Hello All,
(Just a general disclaimer that I must insert here at the beginning. I am but a lay person, like most of you. And these weekly “thoughts” are but my own. Not the definitive word on this or any topic. Just my own conclusions derived from my own study and faith in God. The greatest hope I have for these weekly “thoughts” is to have them be a springboard for further study on your part. Not to be a weekly treatise to be blindly accepted. So, please read them with this intent, this motive in mind).
This week’s lesson from “The Adult Sabbath School Guide” is titled “Abraham’s Seed”. I really like the way the quarterly reminds us that we, this day, are “Israel”. That all the promises of God will be fulfilled by those who are of “faith”. So true. All those promises in the Old Testament that seem to be left unfulfilled because of the faithlessness of Israel will be ultimately fulfilled because of the faithfulness of “Israel”… you and me. Are those unfulfilled promises “conditional”, as our quarterly keeps reminding us? Absolutely. They are all founded on the condition of “faith alone” (quarterly for Monday, May 3). Faith/ Trust/ Belief in our God. Belief that leads us to follow… to obey from a true heart.
The Bible shows us what happened, not necessarily God’s ideal plan. Therefore, it shows us God’s alternate plans. His plans “B”, “C” all the way to plan “Z”. Not the ideal (obviously. The ideal was to never have Adam and Eve eat the fruit and be banished from the Garden). It isn’t that God is taken by surprise, because He does know the end from the beginning. But His ultimate plan was never to have us take this long detour through the “muck and mire” of sin and destructive self- centeredness.
Take the so-called “Promised Land”. Was the land promised just for a few hundred square miles in Palestine? Or was it more? “For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith” (Romans 4:13). The “promise” was for the world… a world made new. “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; for he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God… But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them” (Hebrews 11: 8-10, 16). The “Promised Land” is the whole earth. But not this sin-scared earth, but the earth made new.
When Israel crossed the Jordan River and first entered Canaan, this was but the beginning of the end. From the security of that area, Israel was to become a beacon of love and hope for the world. Perhaps two-by-two they were to venture forth into all areas of the world bringing the “good news”. And in a short amount of time, the world would’ve been prepared for Christ to come.
What of the “cross”? How God would’ve made that happen is an unknown, because Israel did not fulfill its calling. They took God’s blessings and held those blessings to themselves. They sinfully thwarted God’s great plan of love for the world. The nature of sin, and love, and forgiveness and the very nature of God revealed on Golgotha would’ve been accomplished in some other way, perhaps. But, again, this is an unknown how that all would’ve happened. The revelation at the cross is vital to the salvation of man and the long-term rejection of sin and would’ve been accomplished. But alas, that desire of God (whatever it was) did not take place. Jesus did come as a Man to reveal all that, just as the Bible records. But we are still here, 2,000 years after the cross.
The possession of the land, started in Joshua’s day, is still in-progress. It was but the beginning of the end. But the “end” is not yet. We have yet to complete the larger plan. We have yet to fully attain the “Promised Land” (Heavenly). And the question still hangs in the air, “will you and I be faithful”? Will we be the ones who, through His grace, fulfill God’s great plan? “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:14). God works and waits. The work begun so long ago will be completed. Let us be “looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God…” (2 Peter 3:12). Our brothers and sisters everywhere are perishing around us… and God calls us. Isn’t it time? Must we faithlessly and complacently continue to ignore the human carnage?
With brotherly love,
Jim