“And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Ge 15:16.
God is making covenant with Abraham here in chapter 15, beyond the first covenant, this seems to be a detailed consummation.
We must know when God enters into covenant with us at His initiation it is very specific in the timing and the mode that things will come to pass. Once we know this our patience in any given situation whilst tried is assured reward. For Abraham, what he saw as the vision is found in Hebrews 11:10
10 For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Heb 11:10.
This represents an insight into what Abraham was seeing from God. Community in its essence as a divine project, and a city, with habitations for God and man. Habitation denotes place, community denotes love. And in Genesis 15 where we base today’s message is detailing the timing that it would be worked out over 4 generations.
It is a little ingenuous that today’s aspiring “prophets” to base much of their prophetic statements based on this generation. God does not usually work on one generation exclusivity when you see Joel and Malachi speak this way. They talk of two generations for the outpouring of reconciliation and the Holy Spirit.
There is a reason for 4 generations, there are transitions to be walked through, both on the covenantal side and the side of iniquity. There is a waiting period for when the sin of the Amorites is full. This is what we are focussing on here concerning the key element in God’s purposes, is the the principle of how fullness is a trigger to bring change. It is a trigger for those to whom God covenants with, and those who work iniquity, for God knows when the sin comes to fullness or maturity for judgment to fall. It seems that this judgment is the doorway that the righteous come to their covenanted inheritance. We see this principle in Jesus’ death on Calvary’s cross, that the fullness of sin and judgment is applied to Jesus on that Cross and we walk through that door into our covenanted inheritance. This inheritance is phased, particularly as it contrasts to the covenant of Abraham, which speaks of a physical inheritance, whilst in Christ we have a spiritual inheritance. This spiritual and eternal inheritance is first meted out in the Holy Spirit, being the guarantor of our eventual inheritance in a New Heaven and New Earth.
Then there is the question of why the covenant with Abraham took 4 generations. It is that there were particularly two major transitions. The fact that Abraham and Sarah had to become a family, which was miraculous as Hebrews tells us:
11 By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. 12 Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Heb 11:11–12.
From this transition in Isaac, there was a further transition in Jacob, in that this same family transitioned to become a nation. It is this nation which multiplies and reaches a place where God Himself fetches them out of Egypt with 10 judgments. It is these same judgments that are present at the end of the age and appear in Revelation also.
What strikes me reading and researching the whole issue of fulness and how it is a trigger for judgment and recompense, leads me to believe that however worldly commentators today breeding fear and terror over the earth is not the destiny of the saints. We like first Israel are going to be brought through the judgments and that He Himself is going to fetch us out as He did the children of Israel.
The difference between the inheritances, in that Abraham looked for a city, and Jerusalem is the pinnacle of this through David, the eternal inheritance for Abraham’s descendents is only unlocked in their collective revelation in Zechariah 12:10
10 “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn. 11 On that day the mourning in Jerusalem will be as great as the mourning for Hadad-rimmon in the plain of Megiddo. 12 The land shall mourn, each family by itself: the family of the house of David by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of the house of Nathan by itself, and their wives by themselves; 13 the family of the house of Levi by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of the Shimeites by itself, and their wives by themselves; 14 and all the families that are left, each by itself, and their wives by themselves.
13 “On that day there shall be a fountain opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness.
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Zec 12:10–13:1.
Here God is revealing to His prophet the way He made for those who are blood descendents to access a eternal place via the revelation of their “rejected” Messiah. I did not want to devalue the covenant of Abraham, but needed to describe the differences and how God resolves each to honour the one God made covenant with. There are Houses represented here that are indicative of our future streams in God, 1. The House of David: Kingly. 2. The House of Nathan: Prophet 3. The House of Levi: Priest. These 3 streams are present with us in the Church also. God did not substitute His covenants to abolish the last, Jesus fulfilled all covenants, and made a better covenant based on better promises. This covenant in no time abolishes any of the others.
Therefore as we compare how He brings out His people by bringing His people through the judgments but they are not involved…God reserved them Goshen, and there was no plague, no darkness in Goshen. They pass from slavery in Egypt to freedom through the ultimate judgment on the King. Governments are going to be judged by the fullness they reach, as did the Amorites. This final Antichrist Beast system is going to go through the ultimate judgment, and the seeds of this we see today. When religious power aligns with financial and political power we are seeing the platform forming for the Antichrist.
So many of the former judgments are patterns for future ones. Tyranny seems to be cyclical in governments down history. We are seeing this again. We need to not fear, but trust in Him who makes and has made covenant with us by His own Blood. We shall be brought through, and the key is when wickedness comes to fullness we enter through our door of deliverance, God fetches us out by His Lamb, and gives us great spoil.
What we can be assured is that whilst forces will wage war against His Church they shall all be vanquished, and His Saints will come forth with the cloud and pillar of fire! When our sighs come forth, as in Exodus 3, they reach the Throne and God sends again His Moses, who is Christ. He will come to bring us through fulness, through judgment to our eternal recompense!
Maranatha!
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