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| Lecture 24 : [Restoration] The Providence Centered on Abraham’s Family | |
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| Date created : 2015-02-12/ Views : 1014 | |
Providential Age for the Foundation of Restoration 3
Lecture 24 Abraham’s Family
Welcome back to the path to happiness. I’m your host, Tyler Hendricks. In our last session, we covered the story of Noah that was so heroic, but ended in failure. By that time, the human race wasn’t doing so well. But God’s love does not change, and His plan is perfect. He called Abraham, and within three generations, God turns out to be the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Abraham is considered the father of faith by three great world religions—Judaism, Christianity and Islam. How did that happen?
The story of Abraham and his descendants is rich and powerful. We’ll start in on it now.
God chose Abraham to take Adam’s and Noah’s position.
Abraham was called after an indemnity period of four hundred years and ten generations from the time of Noah.
God blessed him.
“I will make you into a great nation, and will make of you a blessing to all nations.”
Abraham, originally called Abram, was the son of Terah, an idol worshipper.
His wife Sarai was later called Sarah.
Abraham’s course of taking his family and possessions and leaving Haran, the land of his ancestors, for Canaan, foreshadowed the Messiah’s course to restore all the people and the creation from the satanic world to the world of God.
The course he went to Canaan, then to Egypt, and back again to Canaan, became the model course for the chosen people.
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As do all God’s people, Abraham needed to establish a foundation of faith and a foundation of substance.
He was the original central figure for the offering in his family.
He was called by God at 75 years of age.
Abraham obeyed God’s word, to “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.” (Gen 12:1)
He left his homeland in faith, but his journey was not at all peaceful.
His tribe had to keep moving as nomads amid the dwellers of the inhospitable land.
Abram, not able to attain a small patch of land for his tent, could not stay in Canaan (Gen 12:6) and moved to the hills (Gen 12:8) just to be kicked out again. So his tribe continued south toward the Arabian desert.
During this period, he experienced a peculiar providential incident.
His wife Sarah was taken from him by the Pharaoh of Egypt and then returned to him.
Abram was in Egypt due to a famine. Abraham’s wife Sarai was very beautiful, and Abraham feared that he would be killed if it were known that she was his wife. Abraham asked Sarai promise to say that she was his sister. This was actually true, for they shared the same father and different mothers.
The Pharaoh’s servants saw Sarai and reported about her to the Pharaoh. The Pharaoh desired her and had her brought into the palace. In retaliation, God caused great plagues to befall the pharaoh and his house.
The Pharaoh realized it was because he had taken Sarai, and that she was Abram’s wife, and he returned Sarai to Abraham (Gen 12:10-20).
By the Principle, we know the indemnity condition Abram, Sarai and the Pharaoh made.
Adam and Eve were born as brother and sister. They were to grow and then become husband and wife with God’s Blessing. However, the Archangel stole the sister, Eve, and defiled her.
Abraham and Sarai took the position of brother and sister, like Adam and Eve and the Pharaoh, who was in the position of Satan, tried to steal the sister, but released her to be Adam’s wife. Thus they reversed the fall.
On this foundation, Abraham was to restore the foundation of faith.
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The conditional objects to be offered for the foundation of faith were a heifer, a ram and goat, and dove and pigeon.
The sacrificial objects symbolized the foundations of Adam’s family and Noah’s family that satan had claimed.
The dove symbolized the formation stage. Why?
When Jesus was baptized the Spirit of God descended like a dove, representing the Old Testament age, which was the formation stage (Matt. 3:16).
Then John called Jesus the “lamb of God,” bringing in the New Testament age, so the ram symbolized the growth stage. When John the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward him, he said, "Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29).
The heifer symbolizes the completion stage.
The Completed Testament Age after the Second Advent of the Lord is the age of a heifer -- the age of a wife. Samson, for example, referred to his wife as a heifer.
Jesus came as the bridegroom to all of us, and so the saints until the time of the Second Advent each become a "bride" to Jesus, the bridegroom to come. 2 Cor 11:2—but this is metaphorical.
At the wedding feast of the Lamb, the bride becomes an actual physical wife united into perfect oneness with the Lord. Then all will be able to receive the Holy Marriage Blessing and live in the Heavenly Kingdom of God with Christ.
Thus the symbolic offering of Abraham was to restore at once, horizontally, through the three kinds of offerings, the symbolic condition of indemnity of the vertical providence through the three generations of Adam, Noah and Abraham.
The 3 sacrificial objects represented the 3 stages of growth that Adam was to complete, with Abraham as the representative of Adam.
The 3 sacrifices were to restore horizontally, the providence from the time of Adam, which had been carried out vertically.
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Making the offering, God’s instructed Abraham to cut the offerings in two and lay each half over against the other.
Abram was supposed to cut all the offerings, even the small doves.
Abraham cut the heifer, ram and goat in two, but did not cut the doves in two.
Thus the symbolic offering was a failure.
Birds of prey came down upon the carcasses and Abraham drove them away (Gen 15:9-11).
There are 4 reasons why the sacrifices needed to be divided.
First, it was to restore the position of having separated Adam into good and evil positions of Cain and Abel.
Second, it was to restore the position of separating good and evil at the time of the 40-day flood judgment in the providence of restoration centering on Noah.
Third, it was to set up the symbolic condition of separating the world of good sovereignty from the world under the dominion of Satan.
Fourth, it was to signify purifying the blood of death which had entered from Eve and Adam’s false love relationship with the archangel.
The act of not dividing the dove resulted in allowing the ram and heifer to be claimed by Satan as well, because it was the formation stage.
Abram slept as the birds defiled the offering, and God told him in his sleep that his descendants would live as slaves in Egypt for 400 years.
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Subsequently, God called him to make the symbolic offering at a greater cost by offering his own son Isaac, and the providence was prolonged for the three generations until Jacob.
What a trial—to have God tell you to offer your son! It’s one of the most dramatic events in biblical history, about which books have been written. The Principle shows just how important this event is in God’s history, and how it led to an even greater victory of love between enemies.
Thanks for listening, and may God bless us in fulfilling His will.
