©Laura Haverkamp
Chapter 9:6-8 (ESV) - You are the Lord, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you. You are the Lord, the God who chose Abram and brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans and gave him the name Abraham. You found his heart faithful before you, and made with him the covenant to give to his offspring the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Jebusite, and the Girgashite. And you have kept your promise, for you are righteous.
Question to consider: Why did the people recognize that God alone made all things and called Abraham out of Ur?
Although the United States was founded according to biblical ideas and principles, we currently live in a culture much like Babylon. Our land is filled with people from all over the world who have a variety of gods and worship practices. Because of this, people will identify themselves with a particular religion but take on some of the ideas, superstitions, and practices of the surrounding culture. People who profess to be faithful Christians will be a firm believer in Karma or practice Yoga or meditation, not thinking about the fact that in doing so, they engage in the worship of other gods or even entertain demons in their practices. Some of these things may have crept in subtly, but now that they have taken hold in our culture, the ideas have become much more overt.
When confronted with the true Law of God, the people of Israel realized how far they had fallen away from Him and came together to pray for God’s mercy as they reoriented themselves to His word. The prayer began with a desire to bless God by recognizing the truth of what God has done in the world. Today’s passage begins with a recognition that everything on earth and in the heavens was created and is sustained by the only true God. God alone is worthy to be called Lord and God alone is worthy to be worshiped.
If you went through my studies of Genesis and Exodus, you may have noticed that the “heroes” of the faith like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses were portrayed in the Targums and Midrash as almost superhuman. Scripture does not portray them in the same manner. The hero of scripture is the Lord. If you read through the texts of man-made religions and mythologies, you’ll notice that their god(s) are portrayed as fallible and humans are elevated to hero or demi-god status.
The people of Israel in today’s passage recognized the truth and blessed God by proclaiming it. Because God exists, He has an opinion about how He wants us to show Him love. In Deuteronomy 6, God described what our love of Him should look like, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Deuteronomy 6:4-9) We bless God when we rightly proclaim who He is and what He has done so that others may also know Him.
God chose Abraham out of Ur. It was not Abraham who rejected the gods of Ur and sought after God. When it says, “You found his heart faithful before you,” the only thing faithful about Abraham was that he believed the promises of God and went out from Ur. God made the covenant and walked alone through the animal pieces so that its terms were not dependent upon the perfect work of Abraham but the righteous promises of God. God not only gave the descendants of Abraham the land, but He kept the promise of Abraham being a blessing to the nations through His righteous Son who paid for the sins of the whole world.
Dear heavenly Father, may we bless You by proclaiming the truth of Christ and His righteousness for us. May all who read this see and understand our need for Christ so that we may walk with You in newness of life. Amen.