7
¶ And he said unto him, I am the LORD
that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit
it. 8 And he said, Lord GOD, whereby
shall I know that I shall inherit it? 9
And he said unto him, Take me an heifer of three years old, and a she
goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtledove, and a
young pigeon. 10 And he took unto him
all these, and divided them in the midst, and laid each piece one against
another: but the birds divided he not. 11
And when the fowls came down upon the carcases, Abram drove them away.
God brings up another promise that He made to Abram,
the inheritance of the land of Canaan. God took Abram out of Ur of the Chaldees. Remember, most of
the time the ch sound is like a k. The Chaldeans or Chaldees were a root ethnic tribe of Babylonia and were dominant
for a period of time. Some priests of Babylon were identified as being Chaldean. (see Ezra 5:12; Daniel 2:10) But,
again Abram is challenging God and demands to know what assurance he can be
given that will guarantee this promised inheritance.
God promised to save the Christian from an eternity of
agony and suffering, God’s response to, His judgment on, a rebellious humanity.
Acts
16:31 And they said, Believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.
Romans
10:9 That if thou shalt confess with thy
mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him
from the dead, thou shalt be saved. 10
For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth
confession is made unto salvation. 11
For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be
ashamed. 12 ¶ For there is no difference
between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that
call upon him. 13 For whosoever shall
call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
God coming to indwell a person by the vehicle of the
Holy Spirit is the deposit, the earnest money, the guarantee of that promise of
salvation.
Ephesians 1:13 In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard
the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye
believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,
14 Which is the earnest of our inheritance until
the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.
Any Christianity or Christian philosophy without the
indwelling of the Holy Spirit is a pathetic joke, a dangerous delusion, and
stumbling block to sanity. Without the indwelling of the Holy Spirit the
Christian faith is reduced to humanistic drivel, man aspiring to please a God
he does not or cannot know personally. It then becomes a political slogan, a
cultural expression, a way to keep the masses down, or a justification to
dominate others.
The Holy
Spirit’s indwelling, the fruit it produces in the Christian as listed in
Galatians 5:22-24, and the religion it demands as an expression of your faith
as explained in James 1:27 and 1John 2:15-17, are part of the foundations of
proof that this indwelling is real. Being born again of the Spirit is the proof
we have that God’s promises in Christ are real to us as this upcoming ritual is
the deposit, the earnest, so to
speak, of God’s promise to Abram.
Abram obeys God and performs the first part of the
ceremony around making a covenant.
Jeremiah
34:18 And I will give the men that have
transgressed my covenant, which have not performed the words of the covenant
which they had made before me, when they cut the calf in twain, and passed
between the parts thereof, 19 The
princes of Judah, and the princes of Jerusalem, the eunuchs, and the priests,
and all the people of the land, which passed between the parts of the calf;
Writers, both Jewish and Christian, have different
opinions about the significance of the particular animals used. The she goat might represent the Law given to Moses later.
Numbers
15:27 And if any soul sin through
ignorance, then he shall bring a she goat of the first year for a sin offering.
The ram might represent salvation through faith in
Christ as Abram, then named Abraham, tells his son, Issac, in a prophecy that
points forward to Christ;
Genesis
22:8 And Abraham said, My son, God will
provide himself a lamb for a burnt
offering: so they went both of them together.
And a ram was made available in place of Issac;
Genesis
22:13 And Abraham lifted up his eyes,
and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and
Abraham went and took the ram, and
offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.
The turtledove and the pigeon, used for purification,
are also part of this blood covenant.
Leviticus
12:6 And when the days of her purifying
are fulfilled, for a son, or for a daughter, she shall bring a lamb of the
first year for a burnt offering, and a young pigeon, or a turtledove, for a sin
offering, unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, unto the priest:
Leviticus
17:11 For the life of the flesh is in
the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for
your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.
But, regardless of the purpose of those creatures
other than the heifer, which purpose scholars are not sure of, this covenant
was understood by the people of the ancient world as the passage in Jeremiah
indicates.
Fowls of the air are symbols also of the Devil (see
the Parable of the Sower in Mark 4 as just one example) so there is
significance in Abram’s part of this covenant, in his obedience first, and also
in his keeping corruption from his part. We could make sermons about this and
many have been made about keeping things of evil from your worship of God;
influences, worldly values, and carnality fluttering around your solemn
willingness to wait on, obey, and follow the Lord Jesus Christ.
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