FRIDAY 18 February 2022 “Why not them?” Deuteronomy 9:4-6

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Hello my “Walking with Jesus Friends,

Yesterday, I left you standing on the banks of the Jordan river, looking across into what is today “Palestinian territory”. I attempted to give you an important perspective, I believe God’s perspective, on the story of humanity, and how far we, all of us, have turned away from God’s design for mankind.

Generation after generation, in every part of the world, individually, and as families, and neighborhoods, and communities, and cities, and societies, and nations… raised up a collective “NO” to God! Humanity has refused God’s plan for us to live in holy, God honoring relationship with Him, and humans have everywhere replaced God with every form of idol or theory or philosophy or myth imaginable in the human mind and heart! You see it no matter where you travel in our world, don’t you. Now let me ask you… is what I have just said a fair and accurate assessment of humanity?

Furthermore, we have individually and as families and communities and nations said “NO” to God’s design for even our existence! We slaughter the unborn, claiming they are not yet human or are an inconvenience. We pierce and paint and tattoo our bodies, claiming we don’t like how God made us and we can certainly improve our appearance. We surgically alter ourselves, even now more recently claiming we have the right to change our gender, our biology, if we so desire… is that the ultimate rejection of God’s design? If you have not read it lately, Romans 1:18-32 in the New Testament, is a remarkably accurate and very contemporary treatise of what has happened to humanity, everywhere in our world, as our species has rejected God! I urge you to listen to the dramatic, audio Bible reading of God’s Romans 1 analysis of the mess we have made of God’s perfection!

Can you imagine what the Hebrews were thinking as Moses explained they would soon have the opportunity to cross over the Jordan river, to enter and possess Canaan, the land God had given to their ancestor Abraham 500 years before? Perhaps there were some who were more historically astute among the people, and they asked: ‘But wait a minute. Abraham had two sons, Ishmael and Isaac. And Isaac had two sons, Jacob and Esau. Maybe, many of those people over there in Canaan might be descendants of Ishmael and Esau, and therefore our distant relatives. What makes us different from them? Why should we have the land and not them?’ Whether that question was raised to Moses or not, we have no record, but certainly it is raised today, isn’t it? I wonder what your answer is to that question?

Do you remember when God was clarifying His covenant with Abraham in Genesis 17, Ishmael had already been born to Abraham and his Egyptian servant Hagar. God appeared to Abraham identifying Himself with a new name “El Shaddai”, the Covenant keeping God, the All Sufficient God, God Almighty. In Genesis 17 God changed Abram’s name to Abraham, declaring he would be the father of many nations. And God changed Sarai’s name to Sarah, and promised she would be mother to many nations. Furthermore God promised old Abraham and Sarah that they would have a MIRACLE son, since they were both very old and well beyond childbearing age. Their faith in God would be rewarded with this miracle son, and God told them to name him Isaac. (Gen. 17:19)

Abraham was grateful for this wonderful, miraculous announcement, but he already had a son named Ishmael and of course he loved Ishmael, so Abraham asked that God would let Ishmael be the son of the Covenant blessing promise. God’s response was very significant and is important for us to remember: “I will establish My covenant with Isaac as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him. As for Ishmael, I have heard you Abraham, and I will bless Ishmael, I will make him fruitful and greatly increase his numbers, I will make him into a great nation. BUT my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you at this time next year.” (Gen. 17:19-22) The Covenant God spoke of here was two parts… a miraculous people of Covenant with God who could trace their bloodline to Isaac, miracle son of Abraham and Sarah in their old age. And also a Covenant land, the land of Canaan, given by God first to Abraham and then to Isaac and his descendants.

Now it’s important we see here that Ishmael and his descendants trace their heritage to Abraham, just as the descendants of Isaac do. But Ishmael was born out of rebellion, with Sarah refusing to wait on God, and instead giving her servant Hagar to Abraham to accomplish God’s promise of a son, via a surrogate mother, rather than by faith waiting for God to accomplish the miracle in her. You’ll remember that story is in Genesis 16. When Isaac was born there was naturally strife in the family. Abraham now had two sons, two wives and thus great jealousy filled his tents, so finally Hagar and Ishmael left. And if we go forward to the time of Abraham’s death, Abraham left the land of God’s promise to his son Isaac as his inheritance. The record says Isaac and Ishmael came together to bury their father Abraham. By then both their mothers, Hagar and Sarah had died. After Abraham’s burial, Isaac and Ishmael parted ways permanently. The record says “Ishmael had twelve sons who became tribal leaders… and they settled in the area from Havilah to Shur, near the border of Egypt. And they lived in hostility toward all their brothers.” (Gen. 25:13-18)

So we see there is a clear understanding between Isaac and Ishmael, and their families, that the Covenant land was to be passed from Abraham to Isaac and his descendants. Ishmael and his descendants were free to settle other lands, which they did.

But there’s more to this story, isn’t there my friends? Amazingly when Isaac married, his wife was like his mother in that she, Rebekah, was also unable to bear children. Abraham was still alive and may well have counseled Isaac, his son, to learn from his terrible mistake with Hagar, and simply pray and wait for God to give the descendants He had promised. Isaac and Rebekah did wait… for 20 years, and finally God blessed them with twins, Jacob and Esau. (Gen. 25:21-34) You may remember there was also great jealousy in this family for Isaac loved his son Esau, but Rebekah loved her son Jacob. Sibling rivalry became very serious with Jacob deceiving father Isaac and his brother Esau out of Esau’s firstborn birthright and his family inheritance! The anger that resulted caused Jacob to run for his life, to the homeland of his mother Rebekah.

On the way Jacob had a God encounter (Genesis 28:13-15) in which God clarified that even though Jacob was deceitful, God chose Jacob’s bloodline to be the line of Covenant promise, and Jacob’s descendants would inherit the Covenant land passed from Abraham to Isaac and now from Isaac to Jacob. Twenty years later, Jacob returned with all his family, to Canaan, the land of his father and grandfather, and in a very special God encounter God changed Jacob’s name to Israel, and a second time re-affirmed this land covenant to Jacob and his descendants forever in Genesis 35:12-15. The record says: “God said to Jacob, “Your name is Jacob, but you will no longer be called Jacob; your name will be Israel… I am God Almighty… a nation and a community of nations will come from you. The land I gave to Abraham and Isaac, I also give to you, and I will give this land to your descendants after you.“ (Gen. 35:10-12) This God encounter with Jacob happened in the very same place God and Jacob had met 2 decades earlier. Jacob had 12 sons, and their families became known as the “children of Israel”, the Israelites, after their father Jacob’s new, God given name. The land of Canaan became known as the land of the Israelites, Israel. Genesis 36 gives us the story of Jacob’s twin brother Esau and his large family and their selection of the land east of Canaan, to be their homeland. As with Ishmael and Isaac, so with Esau and Jacob, there was a clear understanding to whom the Covenant land was entrusted, generation after generation.

So as these 1 million Hebrews, the Israelites, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Jacob’s sons, stand with Moses on the east side of the Jordan, looking into Canaan, almost all the people living over there are NOT their distant relatives, but are other people who have moved in and occupied this land over the past 500 years. A few days later as God was continuing to give Moses his farewell message instructions, God identified those inhabitants of the land of Canaan by the following people group names: “The Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites…” (Deut. 20:17) While it was true Jacob and his family had abandoned the covenant land by remaining in Egypt long after the famine was over, God had not abandoned His Covenant. These Israelites were God’s Covenant people and that land of Canaan was His Covenant land entrusted to these Israelites. The only question was when… WHEN would these people learn to fully honor God with their lives and WHEN would they return to live in the land of His promise? Their parents had said NO to God, what would now be this generation’s decision?

Again my friends I leave you standing among these people pondering those two questions and considering how their answer has shaped our world history. What would you have decided for your family if you had been among them that day?

Today’s Scripture is Deuteronomy 9:4-6.

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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.

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Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)

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