27. God’s Word Trains Isaac and Jacob
The purpose of the Follow Me material is to focus attention on how the Lord trains His disciples as revealed in Scripture. I submit for your consideration that His ‘disciple training’ agenda began when He created Adam: “Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness…” (Genesis 1:26a) Every human is, by essence, nature and purpose, made to be an ‘image and likeness’ of God’s living Word. Therefore, every human being is created and intended to be one of His disciples.
What Does an ‘Image and Likeness’ Do?
Using a mirror or looking glass to ponder the nature and purpose of any image and likeness that would appear in them, we can easily see that no image and likeness is ever a source. An image and likeness never initiates, never takes independent action. It always reflects someone else. A person has to be the source that the image and likeness will reflect and embody. So the image and likeness of a person can never be radically independent from that person. It is not in the nature of an image and likeness to have a separate life and agenda of its own and to act as an independent entity. So we can see what a monstrous deception it was that the Serpent slipped into Eve’s unsuspecting mind:
“The woman said to the serpent, ‘From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.’
“The serpent said to the woman, ‘You surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened; and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’” (Genesis 3:2-5 Emphasis added.)
Imagine this scenario: A man stands in front of a full length mirror, looking at his image and likeness while remaining perfectly still. As he does this, his image in the mirror is jumping, twirling and spinning around in circles! Do you think you’ll ever see anything like that happen? Can an image and likeness stop being what it is and turn into an initiating source in its own right? Will it be able to originate and operate and maintain a radically independent life all its own? Something like that could only happen in the warped mind of someone who is mad and utterly divorced from Reality!
That is how terribly deceived Eve became when the Serpent managed to slip his lie into her mind and get her to accept it as truth. She and Adam believed him and they rejected God’s Word and His Truth and Reality. They also rejected and turned away from their true, God-given selves and their true purpose and destiny! At that moment, the faculties of their souls became horribly warped and twisted. They were so disfigured that their true, God-given human nature, essence and purpose died. Spiritually speaking, the Serpent decapitated them from their true Head…the living Word of God. And their spirits lost their Source of Life. Thus the Serpent was able to murder the human race.
The True Reality for Humanity that God Created
But True Reality, as God actually created it, did not change a bit. Adam and the woman that came from him were still essentially, in themselves, nothing more than ‘dust.’ Despite the independent madness that now registered on their viewing screens to deceive and mislead their minds, they were still, always totally dependent on their Creator for every breath, heart beat and brain wave they would ever receive. But to their blinded minds, it appeared as if they had ‘graduated’ or ‘been promoted’ to a level of existence that was much higher than that for which God had actually created them. They believed the forbidden fruit had enabled them to take God’s place! They saw themselves as independent…no longer images and likenesses of another. Now they were like God…radically independent…sources unto themselves…free to do whatever they pleased!
That was the state their deluded minds were in that led them into Sin. But later, when God sent His living Word after them, they knew they were naked and horribly disfigured. And they were wallowing in toxic shame and confusion because, for the first time, they were experiencing utter bankruptcy and neediness. They had been stripped of their true selves. That is nakedness at its deepest level. And the shame that filled them drove them to try to cover what was left of them rather than admit to God that they were in desperate need of Him and the redemption and restoration only He could give.
So God sent His living Word to fulfill His eternal Covenant promises to them. They were His Covenant friends…‘Blood brothers’. And they had been attacked and mortally wounded and gravely damaged and disfigured. Now, they were in desperate need of redemption, salvation and restoration, whether they were willing to admit it or not. And so God responded.
So it’s vitally important that we understand the reason why God did this. His purpose for sending His Word after them was not dependent on their performance or what they truly deserved for being Covenant violators. God had initiated the Covenant. It was His idea in the first place to become their Eternal Blood Covenant Friend and Ally. He had sworn by blood oath to be for them whatever they might need Him to be. And they needed Him now, desperately! So the Covenant God had made before their creation required Him to come to their rescue, at any cost. His Word, which He had given to them, required Him to do whatever was necessary to rescue them from the Serpent’s Madness and Domination. He had to share all that He was and all that He had with them. And because the Eternal Covenant includes every child of Adam…the Word is still on the same mission, to rescue, cover, protect, redeem, reconcile, regenerate and restore fully…every child of Adam…in every generation…for Adam’s sake.
To be what we need Him to be to us, God’s Word has to uproot us from the original Sin-corrupted ground of Madness into which we are conceived and born. That requires this massive Exodus by which God’s Word leads us back to the Reality of God’s Truth and transplants us into it. He must bring us back to the reality of being His image and likeness, the image of the Creator, Sustainer, Protector and Fulfiller of all created things. And that is another way of saying – ‘Disciple Training!’
So, disciple training requires a ‘boot camp’ kind of retraining for redeemed human minds and hearts. Through that training, God can restore what we lost when the Serpent severed Adam and Eve from God’s living Word. The image and likeness human essence was torn away from its Head and Source. So the Head and Source has come to reclaim what is truly His. Disciple training is meant to repair and restore what the Serpent’s lies managed to damage and destroy in all of us. It restores the original perfect union and oneness that makes us one with God’s living Word.
“He is the image of the invisible God, the Firstborn of all Creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” (Colossians 1:15-17 Emphasis added.)
The analogy of a person and his image and likeness in the mirror, helps us to grasp the extent of the damage that Sin has done to all of us stubborn, willful, radically independent people. The more God reveals His nature and His ways in Scripture, the more we can see how far below Him and His standards our race has fallen and how removed most people are from the original, true, authentic humanity that existed before the fall.
The analogy also helps us to understand what God’s purpose was when He sent His living Word after Adam and Eve after they fell and tried to hide themselves from Him in the Garden of Eden. The purpose was Covenant Faithfulness on God’s part to His Word and the Blood by which He sealed His promises. So the purpose of God is not revenge, or punishment. It is ‘total restoration’ – reconciliation, redemption, forgiveness, regeneration and full recovery of the original purpose, birthright inheritance and God-intended destiny that God ‘breathed’ into His first two human Blood Covenant friends:
“God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’ Then God said, ‘Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food’. And it was so. God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good.” (Genesis 1:27-31)
God’s Word Is Sent on a Mission
We’ve already seen that God does everything through His living, creative Word. So whenever Scripture depicts Him as speaking or doing something, we are seeing a revelation of His Word. So the Word reveals the Father who sends Him to us; and at the same time, the Father reveals His Son (the Word), who comes to complete and perfect our total restoration:
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, ‘Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.’
“And He who sits on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new.’ And He *said, ‘Write, for these words are faithful and true.’ Then He (our Covenant God) said to me, ‘It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost. He who overcomes will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be My son. But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.’” (Revelation 21:1-8)
“Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was The Tree of Life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. There will no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond-servants (disciples) will serve Him; they will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads. And there will no longer be any night; and they will not have need of the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God will illumine them; and they will reign forever and ever. And he said to me, ‘These words are faithful and true’. And the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, sent His angel (living Word) to show to His bond-servants the things which must soon take place.” (Revelation 22:1-6 Emphases added.)
Can you see God’s ‘Target?’ in the above texts? The last book of the Bible is telling us that what God originally created in the first book of the Bible…will be totally restored by the time this original Sin-corrupted Creation runs its God-appointed course. Scripture reveals that God’s living Word, Yeshua, became one of us in order to be and to do, what we decapitated humans could have never been or done for ourselves. God must do everything for the living dead human race through His Word. He is the Source and Originator, Provider and Shepherd of all Creation. And we were intended to be His image and likeness. So we must derive all that we are and have and do, from Him. And He must be and do everything in us, for us, and through us. We are His eternal Blood Covenant friends…and He is on a mission to rescue us in fulfillment of His Blood-sealed promises. And all of that is implied when God’s Word says to us: “FOLLOW ME!”
God’s Word interacted with, Adam, Eve, Abel, Cain, Enoch, Noah and Abraham for this purpose. We see Him appear to Abraham, in the form of ‘Angel-YHWH’ in Genesis 18. He comes in human form with two other ‘men’ (Genesis 18:1-2), He receives Abraham’s hospitality and eats his food. He promises Abraham and Sarah they will have a son of their own within a year and He interacts with them in very natural, everyday human ways. So the first book of the Torah shows God appearing to a man as The Man. So even though God is utterly transcendent in incomprehensible to His creatures, He has made a way to connect with us and reveal Himself to us in ways we can understand and to which we can relate. And Genesis gives us a Biblical precedent. To make Himself known to us, God’s living Word actually appeared to humans in human form and communicated clearly with them…long before He appeared as Rabbi Yeshua of Nazareth.
He came in human form in Genesis and subsequent parts of Scripture. So, it should be no surprise when He did it again…in the person of Yeshua of Nazareth, the Messiah of Israel. The living Word of God that appeared to Abraham, and later, also to Isaac and Jacob, interacted with them in human ways, to restore to them the image and likeness disciple lifestyle, and to restore it through them, to the entire human race. So whether God’s Word is coming after Adam and Eve in the Garden, or appearing to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, or to Moses and to Israel at Mt. Sinai, or walking the dusty roads of Israel with His disciples, or abiding within us through the Holy Spirit, it is always the same Word of God, and He is always intent on restoring the ‘image and likeness’ essence to the children of Adam and Eve. He is the one that is our Master; and He is the one we follow as disciples.
Scripture contradicts and opposes the Serpent’s lies. God’s living Word is the one and only Source. No creature (including the Serpent) can exist or do or have anything that does not first come from Almighty God. So everything in our history is really about God, the Source. He is the Hero and Main Protagonist of history. It is never essentially about the image and likeness of The Source. The image and likeness is not an originating source. It is only a reflection of its Creator; so everything about it must originate in God.
People who believe the Serpent’s lies enable him to cut them away from their true Head, God’s Word. In that ‘Head-less’ state, they are spiritually dead, blind and deaf. They have no spiritual, mental or emotional connection with their Creator, even though He continually imparts every breath, heartbeat and brain wave to them. Regardless of what delusions we labor under, we still actually depend on the one true God for everything. He is still the one and only Source, and we can’t be or have or do anything without Him. This is true, whether we like it or not, and whether we’re sane, or insane or comatose or awake.
So God’s restorative agenda runs completely counter to and against the Serpent’s radically independent, self-willed, self-determining, self-actualizing and self-enhancing world system agendas. All of this was demonstrated in the lives of Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Esau, Jacob, Laban and all other people in the Bible. In one way or another, God’s Word and His Truth and Reality are revealed and the Serpent’s insane deceptions are exposed and discredited.
God’s Word and Truth Revealed
Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac and release him back to God foreshadowed and revealed the ultimate eternal atoning sacrifice of God’s living Word, ‘The Lamb.’ And the role and significance of God’s living Word was foreshadowed and revealed by the way Isaac willingly obeyed his father and cooperated in his own sacrifice. No matter what it would cost him, Isaac obeyed. He was thus the image and likeness of Abraham’s obedience to God, which was the image and likeness of the living Word’s obedience to His Father who sent Him to be the Sacrifice on our behalf. This prefigured what Yeshua the Messiah did when He came as the Son of Man. He willingly laid down His life for our sake. What happened in Isaac’s life was revealing Yeshua.
God rewarded the obedient faith of Abraham and Isaac by blessing them abundantly. But they were nothing special in themselves. They were ordinary people with very human faults and failings. Yeshua was and is God’s perfect, eternal living Word. But He is also our eternal Covenant Representative and Champion. So He did not come to represent us, as God. He came to represent us as one of us…The Son of Man. He had to operate as we do, on our level, with the same weaknesses, temptations and limitations that we all have to deal with…except for Sin. The Father’s Spirit and Glory were perfected in His Word’s human weakness. But afterward, when His work was done, Father rewarded His Son and Perfect Covenant Friend, by raising Him from the dead, enthroning Him at His own right hand in Heaven, and endowing Him with all that is eternally His. And all of that is what God’s living Word can now legally share with His beloved disciples.
The importance of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob lies in how they reveal the significance and meaning of the personal appearances of the Word of God in their lives. The living Word that created the universe and sustains it, revealed Himself at various times in the lives of those men and their families who were God’s Covenant friends.
God’s Word interacts with Isaac when he prays concerning Rebekah’s barrenness. (Genesis 25:21)
We see Him interact with Rebekah when she asks Him to explain the meaning of the birth circumstances of her twin sons. He tells her what will become of them. (Genesis 25:23) The Word of God interacts with this chosen, Covenant Family according to their needs. And they are the Word’s disciples in training, serving as the matrix in which and by which He can be revealed to the rest of the world… in one way or another… positively or negatively… for better or for worse…they are a revelation of Yeshua the Messiah.
God’s Word in Isaac’s Family
Esau sold his birthright to his brother Jacob (Genesis 25:29-34) for a bowl of stew. Thus he exemplifies what it means to choose to remain ‘decapitated.’ The contrast between him and Jacob shows more of the difference and bitter enmity between the two human races. One race has no regard for God and His Truth and Kingdom. It reveals the fallen agenda of the First Adam. But the other race submits to God’s Word and comes under the Headship and Covenant Representation of Yeshua, the Last Adam. So the enmity and warfare that naturally arises between these two races unfolds continually throughout the Bible.
During a famine the Word of God warned Isaac to avoid Egypt. So he stayed in Philistine territory. (Genesis 26:1-3) As he obeyed God’s Word, he acted as the Word’s ‘image and likeness’ amid the Serpent controlled Darkness of the world system. And God was thus able to protect him and his household and make sure God’s Chosen Covenant Nation would survive and be able to fulfill her God-given purpose.
The Lord renewed for Isaac the promises He made to Abraham (Genesis 26:3-7). And He covered and protected him and Rebekah from Abimelech, king of the Philistines (Genesis 26:8-11). Just as He covered and protected fallen Adam and Eve and Noah and his family, so did He cover and protect Abraham’s family. And so will it be until the end of time.
“…All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20 Emphasis added.)
Genesis 26:12-25 – God blessed Isaac with great abundance. And that created jealousy and trouble for him with the local herdsmen. It was the same with Abel and Cain. But to protect and enhance His Plan of World Salvation, God’s Blessing and its protection saw Isaac through the dangers. Through Isaac, God revealed His Word more and more. Abimelech was able to recognize Isaac’s relationship and favor with God, so he wisely sought to make a covenant with him, to stay on the good side of his God. This reveals the wisdom the whole decapitated human race must exercise. If they are wise, they too will see what God is revealing through His Word’s disciples. He will make them to be ‘the Light of the World’ so that the decapitated people of the world will be pierced and penetrated and compelled to enter into Blood Covenant union with the Last Adam too. And then He can protect and provide for them too… as…‘The Perfect Lamb of God.’
The Lord is intent on separating Abraham’s family from the decapitated world system so that He can pursue and perfect their ‘disciple training’. In that way He can display the difference this training makes in the disciples. And through them, God can reach out to the rest of the world. The Word is here to draw all men into God’s Covenant salvation. But out of jealousy and spite, Esau refused to submit to God’s Plan and join in what it required of his family. Instead, he married into the fallen world system, joining himself to Hittite women (Genesis 26:34). Of course they brought pagan idolatrous ways into the family. And that caused Isaac much grief because now, the energy of Abraham’s Covenant family began to split and scatter in conflicting directions. It was torn between Covenant obedience to God’s Word, and the ‘Headlessness’ of the Serpent.
The unholy mixture of obedience to God’s Word plus decapitated behavior, caused Abraham’s family to misfire and break apart. The division that Headless-ness causes appeared between Rebekah and Isaac. Each of them formed an unholy, conflicting ‘in-house’ coalition with one of their sons. It was Isaac and Esau vs. Rebekah and Jacob. Such coalitions follow the Serpent’s tactic. They cause strife, division and damage. The division that appeared in the early stages of God’s Covenant Family, portended the global divisions that keep developing within the opposing factions within the nation of Israel and within the opposing factions within what we call ‘Christendom’. And by the time the Last Days appear on the horizon and the climax of human history is at hand, the division and competitive strife that continually rages between the two contending human races will reach its most intense level and that will bring the Sin-corrupted original Creation to a grinding, devastating halt.
The deception of Rebekah and Jacob (Genesis 27) reveals the increase of ‘Head-less’ behavior and divisive agendas within God’s Family throughout human history.
Jacob’s deception ‘succeeds’, but the price he had to pay for it was enormous. And God used the fallout from that to intensify and deepen Jacob’s ongoing disciple training. God does not allow anything to go to waste. Even if it is something spawned by the Serpent and his Sin, God very often turns it around and uses it for His own purposes. So He uses even the rebellion of the powers of Darkness, to progressively fulfill His unchanging original purpose.
Jacob had to leave home in order to escape Esau’s fury. Thus he jumped out of Esau’s ‘frying pan’ and into ‘Laban’s fire.’ And now, not only does Esau have two Canaanite women in his tent, but to rub salt into the wound, he also marries a descendant of Ishmael (Genesis 28:1-9). And Jacob is deceived into marrying Laban’s daughter Leah, thinking he was getting Rachel. So now the family of Abraham is reaping the full harvest of deception that they sowed earlier. Jacob also had to wed the maid servants of Laban’s daughters. Now he had to contend with four wives! So the unholy mixture within Abraham’s Family increased and deepened the strife that was already making God’s People miserable. The commission and status God entrusted to Abraham’s Covenant Family became polluted and was weakened considerably. But this too is part of our instruction and training.
Strength Perfected in Human Weakness
God had Isaac in mind when He promised to give Abraham and Sarah a son. But Sarah and Abraham conspired to pollute the process by bringing Hagar and Ishmael into the equation. More unholy mixture was allowed into the Family and the toxic, deadly effects of that mixture continue to plague Abraham’s Family and the rest of the world, to this day. Mixing what is from God with what comes from the Serpent complicates matters and does enormous, deadly damage. But that can’t stop God’s Plan from being fulfilled. Even when it happens, God will continually overcome satanic evil with His Good. And He will use everything, regardless of its origin, for His own good purposes:
“So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” (Phil. 2:12-13 Emphasis added.)
This is the message the Bible proclaims:
“For a Child will be born to us, a Son will be given to us; and the government will rest on His shoulders; and His Name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace, on the throne of David and over his Kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will accomplish this.” (Isaiah 9:6-7)
God chose Jacob to inherit the Covenant blood line from Isaac who inherited it from Abraham. It was the blood line that would eventually result in the coming of the Messiah who would be the Blessing that all the families of the earth were awaiting (Genesis12:1-3). Rebekah knew it was to be Jacob because the Lord had revealed it to her. And she told that to Jacob. But they allowed their own decapitated independent thinking and devices to meddle with God’s plan, purposes and timing. Instead of waiting on God to decide the time when He would make good on His promise, the mother and son took matters into their own hands. Like the Serpent before them, they used deception to get their own way. Thus Jacob wrested the Covenant Blessing from Isaac’s hands. He cooperated with his mother as she dishonored her husband. So all the way through the Bible, this Serpent-damaged family of Abraham continues to grow and add to the unholy mixture, adding more Sin leaven into the dough of God’s Covenant dealings with the human race. But despite their inadequacies and weaknesses, God continues to display and prove His impeccable Covenant Faithfulness and Loyalty to them and, through them, also to the rest of Creation.
“For just as you once were disobedient to God, but now have been shown mercy because of their disobedience, so these also now have been disobedient, that because of the mercy shown to you they also may now be shown mercy. For God has shut up all in disobedience so that He may show mercy to all.” (Romans 11:30-32 Emphasis added.)
This emphasizes what God revealed from the beginning: This story and its fulfillment are not about Sin-corrupted humans and how great they assume that they are. It is not about the image and likeness of God. It is about The Source of that image and likeness…in this case, it is about Almighty God. The story is about Him and what He is and all that He has done on our behalf…amid all of our Serpent-created human mess, carnage and wreckage. He sent His living, creative Word to save us, despite what all decapitated people throughout history have done or failed to do. He succeeds in serving as our eternal, perfect, invincible Blood Covenant Champion and Rescuer, despite us.
After Jacob bilked Esau out of the Blessing that Isaac intended to pass on to him, Esau was understandably enraged. He was so angry that he swore to kill Jacob as soon as Isaac died. So Jacob had to run for his life. The Covenant-keeping performance of Isaac’s two sons was dismal to say the least. But the story is not about them. And the outcome does not depend on how perfect or imperfect their performance was, either. The outcome depends on God’s eternal Covenant and what God promised to be and to do for us, through His living Word, since before the foundation of the world. So even though Jacob does not deserve forgiveness or even any personal consideration, the Lord appeared to him too:
“Then Jacob departed from Beersheba and went toward Haran. He came to a certain place and spent the night there, because the sun had set; and he took one of the stones of the place and put it under his head, and lay down in that place. He had a dream, and behold, a ladder was set on the earth with its top reaching to heaven; and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And behold, the LORD stood above it and said, ‘I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie, I will give it to you and to your descendants. Your descendants will also be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and in you and in your descendants shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.’
“Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, ‘Surely the LORD is in this place, and I did not know it.’ He was afraid and said, ‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the House of God, and this is the Gate (Portal) of Heaven.’
“So Jacob rose early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on its top. He called the name of that place Bethel; however, previously the name of the city had been Luz. Then Jacob made a vow, saying, ‘If God will be with me and will keep me on this journey that I take, and will give me food to eat and garments to wear, and I return to my father’s house in safety, then the LORD will be my God. This stone, which I have set up as a pillar, will be God’s house, and of all that You give me I will surely give a tenth to You.’” (Genesis 28:10-22)
Consider this… What do you see? What do you think?
Can you, at this point of Jacob’s life, detect any decapitated, radically independent thinking…even as he reacts to the appearance and renewed promises of God’s Word?
So…do you think that the fulfillment of God’s plan and His promises to Abraham depended on him or any of the other members of this messed up, strife-ridden Chosen Family?
Is the Bible focusing on the performance of Abraham, Isaac or Jacob or any of the others? Or is it focusing on and highlighting the perfect Creation, Blessing and Covenant Faithfulness God and His living Word?
Regardless of which fallen, Sin-corrupted human God chooses to include in His Covenant Restoration story that began with Abraham, the damage that the Serpent has done to us all continues to appear and register in our human characters and choices and circumstances. We keep doing what we do and adding what we think is best…and the mix continues to manifest negative results that show up and multiply and reproduce even more to complicate and confuse the course of this awesome story. So through it all, God continues to demonstrate to us that all fallen flesh is operating in ‘living death’ and what whatever it does, no matter how well intentioned it may be, is dead…and worthless. And that everything of value we will ever have, must come to us from God, through His Word and Holy Spirit.
Free Offer of Mercy
“Ho! Every one who thirsts, come to the waters; and you who have no money come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and delight yourself in abundance. Incline your ear and come to Me. Listen, that you may live; and I will make an everlasting Covenant with you,
according to the faithful mercies shown to David.
“Behold, I have made Him a Witness to the peoples, a Leader and Commander for the peoples. Behold, you will call a nation you do not know, and a nation which knows you not will run to you, because of the Lord your God, even the Holy One of Israel; for He has glorified you.
“Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return to the Lord, and He will have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.” (Isaiah 55:1-7)
Victory Belongs to Our God!
Regardless of how deficient or inadequate we actually are, God is never deterred. No matter how we Serpent-bitten, corrupt humans pollute and contaminate what He sent His Word to do, God continues to use our blunders and crimes and misunderstandings to continue to fulfill His plan and purpose. Despite all of our disobedient interference and decapitated actions, reactions and interactions, despite our failures to serve as His image and likeness in so many areas, God is not deterred. He continues to rescue His beloved humans. And He will have things His way in the end. All will be perfect, complete and utterly fulfilled…to the eternal Glory of God.
“I will make a covenant of peace with them and eliminate harmful beasts from the land so that they may live securely in the wilderness and sleep in the woods. I will make them and the places around My hill a blessing. And I will cause showers to come down in their season; they will be showers of blessing. Also the tree of the field will yield its fruit and the earth will yield its increase, and they will be secure on their land. Then they will know that I am the LORD, when I have broken the bars of their yoke and have delivered them from the hand of those who enslaved them. They will no longer be a prey to the nations, and the beasts of the earth will not devour them; but they will live securely, and no one will make them afraid. I will establish for them a renowned planting place, and they will not again be victims of famine in the land, and they will not endure the insults of the nations anymore.
“Then they will know that I, the LORD their God, am with them, and that they, the house of Israel, are My people,” declares the Lord GOD. ‘As for you, My sheep, the sheep of My pasture, you are men, and I am your God,’ declares the Lord GOD.” (Ezekiel 34:25-31)
Regardless of what God’s Chosen People do or fail to do, regardless of how far short of God’s Mark they may fall…they will be His Light to the rest of the world. Positively or Negatively, God will reveal His living Word and His ways and standards of Righteousness to them. And then, regardless of whether they embrace and serve, or reject and disobey His living and written Word, God will reveal Himself to them. And through them and what happens to them as a result of their response to His Word, God will reveal Himself to the rest of the decapitated world. It has been this way from the Beginning (Genesis) and so will it be all the way to the End (Revelation).