Abraham’s Call and a Messianic Promise

“Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.  And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.  I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed’” –Genesis 12:1-3 (ESV).  “So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations.” –Matthew 1:17 (ESV).

How could the call of a nomad named Abram in the land of Ur of the Chaldeans have such a world-wide significance and such heavenly meaning?  Yet in the providence and plan of Almighty God lay the very promise of redemption and restoration that would touch not only the nation God established through Abraham but subsequently the whole world.  In anticipation of the coming of Messiah King, we will look at some of the Old Testament prophecies that were fulfilled in the birth of Jesus of Nazareth.

Actually the plan in the heart of God began even before the call of Abram.  Go back to the very first account of the creation and fall of mankind in the Garden of Eden.  In the wrong choices of Adam and Eve, they broke the fellowship that existed between God and mankind.  From that time forward the Bible is our record of how God continued to love the height of His creation and provide a way of restoring fellowship.  Even though excessive sin brought on major destruction by flood at the time of Noah, a remnant was saved and given a new covenant (see account in Genesis 9).  With the call of Abram and his being set apart for specific leadership, God again set in motion His plan for blessing all the nations of earth.  In our means of reckoning time and in our inability to see the complete picture of God’s purpose and plan, we may sometimes miss the mark, fail to see how God was working His purpose out.  In the call of Abram one was significantly set apart for a larger and inclusive purpose of God.

In Matthew’s gospel, we have an earthly genealogy of Jesus Christ that goes back to Abraham.  In writing specifically to a Jewish audience, Matthew’s readers would give great heed to genealogical lineage.  Even today, there is a strong bent toward tracing family lineages.  Many want to know from whom they descended, where their family roots began. I, for one, am among those who have studied genealogy and find pleasure in tracing ancestral records.  Matthew’s record shows that the birth of Jesus was a definite part of history, in the plans of God back to the time of their Father Abraham (Luke’s account goes even farther back, even to Adam and to God Himself [see Luke 3:23-38]).  But not only was the birth of Jesus at a time and place in history, the genealogy of Jesus reveals and illustrates God’s wonderful grace to mankind.  It was unusual to find the names of women listed in Jewish genealogies, but Matthew included Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba.  A study of their lives and times helps us to understand how God placed in Jesus’ family line persons who might have been rejected due to sinful associations or non-Jewish birth.  But the important role they played in the history of God’s provision of a Messiah is extremely significant.  Likewise, God’s provision of Joseph as the legal guardian of the earthly Son of God was providential to give sequential lineage back to David, back to Abraham: “Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ” (Matthew 1:16).

Prayer:  From everlasting to everlasting God is God.  Thank You for visiting earth as Christ the Messiah, breaking apart the roll of finite history, to visit Your grace and mercy upon us.  Your plan was perfect from the beginning.  In man’s failure, You provided a way.  Praise be to God!  Amen.

A Prayer for Our Nation

“May God be gracious to us and bless us and make His face to shine upon us, that Your way may be known on earth, Your saving power among all nations.  Let the peoples praise You, O God; let all the peoples praise You!  Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for You judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon earth.  Let the peoples praise You, O God, let all the peoples praise You” –Psalm 67:1-5 (ESV).

In the emphasis of “Unite in Prayer,” forty days of praying for God to forgive America and turn His wrath from us and bless us, Psalm 67 has some principles we can apply to our present day.  This Psalm was used in Jewish worship, as the introductory note indicates:  “To the choirmaster:  with stringed instruments, a psalm, a song.”  It opens with a prayer for God’s blessing upon the Israelites, but a purpose is given in seeking the blessing:  “that Your way may be known on earth, Your saving power among all nations.”  The psalm is reminiscent of the covenant with Abraham when God promised that through him all the nations of the earth would be blessed, Genesis 12:1-3:  “Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.  And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.  I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed”

Psalm 67 acknowledges that God is the supreme ruler, regardless of who might be at the helm of government of a nation:  “You judge the people with equity and guide the nations upon earth” (v. 4).  In this period of concerted prayer for our nation, it is paramount that we accept and believe the truth of God’s lordship over our nation and all nations upon the earth.  Those in power often exert their rule in ungodly and even heinous ways.  Think of Hitler and the atrocities he perpetrated during the time he was the leader of the German nation.  Untold suffering and deaths occurred because of his efforts to eradicate a people.  Those who hold God in reverence and seek His will, not only individually but for nations, recognize as did the Psalmist and those who sang this song in worship, that a Sovereign Power holds the balance.  A time will come when “every knee shall bow and every tongue confess” allegiance to the Lord God (see Isaiah 45:23, Romans 14:11 and Philippians 2:10).  It is so much better that we think in terms of turning voluntarily to God now and seeking His face.  The time will come when all peoples will recognize Him for the God He has claimed to be from the foundation of the world.  But for some, the time of choosing Him and being counted as among those who honor and worship God will have passed.

It is said that when the battle of Gettysburg raged during the Civil War and reports of Union losses reached President Lincoln, he was greatly troubled.  He went into his room in private, knelt and prayed.  His prayer poured out before God went something like this:  “I have done all I can do.  The result is in Thy hands.  If this country is to be saved, it is because it is within Thy will.”  Lincoln said he arose from his knees with his burden lifted and in its place a great trust in the providence of God filled him.  But in studying the life of Lincoln we know that he could pray in that earnest way about Gettysburg because he had practiced the presence of the Lord in his life for many years prior to that crucial point.  He had often, as Psalm 63:6 states, meditated upon God “in the watches of the night,” for God had been his help, and “in the shadow of His wings” anyone who depends on God and calls upon him can “sing for joy.”

Prayer:  Lord, morning, noon, and evening, and in the watches of the night that surrounds us, we claim Your promises.  As we seek Your face, please hear from heaven. forgive our sin and heal our land.  Amen.