God Chose Abraham To Know Him

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Gen 18:16-19  And the men rose up from thence, and looked toward Sodom: and Abraham went with them to bring them on the way.  And YHVH said, Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do; Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him?  For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of YHVH, to do righteousness and judgment; that YHVH may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him.

The Creator of the Heavens and the Earth cut (made) a covenant with Abram (Abraham) in order to preserve a holy seed, and to provide salvation to mankind, and to give an inheritance of a land and a kingdom to the children of Abraham, and of his promised son Isaac, and of his chosen grandson Jacob/Israel.  We read in the New Testament that Mary, when she was pregnant by the Holy Spirit with Yeshua, understood that the promise of that covenant had to do with the Son who would be born to her, as did the priest Zecharia, the father of John the Baptizer. (Lk 1:54-55, 67-79)

Despite the knowledge of the true God in the world since the Garden of Eden, and also again from the time of the Flood, the devil and human beings turned away from the truth and made their own gods, including seeking themselves to be God.  This humanism with satanic influence has not disappeared, but continues until the Antichrist claims to be as God and above every God.

YHVH God chose a man – Abram – to enter into a covenantal relationship with him in order to preserve the knowledge of the true and everlasting Sovereign God Most High, and to have a family and a people and a nation through whom the Creator would come into the world as the Redeemer and Savior from sin and death and separation from the living God of Life and of the living.  YHVH will glorify His holy name in and through His chosen people Israel, and in and through the believers in Yeshua, the Body of Christ:  they will be His people, and He will be their God and Father, inheriting the Kingdom of God and eternal life.  Glory to God and to the Lamb upon the Throne!

It is interesting that the first thing that the LORD considers important to reveal to Abraham about what He was going to do had to do with the judgment and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.  YHVH is holy and righteous, and He is the righteous Judge of all the Earth. Doing righteousness and judgment is His “way”, and is the foundation of His Throne. (Ps 89:14; 97:2)  The overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah has been given as an example to people who live against the way of holiness of God. (2Pt 2:6-11)  These are people who do not submit to the truth of the true God, and there is no fear of God in them.  Abraham’s prayer of intercession before YHVH had to do with saving the righteous, and not to destroy them along with the wicked, and to preserve the city for the righteous to dwell in.  YHVH knew, though, what He had come down to see, and to do.

YHVH tells His people through the Prophet Jeremiah that people who know Him have something to boast about:  that they KNOW HIM! (Jer 9:23-26)  And the Apostle Paul tells us that even more significant is the fact that God KNOWS US who believe in Yeshua! (Gal 4:9)  And just as He chose Abraham out from his life of idolatry to know and to serve the living God, Paul rebukes those who have also been chosen by God to worship Him in spirit and truth who want to go back to live as we did before we knew Him, or before He knew us! (Gal 4:8-11)

God chose Abraham, and us, to know us, that we will command our children and our grandchildren in the knowledge of Him and of His way.  It is a matter of life and death!  We are children of Abraham in the faith if we believe in Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of the Living God, who died for our sins, was buried, and rose from the dead on the third day, according to the Scriptures.  Abraham feared God Almighty, trusted Him, and obeyed Him with living faith and hope and love.  He was willing to sacrifice Isaac (and Isaac amazingly was a willing sacrifice!), his only son [in covenant], whom he loved, in obedience to the word of YHVH, fully believing that God would raise up Isaac from the dead then and there, in order to fulfill what He had spoken and promised to Abraham through this son of promise.  Because of such faith, demonstrated by such a work of faith, God blessed Abraham, his future descendants, and all the peoples of the Earth, and promised him victory over his enemies. (Gen 22:11-19)

Do we know the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ in such a way that we demonstrate that to our children and grandchildren by the manner in which we live, and speak of Him?  Would we be willing to sacrifice our most beloved person (or even thing), if the Lord should command us to do so, testing our love for Him above all?

Remember that the New Covenant fulfills the promises of YHVH’s covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob/Israel, and to their descendants – both physical and spiritual.  Physically applies to the whole House of Jacob/the House of Israel.  Spiritually applies to all believers – both Jewish and Gentile – in Jesus Christ the Lord.  The Law/Torah which came after, and which demands perfect obedience – does not annul those covenant promises based on faith in YHVH and in His Word.  No one but God can perfectly keep His righteous commandments, and this Yeshua came and proved.  With the New Covenant, God forgives the sinner who repents of their unbelief and self-righteousness in seeking their own salvation by their own standards and judgment.  The believer is brought into the promises of blessing for those who believe in Jesus/Yeshua for who He Is, and in His sacrificial death on the cross for our sins and guilt.

Jesus’ resurrection confirms the promises made to the fathers, and for the sake of this one and only righteous Man, God the Father will fulfill all of His redemptive promises in His holy way, and preserve the righteous, a land, and the Earth. (Rom 15:7-13)  (Abraham had pleaded with God to save Sodom if there were even 10 righteous people there.)  Knowing God, and being known by Him, calls us to love one another, and to clearly train up our children in the knowledge of the true God.  And as He shared His intentions with His friend Abraham, God has also revealed to us that the Day of YHVH will come, when He will judge those who oppose Him and Jesus/Yeshua and the Holy Spirit – one God.  But as with Lot, He knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations to save us from His wrath.  Parents must instruct their children and grandchildren in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. (Eph 6:4)

We are children of Abraham if we have the faith of Abraham.  God chose us to know us, so that we will know Him, and be His children who honor our Father in Heaven and Lord Jesus Christ.  Not all of us have money or property to leave our children’s children.  But we can leave them something of even far more and eternal value:  the knowledge of the only wise God and Savior.  For those who love Him, the promised blessing is overcoming the world and death, inheriting the Kingdom of God with the Lord.  Grace and peace to you in His name.

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