After These Things (Genesis14- 15:1)

After These Things: Believe, Hope and Endure

Abram refuses Bera's rewards and accepts blessings of Melchizadek

We all have trials. It is not that we have them but rather how we choose to deal with them. Abram chose to believe not in the arm of man but rather in God, to hope not for riches but for the blessings of heaven, and to endure his time of challenge with a strength and fortitude that promised him sacred opportunity, wisdom, perspective and promise.

Ancient Irrigation Techniques 

I have had many trials in my life. I imagine that many of my trials have not been too different from what Abram endured. The scenes and props may change but personal trials tend to be the same. We know from history that his time in history was one of where man attempted to gain control over mother- nature and create a sense of stability in his life.  As man gained a sense of understanding over crops, water and weather, he still had to deal with himself.  Through all of the innovations, inventions and discoveries and after all of this time, I have to wonder how much the true nature of man with relation to one another has changed?    Has the human condition improved? I believe Abram understood that the ability to truly change the human condition began with a faith in a power greater than his own.

Abram’s story of faith began in Genesis 14. As I was reading Genesis 15 my mind caught the words, “after these things.” What things? I went back to Genesis 14 and discovered a few important things that Abram had done. (because the chapter deals mostly with the wars between the 9 kings, it is easy to miss Abram’s important role) These things were prerequisite to his vision where “the word of the Lord came unto him.”

Before I delineate Abram’s role I want to set the stage.

There were 4 kings  that  “made war” with 5 kings. The four kings I will call Team A (for Amraphel king of Shinar).  The 5 kings I will call Team B for Bera king of Sodom

Team A: Shinar, Ellasar, Elam and Nations (Geneses 1)

Team B: Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim, Zoar (Geneses 2)

Who: Team A make war with Team B in the vale of Siddim near the salt sea.

Why: They had served Chedorlaomer (king of Elam) 12 years, but in the 13^th year they rebel.

What: 14^th year Chedorlaomer  comes with his 3 other kings and plumaged and smote the REphaims, Zuzims, Emims, Horites, the Amalekites, and the Amorites. In other words they were on rampage as a rebellion.

The five kings joined together to stop the slaughter. (Genesis 14:9) They came together at the vale of Siddim where there were slimepits. A slimepit is a plot of earth that is soft and mucky, usually of clay or very moist mud. The point of this reference is to help us understand that the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah could not take a stand because the ground would not allow for it. It was a very precarious place to stand a fight against the confederate forces. They fled.

The confederates come and take the spoils of war: all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah, all the food, and all the people for slaves.  And a ally of Abram comes to tell him of Lot’s capture.

What did Abram who dwelled in the plain of Mamre the Amorite  do:

• ·      He armed his trained servants (318 of them)
• ·      He pursued Chedorlaomer and his 4 kings to the land of Dan
• ·      He divides himself with his servants and attacks them at night and pursues them to Hobah
• ·      He slaughters Team A (all 4 kings) at the valley of Shaveh (the kings dale)
• ·      He then brings back all of the spoils that had been taken, “all the goods, his brother Lot, the women, and the people.” (Gen 14: 16)
• ·      He receives a blessing from Melchizedek
• ·      He pays his tithes
• ·      He gives credit to his  “most high God”.  (Genesis 14:22-24)
• ·      He meets out his reward with justice and in such a way to give recognizes the true source of his strength and virtue.

In Abram’s time the kingdoms vied for security through power struggle’s and war. Abram chose to follow a different path that allowed him to discover the power that faith in a true and living God brings.  When I considered what he had done and why he had done it, I was moved to understand the true nature of his faith.

Abram rescues Lot

Abram’s only heir was Lot, so that when he heard what had happened to him he took strength to defend him, but in defending his family the Lord gave him opportunity to testify and declare his allegiance to his God.  When Bera, the king of Sodom, wants to glorify Abram and give him the spoils of war, Abram refuses him, “lest thou should say, I have made Abram rich.” 

Abram who had left his father’s land and dwelled in the land of the Amorite, who at this point was childless, who had refused the traditions of his family and had returned to the God of Adam and Enoch and Noah, felt very much alone in the world. But yet he knew from whence his strength and power came.

And it was “After these things”, or after the trial of his faith that the Lord will bless him with a vision for his future.  After these things… after he stood strong for what was right, after he fought with strength born of virtue and faith, after he defeats all of the rebels using the tactics of division and nighttime warfare, after he uses the power of the Holy Ghost to help him outsmart the rebels in the valley of Shaveh, and after he refuses his “victors glory” and chooses to humbly give credit to the Lord, he is able to sit and contemplate just exactly what his faith has brought him.

While he is resting from his conquest and considering what he has in life, he is given a vision that brings him hope and a promise. 

The Seed of Immortality Genesis 13-14

Genesis 13: Abraham's Immortality.

13: 16  And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered.

At the turn of the 19^th century, when pioneers began to cultivate and settle the southeastern region of our nation, the Carolina Parakeet existed in copious numbers.  Their brightly colored feathers and intelligence made them popular pets that were often captured and trained. Highly sociable birds their distress over a fallen or wounded comrade kept them from fleeing when faced with an imminent threat of gunfire.  Afterward, many were known to perch nearby on branches or over their fallen friends unaware of the hunters’ malevolent sport.  By the beginning of the 20^th century this social behavior played an important role in their eventual extinction.

Extinction sends a permanent death sting to the last of a species seed. Without seed God’s creations are but a blink in his vast universe. Without seed all that the Carolina Parakeet could have taught us about compassion, sociability, loyalty, friendship, and innate intelligence is, along with their genetic memory code, lost forever.

If extinction means to loose the perpetuation of one’s seeds, what does immortality mean? If one could find a way that their seed were ensured exponential reproduction would they not be defining one type of immortality? Abraham would not live forever, but his moral beliefs, teachings, and increase of intelligence would, if he could find a way to ensure his seeds survival. And what of our God? Would Abraham’s survival not testify to his power and love for all of mankind?

 

As I was reading how Abraham was promised that his seed would become as the “dust of the earth, ” I wondered who were Abraham’s contemporaries? Other than the “Epic of Gilgamesh” which archaeologists had to search for and is dated before Abraham’s time, we don’t know. Yes there are civilizations in China, in Asia, and other parts of the world but where are there genealogical records that tell their story? Their records did not purposefully survive to tell their tale. The key words are “purposefully survive.” Why was Abraham’s seed able to not only purposefully survive but also purposefully retain a written historical record? The answer lies in the true covenant that Abraham enters into with the God of Heaven and Earth.

I thought about Abraham and about God’s role in helping his progeny beat the odds of extinction. Clearly life was treacherous. No civil law had yet succeeded in bringing sustainable peace. As Genesis 14 points out the kingdoms were at war and barbaric practices allowed them ransack and plumage their foes.  Although Abraham was given great wealth and promised great land, his desires turned more to the protection and preservation of his family.  In order to find immortality and defy extinction, one must begin to think less about self-survival and more about family and community welfare.  Was it part of God’s plan that Abraham had to wait and sacrifice for his own seed?

The Carolina Parakeet understood the principle of caring for one another. Prior to farm settlement their system of group protection had served them well. But faced with ever changing circumstances and the threat of immoral predators the parakeet lacked the power to find evolutionary answers. Abraham must have understood that a higher power would be needed to ensure the survival of his seed. The ability to perceive, believe and understand this higher power would need to be instilled within the moral code of his seeds genetic memory.

In a time when childhood mortality, war, natural disaster, disease, famine, drought, plagues, and other expected accidents bore constant threat to one’s survival, Abraham’s contemplation of immortality through the continuation of his seed might have seemed off centered, just a bit.  Abraham begins to consider his father’s idolic religion as empty and vain.  He turned to the prophetic counsel that followed Adam’s creeds and settled in his mind the reality of one God and one creator. He defies his father’s multiplicity of Gods and listens to only one God, the Creator of Heaven and Earth. 

Abraham’s faith in the God of heaven and earth led him to understand God’s omnipotence. He becomes the chosen “son of Adam” to enter into a spiritual and binding covenant with a living and powerful God.  He begins to ponder how his family’s social behavior affects their prospect of survival. His recognition of his prosperity and success as a direct blessing from his "most high God" sets an example for his family and community.  When offered the plumage of warfare by King of Sodom, he refuses so that King of Sodom cannot say that he has made Abraham rich. (Genesis 14: 23)

 Abraham wants to make it clear where his blessings come from. He begins to consider that there are life events that he alone cannot control, but with the help of an all-powerful Creator, he might not only increase his chances for survival but through the power  and example of “exercised” faith he could ensure the survival of his seed as well. (Genesis 14:22)

Abraham’s decision to put away idol worship and serve one God sets into play a new way of thinking and considering life. When he hears God speak, Abraham listens. He teaches Sarah to listen. Together they begin a pattern of life that allows God’s power to direct and protect them. Abraham’s God is powerful. Abraham is able to converse and counsel with his God over major life decisions. Abraham is able to enter into a covenant that promises him all that he would need to ensure his immediate and eternal survival.

I love hearing stories about the Carolina Parakeet. They were not only beautiful birds to gaze upon but their behaviors toward one another causes my heart to pause and ask, “Why couldn’t they have flown away? Why couldn’t they survive? Why did this beautiful specie of a bird have to become extinct? What was lacking in their evolution that kept them unaware of the dangers? 

I believe the answer lies in understanding the importance of whom you place your faith. If we chose to place our faith in society and in our own strength we too might face extinction. But when we, like Abraham face our fears and believe in the inward power of faith in a true and living God we find a power greater than that of evolutionary selection.  Abraham became God’s man of covenant because he understood God's power of love and this inward contemplation of the power of love. He set in motion a new type of man, one that would worship not out of rote desperation, but rather out of a true power of faith. An obedience born of enlightenment and respect for divine truth. 

And this faith is what would ensure Abraham’s seed the possibility of not only the security of a happy life, but one possible of ensuring that his seed might one day be as numerous as the infinite “dust of the earth.”  

He Shall Send His Angels; Matthew 24:31, by Ann Y.

"And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect frrom the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other." Matthew 24:31

Celestial

By: Ann Yoxtheimer

Angels are spirits of

Men that have thirst,

Not for glory themselves,

But for righteousness first.

Assigned to this world for

The saving of man,

To assist and instruct,

And help further the plan.

The army of God, those

With courage and faith;

Showing power of spirit,

Prepared for this day.

They gird up their loins,

With the armor of right;

The priesthood of God,

Is their sword in this fight.

But not just for fight,

Are they sent from the sky,

But to love and to save

All of us; which is why

Good tidings they bring,

From our God up on high,

To remind us He waits

For the day that is nigh.

The wheat from the chaff,

Will forever be split,

When our Lord comes in glory,

Till then they won’t quit.

They show us the truth

And the way of the Lamb,

Remind us we’re special,

And give us a hand.

We can all be God’s angels,

 There is work to be done,

Share the good news of love,

From the Father and Son.

Put on the whole armor,

Of God and show forth,

That the priesthood has power,

To cleanse Mother Earth.

Our Father has need of

Both women and men,

Who have enough faith,

In the gospel to win.

To prove to the world that

Our Savior was right,

From the ashes of death,

He’ll come forth in His might.

And we’ll stand with our God,

Both the angels and man.

His celestial soldiers,

                                            Who fought for God’s plan.


I know I write about angels a lot, but I'm fascinated by the idea that the servants of God are working both here and in Heaven, all for the "immortality and eternal life of man." Moses 1:39.

I hope that I am one of my Father's servants. I hope that I am one of God's angels on earth.