MORNING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/22/2026/
11:04 AM
My
Worship
Time Focus: PT-2 “The
Promise of the Abrahamic Covenant”
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: Luke 1:72b-73
Message
of the verses: “and to remember
His holy covenant, the oath which He swore to Abraham our father,”
I want to pick up where I left off last night. MacArthur continues “Underscoring its crucial
significance in the flow of redemptive history, the Abrahamic covenant is
reiterated eight times in the book of Genesis (chapters 12, 13, 15, 17, 22, 28,
and 35). As noted above, (last nights
SD) God announced the terms of the covenant in Chapter 12, but the covenant was
not actually set until chapter 15.”
Chapter fifteen is the chapter that has the sacrifices that were cut in
two and actually Abraham was put to sleep so that the covenant was actually
fulfilled by God, for He is the only one to fulfill it. “That is clear in 15:18, which records, ‘On
that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram.’ God sealed that covenant in a very dramatic
way, one which emphasized its unilateral, unconditional nature.
“In
verse 7, God repeated the promise He had made to Abraham in chapter 12
regarding the land He would give to him and his descendants: ‘I am the Lord
who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess
it.’ Seeding reassurance Abraham
replied, ‘O Lord God, how may I know that I will possess it?’ (v. 8).
The ensuing ceremony, which was in keeping with Ancient Near Eastern
custom, ratified the covenant:
9So He said to him, “[n]Bring Me a
three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a
three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” 10Then he [o]brought all these to
Him and cut them [p]in two, and
laid each half opposite the other; but he did not
cut the birds. 11And
birds of prey came down upon the carcasses, and
Abram drove them away.
12Now when the sun was
going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, [q]terror and great darkness fell upon
him. 13Then God said to
Abram, “Know for certain that your [r]descendants will
be strangers in a land that is not theirs, [s]where they will be
enslaved and oppressed for four hundred years. 14But I will
also judge the nation whom they will serve, and
afterward they will come out with [t]many possessions. 15As for you, you shall
go to your fathers in peace; you will be buried at a
good old age. 16Then
in the fourth generation they will return here, for the
wrongdoing of the Amorite is not yet complete.”
17Now it came about,
when the sun had set, that it was very dark, and behold, a
smoking oven and a flaming torch appeared which passed between these pieces.” (NASB)
“Killing
animals symbolized the seriousness of a covenant. The two parties making it would walk between
the pieces of the dead animals, thus affirming that the same thing should
happen to them if they broke the covenant.
But in this case only the ‘smoking oven’ and ‘the flaming torch’
which represented God’s presence, passed between the parts of the slain
animals; Abraham was divinely anesthetized.
The covenant, therefore, was unilateral; and irrevocable pledge made by
God alone and not dependent on Abraham.”
Israel has never possessed all the
land promised to Abraham (vv. 18-21).
Only when the Lord Jesus Christ takes the throne of David and
establishes His earthly kingdom will Israel experience the full blessings of
the Abrahamic covenant.” Now let us
think about what has happened to the Jewish people since this covenant was made
in Genesis chapter 15. It took 400 years
before God would take the children of Israel out of Egypt to then move the
children of Israel out of Egypt and then go into their own land. Then if 586 BC they were removed from their
land by the Babylonian people, and they stayed there for 70 years before going
back to their land. This is seen in the
books of Ezra and Nehemiah. They did not
really own that land but were under the rule of foreign countries. Next we see that this took another 400 years
before the birth of John the Baptist and then the Lord Jesus Christ which we
see in the gospels, and we are looking at that through the writing of
Luke. Jesus was born lived 33 years on
planet earth, preaching and teaching those last three years as we will see as
we move forward in the book of Luke.
Jesus was then turned down as the Jewish Messiah by the people and then
was crucified for the sins of the world.
In 70 AD the Romans conquered the land of Palestine and the Jewish people
were then dispersed around the world, living in different nations. After World War II in May of 1948 the Jewish
people were then back in their land and established their country. We are living in the time when Israel is
living in their country. Now we see a
war taking place with Iran as they desire to kill all of the Jews like Hitler
tried in WW II, but he failed as all other nations who tried to kill them
failed, and they failed because of the covenant that we are looking at in this
section. The future is also prophesied. Next event will be the rapture of the Church,
which I pray will be soon as God takes all believers to be with Him in heaven. While in heaven the Tribulation Period will
happen on planet earth which actually is the 70th week of Daniel’s
prophecy found in Daniel chapter nine.
This will be the most dangerous time that will happen on planet earth
and unless the Lord returns to planet earth as seen in the last part of
Revelation chapter 19, there would be no earth at all. Jesus will return as seen in that chapter
(19) with His saints and ends the war of Armageddon and then will set up His
promised kingdom to Israel which will last 1000 years and then the earth will
be destroyed as seen in 2 Peter 3, and then eternity will begin as the Lord
will make a new heaven and earth, as eternity begins.
Lord willing I will complete this
section from Luke’s gospel in this evening’s SD.
Spiritual
Meaning for my Life today: I trust the Lord will do exactly what He has
promised to do with Israel and also with the Church, and I certainly look
forward to the next event, the rapture of the Church. I also look forward to what the Lord has
promised to do for Israel as the Lord has given me a great love for the people
of Israel.
My
Steps of Faith for Today: I trust the Lord will continue to work in my
life so that I can serve the Lord in the way that He has planned for me to
serve Him.
3/22/2026
11:53 AM
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