Copyright 2024 Joseph Shulam. adapted from an article written in 1995.
Genesis 12:1 -17:27
These verses are probably the most significant portion of the Word of God for an explanation of the history of both Jews and Christians. The word reveals to us for the first time the nature of crucial issues: faith, grace, justification, God's faithful promises, and man's fallen character. We could concentrate on any of these subjects and learn much about our faith in God and God's love for us. After the murder of Nachson Waxman, a 19-year-old Israeli soldier in October 1994, who was kidnapped and murdered by Hamas, I think that it is incumbent upon us to deal with the situation that exists between us and our Arab neighbors.
I believe that Jews and Gentiles who live in Israel can not continue to live here and ignore what is happening around us. As ambassadors of Yeshua, we are the princes of peace involved in what is happening in this part of the world. We are also, as His ambassadors, commanded to love our Arab neighbors, if not as our friends, at least as our enemies. We can not be less than guilty on the charge that we love our neighbors.
I will deal with the biblical roots of our conflict. My objectives in dealing with this problem are not to flame the fires of hate or to politicize our faith in God, nor is it my objective to encourage you to lay down and raise a white flag and hand over the promised Land of God to the Arabs. I aim to learn from our forefather's mistakes and avoid them in our lives. My objective is to leave a better heritage than I have received from my parents to those who follow us if the Lord does not come soon.
God's promises.
Genesis 12:2-3
"I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you."
Sarah's impatience.
Genesis 16:1-5
"Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar; 2 so she said to Abram, The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her." Abram agreed to what Sarai said. 3 So after Abram had been living in Canaan for ten years, Sarai, his wife, took the Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. 4 He slept with Hagar, and she conceived. When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. 5 Then Sarai said to Abram, "You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my servant in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the LORD judge between you and me."
In verse five, we see Sarah coming with a complaint against Abraham for having fathered a son with Hagar, her handmaid. The word that Sarah used to describe her anger against Abraham is Hamas, the root word for which the organization Hamas is named. In the first reaction about Ishmael, we already see this word used. Sara did not look at her instigation in this sin of conceiving a son through Hagar, her handmaid. Sara conceived the whole plan out of her lack of faith and impatience. She asked Abraham to sleep with Hagar out of her desire to "engineer" God's plan and speed it up. Sarah wanted to be involved in fulfilling the promises of God with her wisdom and craftiness.
The result of Sara's action was the birth of Ishmael, and the seed of Ishmael is still competing with the seed of Isaac, God's son of promise to Abraham, over the blessings that God gave Abraham: land, seed, and blessing to all the families of the world.
Psalm 3:5 In the morning, O LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning, I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation. Psalm 27:14, Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD. Psalm 33:20, We wait in hope for the LORD; he is our help and our shield. Psalm 37:7 Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; do not fret when I succeed in their ways when they carry out their wicked schemes. Psalm 37:24: Wait for the LORD and keep his way. He will exalt you to inherit the land; you will see it when the wicked are cut off. Psalm 38:15 I wait for you, O LORD; you will answer, O Lord my God. Proverbs 20:22: Do not say, "I'll pay you back for this wrong!" Wait for the LORD, and he will deliver you.
One aspect of faith in God is our patience with Him and with each other. Just think of the consequences that one person's act can have on the course of history. We see ourselves as insignificant little people with little heads, but we have bullets in our guns; our children are these bullets, and if we do not take care to aim and shoot straight with these bullets, we might look at the results that might take place down the road in human history.
We have good promises from God. Like Sarah and Abraham, we only sometimes see the promises pan out immediately. There are things God has promised every one of us for which we wait. Sometimes, our impatience is visible, and sometimes, our patience is visible. We must continue to "Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him."
In the future history of Israel, Rebecca, Jacob's mother, had the same attitude and impatience that Sarah had. She brought about the deep rift between Jacob and his brother Esau, whose seed later joined in with the descendants of Ishmael and made up the Arab people. Genesis 28:9. " Then went Esau unto Ishmael, and took unto the wives which he had Mahalath the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham's son, the sister of Nebajoth, to be his wife."
Amalek came from the union between Ishmael and Esau, Israel's bitterest enemy.
Abraham's character.
The best word to describe Abraham's character is "he believed." From the beginning, God asked Abraham to leave his land in Mesopotamia, He believed. Lot, Abraham's nephew, wanted the best land for his flock, and Abraham gave it to him without an argument. In the business world, he would be described as a dunce. Abraham wanted to avoid taking advantage of anyone, or for anyone to hold a claim over him. 4 Even when things had been going for years, and Abraham was wandering from the land of Canaan, from one tent encampment to another, he still believed God's promises: "Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to me as righteousness" (Genesis 15:6).
Can we learn from Abraham about the character of a "Believer"?
When we read about "having faith" in the New Testament - and we see Abraham used as the prime example of that "faith" - we ought to take into consideration Abraham's actions. We know very little about the "doctrinal" statements that Abraham would have been willing to sign, the position about the Millennium, and what his Christology would have held.
What we know about Abraham's faith is that he submitted to the Lord, waited for the Lord, and obeyed the Lord. These are simple things, but these are the things that we often need to recognize.