Lesson 6
BookD
THE PERSUADING WITNESS
When God spoke to Abraham saying that through the birth of a miracle child he would inherit a nation, Abraham’s response was not "Yes, Amen, I believe it". At the time of the promise being spoken, Abraham was not a Charles Capps-Kenneth Hagin-Copeland – pure word only man. He was a man in his eighties with a body that is past it and wife who has been barren all her life and who has now gone through the menopause, and so rather than saying "God said it, I believe it, that settles it", his response is typically human.
Genesis 15:8 – "Lord God how shall I know that I will inherit it?"
Evidently the word alone is not enough. One might have expected God to take offence at such a question and roar out from Heaven "How dare you question me". But this is not the way of God.
God speaks from love – always
"God is love", says 1John 4:8. Love is eternal. Along with faith and hope it will abide forever. Paul states "and the greatest of these is love" simply because whilst God has faith and ;hope eternally, He is love eternally (1 Cor 13:13).
Matthew 12:34 – "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks".
When God speaks, He speaks in and from love, for that is what his heart is. He speaks from His eternal nature. He never speaks in a fit of temper, He never speaks without realising the full nature and weight of what He is saying; He never speaks without knowing the full consequences of what He has said. Consequently, His word is eternal for it springs forth from his heart which is eternal. Therefore it is said of God:
Numbers 23:19 – "God is not a man that He should lie, nor a son of man that he would repent. Has He said and will He not do it? Or has He spoken and will He not make it good?".
A friend of mine once told her brother in law that if he needed any money, he should give her a call. A few days later he rang her and asked to borrow £500. She was not able to lend him this despite her offer. When she offered money, she had meant between £50 and £100. She had not understood the weight of her words when she spoke them, and so was not able to keep her word. This situation never happens with God. He knows the full weight of what He says when He says it.
The Nature of Man – to Mistrust
1 Corinthians 13:7 – "Love believes all things".
Man fell from being a creature of love to a creature of fear. Prior to the fall, he would have believed all things, knowing that "love never fails" (1 Cor 13:8).
Fear on the other hand believes hardly anything. It will not trust what springs from the love but demands a temporal sign, an earthly proof, a document signed in triplicate and witnessed by a lawyer or higher authority.
God understands the nature of man
Psalm 139 tells us that God fully understands what He is dealing with in man. He knows our tendency to mistrust, our need for a temporal proof. He knows that we need more than a voice or letter from Heaven. Yet at the same time, He understands the importance of the word of God to release power into the Earth (Heb 1:3) and the need for man to believe it despite contrary circumstances.
God enters into covenant
It is to overcome these mistrusts on the part of man that God enacts covenant.. God knew that any promise spoken in the context of a blood covenant would be meaningful and would carry the weight that man required to instil faith.
This is why God responds the way He does to Abraham’s question. He answered the man’s doubts by making covenant. This was evidently the kind of response Abraham needed, for he immediately went away to prepare the covenant sacrifice.
Once the covenant was cut and the promise made by God in the context of the blood covenant, the Bible says he was "fully convinced that what God had promised He was also able to perform" (Romans 4:21).
Some versions talk of Abraham being fully "persuaded". In other words something changed his position from one of doubt and hesitant questioning, to one of full conviction that did not stagger at the promise of God, nor consider his own body, or the deadness of Sarah’s womb. It wasn’t "the word only" that persuaded him, it was the word spoken in the context of a blood covenant that persuaded him and made him strong in faith, giving glory to God.
More than the word
Many Christians try to follow the faith of Abraham without understanding what persuaded and convicted him. With the word only he was left with a question – "How shall I know?" But when the word was established in the context of blood covenant, real Bible faith was produced.
No one breaks covenant
Hebrews 6:16 – "For men indeed swear by the greater and an oath for confirmation is for them the end of all dispute".
Abraham understood the unbreakable nature of an oath made in covenant. It ended all argument and question.
Rehab understood covenant – Joshua 2
Rehab was a liar and a harlot. However she blessed Israel by protecting the spies of her house and in return wanted a guarantee of protection for herself and her household once Israel attached Jericho.
She demanded an oath from the spies with the Lord as witness, plus a true token (v12) that would guarantee her safety in the day of war. Obviously this was not a situation where a full blood covenant could be enacted. However along with the oath a signed of covenant was given by way of a scarlet cord which would be hung in the window of the harlots house (not unlike the blood of Passover which was daubed on the doorposts of the Israelites).
This oath, sworn before God in the context of a covenant was enough to instil faith in the entire household of the heathen harlot Rehab. As Jericho fell, the house of Rehab was safe. She did not panic and try and make a run for it. Her faith for salvation was based on the word given in the context of a covenant. She understood that such an oath for confirmation, sworn by the greater was for her the end of all dispute.
It is also interesting to note that in the heat of battle, the supreme commander of the hosts of Israel Joshua stayed in remembrance of the oath. He commanded that the oat be kept. (Joshua 6:17-22).
The Gibeonites understood covenant – Joshua 9-10
The Gibeonites wanted to escape the wrath of Israel. Therefore they tricked Israel into entering into covenant with them. They came to Joshua pretending to be pilgrims from a far-off land. They had dry mouldy bread, worn out sandals and torn wineskins to help in their charade, as they tried to con Joshua into making a covenant of peace with them.
Joshua was totally fooled, he failed to ask counsel of the Lord and went headlong into a covenant with Gibeon. Once the deception was recognised it was too late. Even though it had been the will of God to destroy the Gibeonites because of the covenant, God would not allow the Gibeonites to be harmed.
"We have sworn to them by the Lord God of Israel, now therefore we may not touch them. We will let them live, lest wrath be upon us because of the oath which we swore to them. (9:19-20).
In Joshua 10, Gibeon is attached by an Amorite alliance. Most people would think that this was the justice of God and that they would be destroyed because of their deception. However, quite the reverse is true. The Gibeonites called out to Israel on the basis of the covenant saying "Do not forsake us". In other words they called on the Hesed friendship of Israel in their time of trouble.
Joshua was covenant bound to keep the covenant. So in response, he went to the battle with his first class soldiers and marked them all night to ensure they would fight for their covenant partners in time.
When the battle commenced, God also joined the fray, causing a deluge of hailstones to pound the Amorite soldiers. Also at Joshua’s command, he caused the sun and moon to stand still in order that the battle be completed.
This is the Bible’s supreme example of God exalting His word even above His own name (cf. Psalm 138:2). It had been the will of God to destroy Gibeon, but because of the covenant that Joshua foolishly made, God altered His will for the sake of the word. Such an oath was for God, Joshua and the cheating Gibeonites the end of all dispute.
2 Samuel 21 – many hundreds of years later, a famine afflicted Israel. David sought the reason for this from the Lord who revealed to him that during the time of Saul, certain Gibeonites were slaughtered. Such a failure to keep covenant even centuries later, resulted in judgement from God who had been the Witness at its initiation.
Understanding Hebrews 6:13-20
Because there was no one greater by whom He could swear, He swore by himself. God is watching over His own word to ensure He performs it. He understood that a word given under oath in the context of covenant, would be the end of all dispute. Mankind would never again have to sit and wonder if God would or would not do as He said.
It was His determined intention to show more abundantly the unchangeableness of His word, as given to His people. He wanted us to be left in no doubt about His will.
Therefore He gave us two immutable things as confirmation. (Immutable - unchanging through time, unalterable, ageless). He did not just say "One" immutable thing, He specifically said "By two immutable things in which it is impossible for God to lie". These two things are the word and the blood. It is by these two that we can have strong encouragement. They are an anchor to the soul, enabling us to stand, unsmiling, knowing that the word of God will come to pass.
Hebrews 9:19 – the entire Bible is sprinkled with the blood of the covenant. He will not let one word fail. He has put His name to the whole book, and an oath given for confirmation is the end of all disputes.
BookD
Lesson 6
QUESTIONS FOR THIS SECTION
