Genesis 24 - Circumstancial providence

Genesis 24 is a very long chapter, telling a long story. This is the story of God providing Isaac a wife from his extended family back in the old country. He marries his father's brother's daughter.

We see Rebekah is kind. We read she is beautiful. We find that Isaac is comforted with his new wife after the bereavement of the death of his mother. It is all pretty romantic.

From this I take it Isaac was a sort of momma's boy. He replaces his mom with a surrogate mother in his new wife. The chapter ends with the statement that Isaac loved his wife. This has got to be good, whatever else I might feel about Isaac. So many marriages end up strained, more contracts than romantic. Isaac loves his wife has got to be good.

Abraham is really too old to travel back to Babylon to get Isaac a wife. He sends a most trusted servant with a pretty complicated job. The servant has faith in God too and he speaks and prays to Him. He sort of "puts a fleece" before God. He asks that certain things happen in exacted a certain way so he will have God's plan confirmed for him. Immediately after he asks it happens. He does not have to search throughout the whole city for Abraham's family, the right girl just appears before him. Later when Rebekah gets to Canaan she immediately sees Isaac in pretty much the same way. It seems she is taken with him right away, just like he is with her.

How many of you have put a fleece before God like that? How many have asked that events happen in a providential way? How many have seen God answer in the same way that he answered Abraham's servant. I think I have done it and seen it answered but I can't remember any details.

I know I have tried to get God to guide me and then find God does not give me the circumstantial coincidence that would have made it so much easier to make a decision. I was left to work it out with other knowledge that God had given me. God was maturing me, training me, helping me to stand on my own. God does not want men and women who cannot make decisions under pressure. We have to be able to trust God to guide us in other ways.

It is more likely God will work like he did yesterday with my car. I have been nursing an old car battery for quite a while. Over the winter I thought I should replace it. But I put it off. I thought after winter was over it might last until next winter. But yesterday after driving all afternoon the car finally would not start, right after I booked a room at a hotel. The car was under the hotel check in space. DW and I had to push it a few feet to space in front of our room. What better place for it to happen! No sitting in the heat waiting. I just called AAA from the comfort of my hotel room.

So I called AAA and then do have battery service. While I stayed in the room I called and in a hour a man came out, checked the car out, and sold me a battery. My old battery was over five years old. I bought it at an auto parts place and had replaced it on my own. This man came from a few towns over, the AAA guy for a rural area in central Texas. He had all sorts of gadgets including a little battery he plugged into my electrical system that kept all my radio presets while he removed the old battery and replaced it with the new. Yes I did pay more for the convenience, but it was worth it.

But anyway the point is that God was merciful and let the battery finally die in a most convenient place. DW and I praise God for his goodness despite my recalcitrance about replacing the battery earlier.

Genesis 23 - Abraham negociates

Chapter 23 is about the dead of Sarah. Abraham genuinely mourns but then he has to get up and deal with the very real problem of what to do with her body. Abraham is a sojourner, he owns no land. To just dump her anywhere will offend the people whose land he borrows. They are likely to disturb her if he buries her anywhere.

So Abraham convenes a meeting with the "sons of Heth". This is the first we hear this name. It seems to be a tribal delineation. Like Sons of Abraham, Sons of Jacob, Sons of Reuben it could be a subset of another group. Perhaps this a subset of the Hittites, a name also used in this chapter. What a Hittite is and where they lived has been a subject of great debate among those who study such things. Hittite may have described something more than a tribe or a sub-race.

Anyway ... the chapter shows Abraham speaking in a formulaic fashion. This is like a legal proceeding. Abraham speaks and invokes those listening as witnesses. Perhaps Abraham is speaking in a second language, the language of the locals, and not his own.

The offers by the locals to give him the land are probably not understood to be real offers. But who can be sure? Abraham finally offers to buy a certain piece of land from Ephron. It appears to be land that was wooded and had a cave. It may be prime land for burials but probably not much use for grazing or farming. The first offer by Ephron was probably a opening offer. He probably expected to haggle a price down. But Abraham pays the first offer. He can afford it we see and as a foreigner he wants there to be no appearance that anyone can have any objection to his wife's body lying in peace.

Those reading this originally lived in the land now, the fruit of the promise to Abraham. The place is described in great detail. Everyone knew the place. Everyone respected the place as a shrine to Abraham.

Abraham knew God's promise to give him the land. So it was important to him to make a place of burial for his family. He knew God would eventually bring the people back to the land and he wanted them to know where he and his family was buries. Abraham acted for the long term.

Do we act for God's long term vision? Or do we simply live for today with no thought for tomorrow? Do we act with a view of what God is doing? Is my citizenship in this world? Or do I look to the promised New Jerusalem when Jesus is coming back to receive his saints into glory?

Genesis 22 - faith without works is dead

This is that horrible story of Abraham obeying God and going to sacrifice Isaac. I so identify with Isaac here. What was he thinking? He had no little obedience in this too. But in most ways he had no choice. To run away from his dad was sure death as well by wild beast, hunger, or perhaps from another tribal group who would instantly see him as an enemy.

OK, trying to be faithful here.

Abraham walks from Beersheba to Moriah to do the sacrifice. I was looking at a map and see when Beersheba is. Abraham was a nomadic shepherd. He has been moving around. Possibly the grass where he had been was eaten down. So they moved to new pastureland. Abraham has been moving southward towards the desert where there would be no grass at all.

Moriah comes up a lot. It is reputed to be where Moses saw the burning bush. And it is where David built the first temple, next to Jerusalem. We are told this is a three day walk from Beersheba. Looking at the map it seems a good walk up and down hills and valleys and fording mountain streams.

Why did God need to know if Abraham feared God? It says that after Abraham was willing to sacrifice the son of the promise that now God knew Abraham feared God. I just know I could never pass such a test! I guess that is one thing we see here, how truly faithful Abraham was, despite his other mistakes. Our willingness to obey God is an excellent measure of how much we fear him. All the talk in the world will not make up for obedience.

22:16-18 must be read carefully.

Genesis 22:16-18 ASV and said, By myself have I sworn, saith Jehovah, because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, (17) that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heavens, and as the sand which is upon the seashore. And thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies. (18) And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. Because thou hast obeyed my voice.

God promises by himself. No greater thing can be sworn by. Yet we should not do it. We are not God. We cannot control him. Only God can control himself.

First he promises that he will have many descendants and they will prosper. Secondly his seed shall bless the whole earth. This is singular and it is not limited to the Israelites. Why did they not ever figure that out?

Paul names the seed as Jesus - Galatians 3:16.

The two promises are God's response to Abraham's faithful, wholehearted, loving obedience.

As James points out faith without works in dead (2:21-24) We show we trust God by our obedience.

What are you willing to sacrifice to God? I suggest that you do not do it unless God calls you to it. And do not do it begrudgingly or you will resent God later. He doesn't need it and he is patient with us. He will make your heart ready.

Do you have enemies?

Wednesday night at Kegan's we are studying the Sermon on the Mount in a series called Challenging Living (or something like that).

We were studying the part where Jesus says love you enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

I asked them if they had enemies. One man said no and his fellows seemed to agree. I go sort of worked up after that. How many of us think we don't have enemies? I think it gives us satisfaction to say that. (I've been there, believe me!) We think that means we have been nice to everyone and no one has a grudge against us. Therefore we have no grudges against anyone else. Oh really!?

I don't believe it.

Here in Kegan I am talking with offenders. I am sure not all of their crimes are victimless. In that case there is at least one someone out there who is pretty mad at them. You could call them an enemy.

I think of how even these guys who are trying to change behavior treat prison guards. If a prison guard is not polite they often react rudely. They are treating that guard as an enemy. There behavior is changing, they are trying but often it is only skin deep so far. Old habit patterns die hard. Pray for that prison guard I tell them.

The point is to pray for you enemy. If you claim not to have one then you have no one to pray for.

I then went on to say if you have ever known someone that you were just itching to tell off you have an enemy. You have worked on what you would say if you ever got a chance. That madam or sir is an enemy. Instead of working up great comeback lines you should be praying for that person or persons. Instead of kicking yourself for a missed opportunity when you did not say the right thing and you are rehearsing a better line, you should be praying for them.

I have some brothers that at times seemed like enemies. God finally got my attention and had me praying for one because of a specific incident. My emotions were still angry but I'll tell you God did something in our relationship as a result of my prayers however imperfect they were. I was very amazed and grateful.

When you read Jesus' teaching you to love your enemies and pray for them, I think you need to get real if you think you have no enemies. Then may not be pointing a gun at you or threatening you directly but there are people that you treat like enemies. Maybe you avoid them at church. Pray for that person that you cannot stand. Just pray for them and see what happens. Surely you want God's blessing on them. If you don't pray anyway. See what happens. Trust God with the result.

Parable of the Unjust Judge

Luke 18:1-8 ESV And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. (2) He said, "In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. (3) And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, 'Give me justice against my adversary.' (4) For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, 'Though I neither fear God nor respect man, (5) yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.'" (6) And the Lord said, "Hear what the unrighteous judge says. (7) And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? (8) I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?"

Unrighteous judge. Something of a contradiction in terms? Well not really. In fact we know it occurs all the time. The people who Jesus spoke too could identify with it as well. Nothing new under the sun. Perhaps analogous to the parable of the good shepherd this is an ordinary selfish judge. He cares for nobody but himself. If it fits his agenda he will judge justly. But this is an aside.

Jesus summarizes the moral at the beginning. He did not normally do that. He must have done that because he wanted people to be not confused. And I think readers are often confused about what the moral is, even with this said.

I was reading an article. They gave a diagram that really helped me. We are to see an analogy between ourselves and the helpless widow. We are to pray confidently and persistently. Whether we feel faithful or not the act of praying without losing heart is an act of faith. Do not be discouraged.

But we are to contrast God and the judge. I think that is where we are tempted to go astray. The judge and God are opposites. God is always just. He is always faithful. He is never selfish in the way the judge is.

But there is the fact that God seems to wait to answer prayer. That seems unjust to us, doesn't it? And mean too. But Jesus is encouraging us to see God as wishing to answer speedily. God is not unjust or selfish when he does not seem to answer immediately. We are to know that, believe that.

Perhaps that is why Jesus concludes how he does. Will Jesus find faith when he comes back? Remember faith is persistent asking for justice. It is not necessarily feelings. Feelings follow.

Unbelief is embodied in the judge who neither fears God nor respects man. There are things we can do to help God with justice. But often we try to be gods and do justice on our own. It is too complicated. Actions have consequences that are often as bad or worse that the problem we intend to solve. This national health care is like that. This is not just. But it is man's idea of justice. However it falls far short of true justice. Only God can do justly and we need to persistently ask God to do justice. Will he find faith on the earth? Will we continually ask God for justice or give up and try to do it ourselves?

new week starts

Last week I did not talk about sermons. It was time for a break. I started out by speaking to the impressions, parts of sermons that I remembered vividly because they excited me. It evolved into practically reviewing sermons. To do that I ended up using my notes. That got stale to me. I needed blog material and it got too easy. I am glad that last week Genesis spoke to me. Genesis is great for that.

So last Sunday, what impressions did I come away with?

The evening sermon is always easier. It was last. It was fresher. It was shorter having less points. My impression of Sunday night was that RC rambled big time. There were a lot of impressive sentences but often they seemed disjointed. He tried to cover a lot of things in 15 minutes.

He was supposed to speak on line in the Apostles Creed something like: "He was born of the Virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit." RC mentioned that that meant Jesus was born perfect, without sin. But he mostly spoke of the Parable of the Good Samaritan. He touched on the interesting idea that this was not about doing good and making a rule out of it. It was more about the poor beaten man lying helpless in the road. We are like him, we need a savior. We cannot help ourselves. We are passive participants in our salvation. But after we are saved, fixed up if you will, then we must be active participants. That was interesting.

In the morning MP spoke on 1 Samuel 15. David prays for the baby of Bathsheba (whose name is never mentioned). When it dies he gets up, cleans himself off, and eats normally. Did MP get the scripture, if not the inspiration, from my blog? I covered this recently. I wonder because before he got up to start he looked over at me and gave me a short smile. Was there intent there? I really only thought of this because I wondered why he smiled at me. It could have been other reasons or it could be simply that I was looking back at the congregation and I caught his eye. He does not usually smile at me. Hmmmm.

Well if it is so he just too the chapter. His sermon had no resemblance to my blog post. He used this chapter to talk about the recent death of MH. Our church had corporately prayed for his healing. But he lost him fight to beat cancer. God chose to say no. He was listening but God chose to take him.

MP is concerned that we not lose faith in healing. It is proper to have a time of mourning. But then you clean up, get something to eat and go on.

My final comment is that it is things like this that got the church, some anyway, to decide that the healing gift was temporary, for the age of the apostles and Jesus. It all went away when the apostles died.

I just do not believe that to be true. But some people decided to judge God for saying "no" in an important case where some beloved man or woman, a Godly leader, died young after a long illness. That is what I think happened.

It can be very hard to deal with the questions that come after someone tragically dies or is left, like Joni Earackson Tada a quadriplegic for life. She was beautiful righteous young girl who had her whole life ahead of her. By claiming healing no longer happens people can reduce the confusion, ease the tension between knowing God is loving and seeing such tragedies and being helpless to do anything.

God has his reasons for taking MH. His logic is not ours. All of us must die. It is tragic that some do not get to live long lives and see their grandchildren. (It is also tragic that some people no worse that I do not find a spouse and have the family that they so much want.)

The psalms are full of laments. People question God, get mad at God, but finally decide that God is good. I think often they are rehearing with their words something they do not feel at the moment. They are encouraging their hearts and souls. Despite it all we know God is good even thought we do not understand it all.

Genesis 17 - What is time to God?

Genesis 17 OK I have a question about the conversation that God has with Abraham, verses 15-22.

(In addition God here tells him to have all the males in his household circumcised. Ouch.)

Well anyway I was struck by God’s comment in verse 20: “’And as for Ishmael, I have heard you; behold I will bless him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly.’”

OK, now how can God have heard him, in the sense of taking his advice, this being a totally new idea and all. Because before Ishmael was born God sent an angel to Hagar his mother telling her “’I will greatly multiply your descendants so that they will be too many to count.’”(Genesis 16:10) This was how the angel got Hagar to go back to Sarai and Abram. Otherwise she would have died in the desert or escaped back to Egypt and raised Ishmael by herself. No doubt she would have given him a different name too.

So how can God say that he heard Abraham (implying that God is taking his advice) if he already knew this would happen and even engineered it by making sure Hagar stayed with Abraham?

Is it because God already knew Abraham would ask him this so he planned for it ahead of time? So somehow time means nothing to God. Does a prayer asked after the fact has the same force as one asked beforehand?

Sometimes people encourage us this way. God can hear a prayer said for someone after the event that we wish to pray for has happened. I'd like to believe that somehow. I have prayed for something that I know has happened already maybe far away from me perhaps because I forgot to pray before or maybe I just found out about it. I love the people involved and I want to ask God to bless or protect someone. I always hope God can sort it all out. Is God lord of time? Sure he is.

Or was God just sort of playing with Abraham here, when he said he was listening to him he was really trying to butter him up, trying to make him feel important? I can’t believe that because God does not lie. Yet sometimes it seems God only tells what we can understand. He does not tell us the whole truth, especially about the future. Is this my cynicism coming out? If so I apologize.

I wonder how God can seem to tell Abraham that his plea to accept Ishmael is acceptable to God but in a different way than Abraham had expected. God still maintains that Sarah will bear a son and it will be soon. But Ishmael will also be circumcised with the rest of the household. He is now a part of God’s plan. It seems he was always in God’s plan, at least since he was conceived. Does the plan change now that Abraham has asked Him to make him his primary heir? If so it seems only subtly so. God acts on the sense of what Abraham asks if not the literal meaning?

Anyway I wonder if anyone else sees this as a problem. Or do you understand this better than I do? Can you share with me if you do?