All At Once
by Eric Engelmann
All content © 2024 Static Force, LLC
When Are We?
2090 BC. After Noah but before Israel existed. Israel's father Abram is alive at this time.
Where are we?
With Abram in Shechem. About 40 miles north of where Jerusalem will be.
Have We Been Here and Now Before?
Yes. This is the place the Most High first appeared to Abram. He heard the Most High say “To your offspring I will give this land.”
Why are we here now?
We're going to look at God's promise to Abram a little closer. I'm going to wax poetic and try to relate to something Jesus said thousands of years later.
Some History
God told Abram to go to the place that God will show him. Abram went in faith that God would show him the place, and he wouldn't just wander around the world squandering his wealth and his time.
When the Most High appeared, He didn't say, "Congratulations, you are now stepping over the line into the promised land." or "It's just ahead of you." God didn't tell Abram the moment he crossed over the boundary into the promised land.
Listen for what God did tell Abram.
Scripture
Genesis 12
Verse 6 Abram passed through the land to the site of Shechem, at the oak of Moreh.
7 The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.”
-- Gen 12:6-7 (Abr)
That’s the end of the passage.
God didn't limit his promise to the land in any particular direction. That means the land was all around Abram. When God appeared to Abram, the man was in the midst of the land.
In a way this is like being born. A baby comes into the world with the world all around. The baby probably isn't told, "You can only live in this direction." One hour the baby is inside the mother, the next hour the baby is in the world. Born.
One minute Abram was trying to follow God to find the land, the next minute God appeared and told him he was there. Hearing the fulfillment of the promise happened all at once.
That's the end of the passage.
In the Future
Abram will be told explicitly, "Walk through the land in its length and in its width; for I will give it to you."
Further in the future, Abrams' descendant Jacob will run for his life from brother Esau miles to the south. He will sleep, resting his head on a rock. That's where he'll have a dream and see the Most High and a ladder that goes up to heaven. When Jacob will awake, he'll say, "Surely Yahweh is in this place, and I didn’t know it."
Like Abram, Jacob won't limit God to one direction, but will say that Yahweh is all around in this place.
Further in the future, Jesus will talk about spiritual offspring. He'll say, "That which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Don’t marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born anew.’ The wind blows where it wants to, and you hear its sound, but don’t know where it comes from and where it is going. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
May more and more hear as the Spirit fulfills Jesus' words all at once.
All content © 2024 Static Force, LLC