Friday, June 1, 2012

TRACE the SEED

Born with the birth name of Abram, God's word tells us in the book of Genesis that Abraham is a descendant of Noah's son, Shem. TRACE the SEED of Creaton: Adam, Seth, Enos, Kenan, Mahalalel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah, Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Judah, Pharez, Hezron, Ram, Amminadab, Nahson, Salmon, Boaz, Obed, Jesse, David. Abram's wife Sarai offered her Egyptian handmaid, Hagar, to her husband Abram so that they could parent a child. Abram consented and had sexual intercourse with Hagar. A son was born and the Lord gave him the name of Ishmail. In our holy family history, another man was born BLIND and Jesus assured His friends that asked "was it his sin that caused him to go blind?" Jesus touched the man and asked him to go wash his eyes, that he may see for the first time. With our request, we ask Jesus to be our Lord, we ask Him to come live inside our hearts, and we are given His eyes, His understanding to know the mind of God through the scriptures. He took him outside and said, 'Look up at the heavens and count the stars - if indeed you can count them. Then he said to him, 'So shall your offspring be." Abram believed the Lord, and He credited it to him as righteousness." GEN 15 ~ Abram was 99 years old when God said "Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isacc." GEN 17:19 ~ Christians and Jews believe that Jesus is a descendant of Abraham. The Holy Spirit of God narrates the life of Abraham and his role as one that could only be fulfilled through a covenant, a promise, a contract established between him and God. "When God created man, He made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female and blessed them. An when they were created, he called them man. When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth. Adam lived 930 years and when Seth was 105 years old he became the father of Enosh. The Lord said, 'My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years." GENESIS 6:9 "Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God. ~ Noah stands out as a man of right conduct. Noah forewarned doom, by his preaching. However, the people sneered at Noah and called him demented, a man gone mad. Noah was 600 years old when the flood came. The waters flooded the earth for 150 days. After the flood, Noah built an alter to the Lord and sacrificed a burnt offering. "The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in His heart 'Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood." GEN 8:20 In the 10th chapter of Genesis, God lays out the clans that were born out of the sons of Noah. ~ Man began to use brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, 'come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth. But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. The Lord said, 'If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us fo down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other. So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel - because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world." GEN 11 The Book of Exodus is God's word, His story, our history of how God carried the seed of Abraham through a time when his people, the Children of Israel, were increasing in number. The Egyptian Pharaoh was worried that the Hebrews might help Egypt's enemies. A baby named Moses was hidden by his mother Jochebed when the Pharaoh ordered all newborn Hebrew boys to be killed. The mother places Moses in a basket and trusts God to take care of him. Moses was adopted as a foundling by the Egyptian royal family. DEUT 7:6 "For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession." After killing an Egyptian slave-master, Moses flees across the Red Sea to Midian where he has his encounter with the God of Israel in the form of the "burning bush". God sends the stuttering Moses to request the release of the Israelites. After Ten Plagues, the Hebrews are saved by spreading the blood of a lamb over their doorways. After this miraculous Passover ~ Moses leads the Exodus of the Jews out of Egypt and across the Red Sea. Camping as a free people at the base of Mount Sinai, they forget that God parted the Sea, fed them manna and begin to worship idols. Moses receives and delivers the Ten Commandments. After 40 years of wandering in the desert, Moses dies aged 120, within sight of the Promised Land. "It is the Lord who appointed Moses and Aaron and brought your forefathers up out of Egypt. Now then, stand here, because I am going to confront you with evidence before the Lord as to all the righteous acts performed by the Lord for you and your fathers." 1 SAM 12:6 ~ Hannah is one of two wives of Elkanah; the other, Peninnah, who bore children, but Hannah remained childless. Every year Elkanah would offer a sacrifice at the Shiloh sanctuary, and give Penninah and her children a portion but he gave Hannah a double portion "because he loved her, and the LORD had closed her womb" The barren Hannah prayed to God "I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him. So now I give him to the Lord. For his whole life he will be given over to the Lord." When Hannah prayed Eli thought she was drunk and questioned her. When she explained herself, he sent her away believing that her prayer would be heard and her desire granted. As promised, she conceived and bore a son. She called his name Samuel, saying that he was a gift from God. She raised him until he was weaned and brought him to the temple for the Priest Eli to raise. "And the Lord was gracious to Hannah; she conceived and gave birth to three sons and two daughters. Meanwhile, the boy Samuel grew up in the presence of the Lord....Samuel continued to grow in stature and in FAVOR with the Lord and with men." ~ Eli told Samuel, 'Go and lie down, and if He calls you, say, 'speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.'...The Lord came and stood there, calling as at the other times, "Samuel, Samuel!" Then Samuel said 'Speak, for your servant is listening. And the Lord said to Samuel: "See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of everyone who hears it tingle. At that time I will carry out against Eli everything I spoke against his family - from beginning to end. For I told him I would judge his family forever because of the sin he knew about; his sons made themselves contemptible, and he failed to restrain them. Therefore, I swore to the house of Eli, the guilt of Eli's house will never be atoned for by sacrifice or offering." ---- Samuel was afraid to tell Eli the vision, but Eli called him and said, 'Samuel, my son' Samuel answered, 'Here I am'....So Samuel told him everything, hiding nothing from him. Then Eli said, 'He is the Lord; let Him do what is good in His eyes.' The Lord was with Samuel as he grew up, and he let none of his words fall to the ground. And all Israel from Dan to Beersheba recognized that Samuel was attested as a prophet of the Lord. The Lord continued to appear at Shiloh, and there He revealed Himself to Samuel through His word." ~ So the people sent men to Shiloh, and they brought back the ark of the covenant of the Lord Almighty, who is enthroned between cherubim. And Eli's two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with the ark of the covenant of God. When the ark of the Lord's covenant came into the camp, all Israel raised such a great shout that the ground shook. Hearing the uproar, the Philistines asked, 'what's all this shouting in the Hebrew camp?' When they learned that the ark of the Lord had come into the camp, the Philistines were afraid. 'A god has come into the camp,' they said. We're in trouble! Nothing like this has happened before. Woe to us! Who will deliver us from the hand of these mighty gods? They are the gods who struck the Egyptians with all kinds of plagues in the desert. Be strong, Philistines! Be men, or you will be subject to the Hebrews, as they have been to you. Be men, and fight! So the Philistines fought, and the Israelites were defeated and every man fled to his tent. The slaughter was very great; Israel lost thirty thousand foot soldiers. The ark of God was captured, and Eli's two sons, Hophi and Phinehas, died. ~ When it was reported to the ninety year old Eli that his sons were dead - "When he mentioned the ark of God, Eli fell backward off his chair by the side of the gate. His neck was broken and he died, for he was an old man and heavy. He had led Israel for forty years." ~ LESSON: Eli was more concerned about the ark, than God's word. The ark became a relic he worshiped. His faith shifted from our Almighty Creator to the ark. It is easy for people to worship things, relics, artifacts, heros, or books we can hold, things that we can see. Tangible things have no power in themselves. The bible is either merely a respected relic, or it is the sharp, living and effective Word of God. What we think about God is shaped by what we study and come to know as we enter into a relationship with the truth about Who God is. We treasure things, antiques and relics and are careful to store them away. Store God's word in your heart as a treasure. His desire is that we come to love Him as He lavishly loves us. He created us with a free will, that we will call on Him, because He is trustworthy and faithful to His every word. God reveals in the books of Samuel, that Samuel also anointed the first two kings of the Kingdom of Israel: King Saul and King David. "After the Philistines had captured the ark of God, they took it from Ebenezer to Ashdod. Then they carried the ark into Dagon's temple and set it beside Dagon. 1 SAMUEL 1:27-4 ~ David brings the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem, intending to build a temple, but God, speaking to the prophet Nathan, forbids it, saying the temple must wait for a future generation. God makes a covenant with David, promising that he will establish the house of David eternally: "Your throne shall be established forever." ~ Tracing the seed to David HaMelekh, the King of Israel, and the Jewish people. As the second the second king of the united Kingdom of Israel, David is a direct descendant of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. David was born in Bethlehem, in the territory of the Tribe of Judah. His father was named Jesse. His mother is not named in the Bible. David had seven brothers and was the youngest of them all. He had eight wives: Michal, Ahinoam, Abigail, Maachah, Haggith; Abital; Eglah; and Bathsheba, previously the wife of Uriah the Hittite. David's sons by various wives and concubines are in Chronicles. He had six sons: Amnon, Daniel, Absalom, Adonijah, Shephatiah,Ithream,and his sons from Bathsheba are Shammua; Shobab; Nathan; and Solomon. David also had at least one daughter, Tamar by Maachah, who was raped by Amnon, her half-brother. Her brother Absalom kills Amnon for raping his sister. 2 Samuel 13:1-29 ~ Solomon, the son of David, also called Jedidiah in 2 Samuel 12:25, is described as the third king of the United Monarchy, and the final king before the northern Kingdom of Israel and the southern Kingdom of Judah split. King Solomon was the builder of the First Temple in Jerusalem. He prayed for wisdom, and received wealth, power and wisdom from God. His sins included idolatry and turning away from Yahweh. His kingdom was torn in two during the reign of his son Rehoboam. In a brief Bible passage the fame of Solomon's wisdom and wealth spread far and wide. The queen of Sheba decided that she should meet him. King Solomon gave her "all her desire, whatsoever she asked," she left satisfied. (1 Kings 10:10) In Ethiopian history, it is taught that the Queen of Sheba had sexual relations with King Solomon, the bible does not mention this. According to Ethiopa, the Queen gave birth to a son of Solomon. The boy became Menelik I, King of Axum, and founded a dynasty that would reign what became the Christian Empire of Ethiopia for 2900 years. Menelik was said to be a practising Jew, had been gifted with a replica Ark of the Covenant by King Solomon. The original ark was said to be switched and went to Axum and is still there to this day, guarded by a single priest charged with caring for the artifact as his life's task. The claim of such a lineage and of possession of the Ark has been an important source of legitimacy and prestige for Ethiopia. The Ethiopian government and church deny all requests to view the alleged ark. Rabbis have claimed instead that the child was an ancestor of Nebuchadnezzar II, who destroyed Solomon's temple some 300 years later.

1 comment:

  1. Monotheism = a covenant between a god and a people. A very specific interaction to fulfill a promise. The exemplar of the monotheistic covenant is the WORD between Yahweh and Abraham recounted in the Old Testament. Yahweh promises Abraham advantages in return for worship by Abraham and his tribe. This holy covenant was signed in blood, in the form of circumcision of all boy infants on their eighth day of life.

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