Advent - Day 3 - God of Covenants
November 29, 2022
Isaiah 1:21-31 NRSVSee how the faithful city has become a prostitute! She once was full of justice; righteousness used to dwell in her— but now murderers!
Your silver has become dross, your choice wine is diluted with water.Your rulers are rebels, partners with thieves; they all love bribes and chase after gifts. They do not defend the cause of the fatherless; the widow’s case does not come before them.Therefore the Lord, the LORD Almighty, the Mighty One of Israel, declares: “Ah! I will vent my wrath on my foes and avenge myself on my enemies.I will turn my hand against you; I will thoroughly purge away your dross and remove all your impurities.I will restore your leaders as in days of old, your rulers as at the beginning. Afterward you will be called the City of Righteousness, the Faithful City.”Zion will be delivered with justice, her penitent ones with righteousness.But rebels and sinners will both be broken, and those who forsake the LORD will perish.“You will be ashamed because of the sacred oaks in which you have delighted; you will be disgraced because of the gardens that you have chosen.You will be like an oak with fading leaves, like a garden without water.The mighty man will become tinder and his work a spark; both will burn together, with no one to quench the fire.
God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. The fear and dread of you shall rest on every animal of the earth and on every bird of the air, on everything that creeps on the ground and on all the fish of the sea; into your hand they are delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you, and just as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. Only, you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. For your own lifeblood I will surely require a reckoning: from every animal I will require it and from human beings, each one for the blood of another, I will require a reckoning for human life.
Whoever sheds the blood of a human,
by a human shall that person’s blood be shed,
for in his own image
God made humans.“And you, be fruitful and multiply, abound on the earth and have dominion over it.”
Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh, and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”
Hebrews 11:32-40 NRSV
And what more should I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received their dead by resurrection. Others were tortured, refusing to accept release, in order to obtain a better resurrection. Others suffered mocking and flogging and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned to death; they were sawn in two; they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented— of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains and in caves and holes in the ground.
Yet all these, though they were commended for their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better so that they would not, apart from us, be made perfect.
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And One More Word
People who overcome great obstacles make great heroes. We stand back observing their lives and find hope that we can also overcome. People who seemingly live without problems offer us little encouragement. In our ignorance of their true struggles, we chalk up their successes to luck, privilege, or fate.
The heroes of faith were people who faced tragedy, distress, doubts, and even disaster. Staring death in the face, the heroes of the Old Testament harbored a hope that God’s anointed would some day rise on the scene of human history as the champion of all who would follow Him to victory.
Faith, according to Hebrews 11:1 is substantive and evidential in and of itself.
Does that suggest that faith in anything proves the thing?
Yes and no.
Yes, faith, because of divine and universal principles set in motion from the time when God first created wisdom, dictates laws of belief and reality. No, because some things are real and other things are not. Truth is not relative, but it is dynamic.
There are realities that can be changed by our beliefs. Mountains can be moved. Circumstances can bend. Choices made in faith between a positive or negative outlook on the moment can change the meaning of the moment. Faith can change the individual who is doing the "faithing." Often that is enough to change the truth of the moment itself.
On the other hand, there are eternal truths and realities outside of our influence that simply are what they are and cannot be manipulated by our beliefs about them. God and His Word are constants in the universe and not even the universe and universal principles can alter them.
In the case of God and His Revelation, the only valid faith response is to conform, by faith to faith in Him and His will. It is unchanging and persistent and greater than our own realities or beliefs about them.
You may call it limits without limitations - the kind of freedom I give my 18 month old grandson when I define parameters within which he can wander at will and in which he feels absolute liberty to explore, express himself, and grow while enjoying, often without his own ability to understand, the safety of my watchful eye and protective gaze.
If he transgresses the limits into the realm of unknown dangers, I am there. As he grows older and more accountable for himself, he will venture forth into areas where I do not guide him. He will hit some walls and consequences which are real. Love compels me to let him grow and discover these for himself.
Even now, I must be willing to let him fall down on occasion. when he does, the ground below him does not move.
Grounding is real whether we believe in it or not.
The faith that the author of Hebrews addresses is faith founded on foundational fundamentals and in the person of Jesus Christ. With Him are infinite possibilities but also, unbending truths. "Faithing" is what we do when we embrace the reality of God's sovereignty and filter everything we believe through faith in Him. It becomes the substance of all that we embrace and the evidence of all we proclaim in spite of all other indicators to the contrary.
Ask me how I am. I am great. It doesn't matter how I feel in the moment. By faith I know, it is well with my soul.
Go move a mountain!