great and Mighty Nation…
Not only did God promise Abraham that in him would all the families of the earth be blessed; the Lord said that He would make of him a “great and mighty nation” (Gen: 18:18; see also Gen: 12:2, Gen: 46:3) — quite a promise to a man married to a woman past child-bearing age. Thus, when Abraham was without descendants, much less a son, God promised him both.
Image © Kevin Carden at Goodsalt.com
Yet, this promise was not completely fulfilled while Abraham was alive. Neither did Isaac nor Jacob see it come to pass. God repeated it to Jacob, with the added information that the promise would be fulfilled in Egypt (Gen: 46:3), though Jacob really did not see it, either. Eventually, of course, that promise was fulfilled.
Why did the Lord want to make a special nation out of Abraham’s seed? Did the Lord just want another country of certain ethnic origin? What purposes was this nation to fulfill? Read Exodus 19:5-6; Isaiah 60:1-3; and Deuteronomy 4:6-8; and on the lines below, write out your answer:
It seems evident from Scripture that God purposed to attract the nations of the world to Himself through the witness of Israel, which would be, under His blessing, a happy, healthy, and holy people. Such a nation would demonstrate the blessing that attends obedience to the will of the Creator. The multitudes of earth would be drawn to worship the true God (Isa: 56:7). Thus, the attention of humanity would be drawn toward Israel, their God, and the Messiah, who was to appear in their midst, the Savior of the world.
“The children of Israel were to occupy all the territory which God appointed them. Those nations that rejected the worship and service of the true God were to be dispossessed. But it was God’s purpose that by the revelation of His character through Israel men should be drawn unto Him. To all the world the gospel invitation was to be given. Through the teaching of the sacrificial service Christ was to be uplifted before the nations, and all who would look unto Him should live.” — Ellen G. White, Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 290.
| Can you see any parallels between what the Lord wanted to do through Israel and what He wants to do through our church? If so, what are those parallels? Read 1 Peter 2:9. |
(22)
I don't think that anyone would claim that Israel became a great and might nation. Even at the peak of their ascendancy, in the time of David and Solomon, their existence as a nation was subject to continual war and fragile alliances. From that time onward, they were often a vassal state to the Mesopotamian group, Egypt, Greece and finally Rome.
We can draw a couple of inferences from this. Either, Israel did not keep their end of the covenant, or maybe God's idea of greatness is a bit different to ours. There is of course the other idea that most of the western world is regarded as the Judeo-Christian culture, recognising our heritage has its roots deep in Hebrew history. I don't want to make too much of this because I think there are other lessons to be learned.
Perhaps it is time to reread what Jesus thought about the notion of kingdom and greatness in the new testament.
Here is a little conversation Jesus had with Pilate:
And again in this conversation Jesus had with his disciples:
Just as Jesus interpreted the Messianic prophecies for us, he has also reinterpreted the notions of kingdom and greatness for those of us who claim to be spiritual Israel.
Well said! While we think of riches as being something with material value (created by men), God has a totally different view! We think of a church which needs money, beautiful walls and designs, when God does not! God is interested in a nation/people with pure and loving hearts! "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Matheus 6:21
Maurice, I agree with your assessment that Israel never really became a great nation and they did not do a very good job of keeping their end of the Covenant. As Dennis Prager says in his commentary on Genesis,
“it is God’s task to keep the Jews alive in the world; and it is the Jew’s task to keep the knowledge of God alive in the world: “You are my witnesses, declares the Lord” ( Isaiah 43:20)”.
In the end, God is the Covenant maker and the Covenant keeper. He is the Law giver and He provided the sacrifice to to meet the demands of the broken law. The Mercy Seat of the Ark covering the Tablets of the Law beneath it.
Praise be to God!
At times there’s clarity in contrasts.
God’s people who sincerely believe in Him and whose hearts are totally committed to Christ live differently than those who believe in other gods. It’s not about avoiding hardships, it’s about reflecting the love and character of Christ consistently.
In spiritual warfare, opportunities are given to humanity to discern between good and evil in order to choose one or the other. The choice is a very serious one. Transformed humanity, whose lives reflect the image of God through the power of God’s Spirit are the most convincing examples of God’s love and ability to reflect His character in us.
We are the evidence just as those who were faithful in times past, that God is truthful. His laws are just and can be followed by human beings who have sinned when we believe His Word and trust in Him enough to allow Him to transform us.
There has always been a faithful remnant from time memorial to fulfil Gods mission. God chose the Israelites to carry out His plan but looking down history of how they were easily influenced and swayed by heathen nations to disobey God, YET there has always been a few faithful Israeli's(Remnant) who still continue with Gods plan for humanity.
Same today, there are few faithful who still carry out Gods work to the latter end. The question is ARE YOU/I'M I AMONG THE FEWFAITHFUL?
Imagine IF Israel had come out of Egypt and remained faithful to all God had blessed them with, allowing God to prosper their people and nation as He promised. What an example to the rest of the world their obedience and resulting blessings would have been. Not a world power or wealthy beyond imagination, but pure, holy, healthy, humble, and prospering in all they did(Josh 1:8, Ps 1:1-3).
What do WE have to offer to the world around us today? Imagine no feeble or sick among us, perfect peace and contentment in every home, unity in all our ranks, and laborers in every field exhibiting God's power everywhere they went, leading the way in Gospel work and health reform, with the world coming to learn how to receive the blessings demonstrated in the lives of all who believe and live by “every word” from God as Jesus our Example, who "went about doing good"(Acts 10:38).
Where israel failed through disobedience, rebellion and idolatry, God still expects us, modern day spiritual Israel to triumph. He's the same God who gave the promises to His servant Abraham to make of him a great and mighty nation and to bless all other nations through him. We are "it"; the chosen generation, the holy people, royal priesthood, the peculiar people 1Peter 2:9. God has always been faithful to His promises and kept His end of the contract in sending Jesus the promised blessing to deliver all peoples from the eternal destruction. It's all up to us to keep ours through loyal faithfulness and sharing the news with urgency as if it were the only news headlines all over the world, for truly this is the real news, even in this pandemic claiming countless lives that needed to know about eternal life in Jesus.
This lesson topic brings all types of thoughts to mind. I believe that God’s promises, at their essence, are designed to impact our spiritual life first and then manifest in our physical life. Since God’s spiritual influence is linked with physical events, their practical outworking takes time to manifest.
This process follows His physical and spiritual laws, combining His work in the spirit with physical events, as well as allowing the freedom of the individual to choose the level of participation and therefore influencing its outcome; this takes time. Salvation of man remains His focus, only His timing of events and events themselves change.
Our Creator, the designer of Heaven and earth and all life within, has the most detail-oriented mind in existence. He employs His omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence to direct the flow of events to rescue His beloved creatures. Sometimes He bends the rules a bit if He finds this to be needful to accomplish His purposes; we call those events – miracles.
In Isaiah 60:1-3KJV, our God says it all: ”ARISE, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee. For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the LORD shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.” This statement is applicable to all individuals at all times.
All His promises, starting with the first one made in the Garden of Eden, evidence the dedication of our Father to re-unite with His children. God is working, moving heaven and earth, to fulfill His promises to us who accept them by faith. It is the nature of a promise; its fulfillment is in the future - this is why it is called a promise; some closer some futher out, but all in the future.
Time is evidenced through events; faith is a companion of time. After all, it’s the Father’s will that determines which events at what time should fill the gap between the promise made and the promise kept – so we wait. We wait upon God, on His perfect timing – it is His promise, and it is up to Him to fulfill it. There is just no other way around it. This spiritual process is being worked out in time; so He calls us to be patient, to have Faith - faith in Him and His faithfulness to keep His promises!
The Father even provides consolation during our time of waiting – Isa.40:31KJV. He knows we are impatient, we want to see results, we want it to happen right now and if not, we are tempted to do it our own way.
Our life is wrapped up in our loving Father's perfect timing and our steadfast faith. He employs all powers to do what He promises to do, we employ our faith that He will do it. ‘Greatness’ is a relative term. In our Father’s eyes, faith in Him makes us ‘great’; it re-unites us with Him, causing us to be forever grateful!