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In part 5 of the “Awesome Hands” of God study, we have learned that though the Lord comes to us and we call on His name in the wilderness, it is during this time that we really don’t have much faith to begin with.

We always want to get the show on the road and do something for God once we know He is working in our lives. However, because we want to do it in our way and our time, we will reap what we sow.

Through all of this, it is the Lord who directs our steps to bring good from it because while we are yet not in the fullness of faith, the Lord can and will use us to save our brethren. We are called behind in no gift, but we have yet to move on to have our seed come to fruition.

As we have seen with Abram, we are to go to war and battle those who are our enemies. They will be delivered into our hands but unlike a tenth that was instituted as type and shadow; the promise will be given to those who are completely the Lords …. and that is when we take on His new name… being renamed in Abraham and Sara.

Last study in part 6, we saw how we continue to move towards “getting things done quickly” in our lives but ultimately the Lord will bring about whatever He wills so that “good” can come to us and “those with us”, later.

We also saw that as the type and shadow shows us, we like Abram tithe only what we need to, but we make sure that the “3 brothers” that helped us free Lot get paid in full.

These three brothers who help us free our brother’s son are paid and we see a vision sent of the Lord that leads us asking the Lord what He is going to do for us!

In our vision of the Lord we ask for proof that the Lord will do what He says, so the Lord gives us a clear example of us being separated from our brethren.

As we believe on the Lord, we are given to know what the Lord has planned for us and our seed but of course we want proof and we are going to get it!

Gen 15:7 –  And he said to him, “I am the LORD who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.”

Gen 15:8 –  But he said, “ O Lord GOD, how am I to know that I shall possess it?”

Gen 15:9 –  He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.”

See, the Lord is going to separate us from our brethren SO CONCRETELY that the flame of the Word of God will be the great divide. It will be the flame of the Word of God which will separate us, the beast.

This is the proof, sacrifice and covenant the Lord is making with Abram and the seed of promise. Abram will be RENAMED though and is just now learning what this coat of many colors means.

Gen 15:10 –  And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half.

Gen 15:11 –  And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.

Gen 15:12 –  As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him.

It is in the deep sleep of the night that the Lord marks out the steps we will take. It is when we are in the darkness, yet to arise into newness of the day that we are given our instruction. It is a done deal. It is accomplished and here is your proof you seed of promise.

Gen 15:17 –  And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces.

Gen 15:18 –  In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates:

Gen 15:19 –  The Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites,

Gen 15:20 –  And the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaims,

Gen 15:21 –  And the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.

The Lord will separate us in the midst, in the middle. He will thoroughly and succinctly do His work but it is the vision that gets us all excited again.

In our youthfulness, we as Abram start listening to our wife and want to once again get the show on the road and this is so that we can have the perfection of the flesh in everything it has to offer…. which IS NOTHING to the Lord.

What we have to offer to the Lord is not sacrifice but obedience and that is why Ishmael is not the seed whom will be taken to the altar to test our faith.

In this study, we will be moving quickly through the happenings between our last occurrence of “hands” mentioned in Gen 16 to now seeing Lot in a very tight spot.

New Name

At the end of chapter 16, we see Ishmael being born.  With the birth of Ishmael, we see the division being born that the Lord has told us He is going to use to prove to us with HOW we are going to possess the land.

Hagar has been told that her son and his seed will be blessed and this sets the tone for chapter 17.

Gen 17:1 –  And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect.

Gen 17:2 –  And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly.

Gen 17:3 –  And Abram fell on his face: and God talked with him, saying,

Gen 17:4 –  As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations.

Gen 17:5 –  Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee.

Gen 17:6 –  And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee.

Gen 17:7 –  And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee.

Of course, after hearing all of the blessings that the Lord is giving Abraham and his seed, Abraham laughs at the Lord and tells the Lord that he prefers Ishmael.

Gen 17:15 –  And God said unto Abraham, As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be.

Gen 17:16 –  And I will bless her, and give thee a son also of her: yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be of her.

Gen 17:17 –  Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear?

Gen 17:18 –  And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before thee!

So, the Lord hears Abraham’s petitions and blesses Ishmael’s seed as well:

Gen 17:19 –  And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him.

Gen 17:20 –  And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee: Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation.

Gen 17:21 –  But my covenant will I establish with Isaac, which Sarah shall bear unto thee at this set time in the next year.

Gen 17:22 –  And he left off talking with him, and God went up from Abraham.

Heat of the Day

Now that we are getting closer to the word hand or “yad” as it is in the Hebrew text for this study, we will see a very interesting story building up in chapter 18 leading into Chapter 19 verse 10.

Abraham has thus far gone through a lot of trials, wars, visions, children being born, etc. and now he is about to see three strange men.

Gen 18:1 –  And the LORD appeared unto him in the plains of Mamre: and he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day;

Gen 18:2 –  And he lift up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood by him: and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself toward the ground,

Gen 18:3 –  And said, My Lord, if now I have found favour in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant:

Gen 18:4 –  Let a little water, I pray you, be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree:

Gen 18:5 –  And I will fetch a morsel of bread, and comfort ye your hearts; after that ye shall pass on: for therefore are ye come to your servant. And they said, So do, as thou hast said.

Now, Sarah is told she is going to have Isaac and she laughs in her heart about it. Unlike Abraham, she denies it and this denial can be linked to Lot’s wife being turned to salt after looking back. Here we are, laughing at the Lord who is supernaturally speaking to us and then we DENY it to the same…what nerve we have to speak to our Lord!

It is in the heat of the day that we have started this part of our walk with the Lord, and now in this heat we will draw near to the Lord and presume to speak against His actions.

Gen 18:19 –  For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do justice and judgment; that the LORD may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him.

Gen 18:20 –  And the LORD said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous;

Gen 18:21 –  I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know.

Gen 18:22 –  And the men turned their faces from thence, and went toward Sodom: but Abraham stood yet before the LORD.

Gen 18:23 –  And Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked?

If you have been following the studies up until this point, then you will remember a point that was emphasized in another study or two back about Abraham and Lot being separated.

Abram asks the Lord how will know that he will possess the land and the Lord responds to Abram with a vision and a sacrifice. The sacrifice is interesting because the beast is cut down the middle and fire separates the two sides. This was talked about in type and shadow as being the old and new man, natural flesh versus the spiritual new Adam.

Now, we have a similar concept in type and shadow because as Abraham goes about speaking with the Lord about what the Lord is about to send these three men to do to Sodom and Gomorrah.

This of course is where Lot is and Abraham is now going to save his brethren again in type and shadow by being used of the Lord to be put in the place to “question God”.

How many of us are familiar with looking back and seeing our behavior and reflecting on just how child like it is compared to how we know to act now?

Well, this is all appointed for its purpose and the Lord uses this time to prepare us to do His work.

It is actually going to be these same men going down to meet Lot that save him from the carnage and wrath that is about to hit these places and people. However, as we already know that the Lord is going to not even find 10 that are righteous. We know this is the case because we read:

Gen 18:16 –  And the men rose up from thence, and looked toward Sodom: and Abraham went with them to bring them on the way.

Gen 18:17 –  And the LORD said, Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do;

 

Sodom at Even

As this entire study builds up to verse 10 of chapter 19, we can now see a large scenario having been played out all at the hands of the Lord so that now we have His messengers ready to deliver judgment to Sodom of Gomorrah and all that dwell there.

The Lord has hid this from Abraham and answers Abraham according to Abraham’s questions and level of understanding because as the Lord states, “I know Abraham and that he will command his children and his household after him [ follow me as I follow Christ]” but rest assured that the Lord has everything in His hands in perfect control and that includes the impending doom on coming.

Now, starting in chapter 19 we see the messengers of God who are about to deliver judgment but they have one last thing to do and it starts at the evening.

Gen 19:1 –  And there came two angels to Sodom at even; and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom: and Lot seeing them rose up to meet them; and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground;

Gen 19:2 –  And he said, Behold now, my lords, turn in, I pray you, into your servant’s house, and tarry all night, and wash your feet, and ye shall rise up early, and go on your ways. And they said, Nay; but we will abide in the street all night.

Gen 19:3 –  And he pressed upon them greatly; and they turned in unto him, and entered into his house; and he made them a feast, and did bake unleavened bread, and they did eat.

With Abraham, the one half of the beast which will be domesticated, the Lord speaks with the new Adam and answers his questions.

He knows this new Adam has judgment as typified in Abraham but with Abraham’s brother in the type and shadow, the other side of the sacrificed beast, we see that we meet the servants of the Lords, the angels coming to the GREAT AND TERRIBLE CITY.

We now have these two angels, these two witnesses coming to see if the cries of the cities are true and coming with the wrath of God in tow. Where else have we seen two witnesses in the street?

Deu 17:6 –  At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, shall he that is worthy of death be put to death; but at the mouth of one witness he shall not be put to death.

Rev 11:3 –  And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth.

With Abraham, we had three messengers come in the heat of the day to deliver the will of the Lord. We feed them, bath their feet their very walk and we see the process of judgment in their numbers.

With Lot, we see death coming in the evening, in the night where the two witnesses will lay dead or LAY DEATH in their wake and Lot was in the gate to meet these men.

As the evening started well with Lot, it quickly turned bad as the “heat of the night” increased.

Gen 19:4 –  But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both old and young, all the people from every quarter:

Gen 19:5 –  And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them.

Sodom was so wicked that as the night came to the point where it is time to go to bed, those “of the city” wanted to have “know” these witnesses of God. This is the same “knowing” or the Hebrew word “yada” that we see here:

Gen 4:1 –  And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.

So, Lot wants nothing of the sort to happen and then goes about trying to remedy this problem on his own by offering up his two virgin daughters.

Gen 19:6 –  And Lot went out at the door unto them, and shut the door after him,

Gen 19:7 –  And said, I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly.

Gen 19:8 –  Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof.

Gen 19:9 –  And they said, Stand back. And they said again, This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a judge: now will we deal worse with thee, than with them. And they pressed sore upon the man, even Lot, and came near to break the door.

Alas, these men of Sodom are having nothing of it and actually intend to do worse to Lot than they were going to do to the men staying with Lot. They say to Lot, “who are you to judge us just being a sojourner”.

I would think it is about time to go, but as the Lord willed it, Lot was scooped back up into the house just in time for them to blind everyone outside. The hands of the Lord are being used in via the messengers of God to save those who are righteous.

Gen 19:10 –  But the men put forth their hand, and pulled Lot into the house to them, and shut to the door.

Gen 19:11 –  And they smote the men that were at the door of the house with blindness, both small and great: so that they wearied themselves to find the door.

Gen 19:12 –  And the men said unto Lot, Hast thou here any besides? son in law, and thy sons, and thy daughters, and whatsoever thou hast in the city, bring them out of this place:

Gen 19:13 –  For we will destroy this place, because the cry of them is waxen great before the face of the LORD; and the LORD hath sent us to destroy it.

Gen 19:14 –  And Lot went out, and spake unto his sons in law, which married his daughters, and said, Up, get you out of this place; for the LORD will destroy this city. But he seemed as one that mocked unto his sons in law.

I don’t know about all of you, but I know exactly how Lot must have felt. Probably the same as Noah felt when he preached to everyone that a flood is coming.

Here is Lot letting everyone in his family know it is time to go and surely letting them all know what just happened to him at this house. His sons in laws just mock him though. Talk about thick heads the Lord give us all!

In the end, only 4 folks are going to be saved from this destruction…. half of those on the arc…because this is half of what was saved on the arc. The BEASTS are saved with NOAH and his family, the old man is saved with the new man.

The wheat is saved with the tares until the harvest, but this is all a process because even at the beginning of this process we have one casualty early because we have Lot’s wife looking back having actually gotten past the first wave of destruction.

Gen 19:15 –  And when the morning arose, then the angels hastened Lot, saying, Arise, take thy wife, and thy two daughters, which are here; lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city.

Gen 19:16 –  And while he lingered, the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two daughters; the LORD being merciful unto him: and they brought him forth, and set him without the city.

Gen 19:17 –  And it came to pass, when they had brought them forth abroad, that he said, Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed.

At this point in our walk, we are told NOT to look behind us but why could that be? Let us see what Sodom and Gomorrah represent and see if we can glean anything from this.

Rev 11:8 –  And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.

Did you notice a few minutes ago that the angels of the Lord told Lot that they must abide in the street all night? Do you think that witness has anything to do with the Revelation of Jesus Christ?

The very reason we aren’t to look back is that we are being delivered from the evil the Lord has willed on those around us and we are not to want to go back to what we have been rescued from just as Israel…the wife of God, wanted to go back to Egypt. There are reasons the Lord “calls His Son up out of Egypt”.

Rev 11:9 –  And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies three days and an half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves.

Rev 11:10 –  And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth.

Rev 11:11 –  And after three days and an half the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them.

Rev 11:12 –  And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them.

Rev 11:13 –  And the same hour was there a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell, and in the earthquake were slain of men seven thousand: and the remnant were affrighted, and gave glory to the God of heaven.

Our enemies will look upon this spectacle and see that the Lord will tell His witnesses to to STAND upon their feet and ascend to heaven…. just the Way Christ shows us.

We are not to look back and long after this time in our life when there was so much of the Lord Christ lacking in it. That is WHY the city is being destroyed, so DON’T LONG to look back towards that from which you have been called and chosen to be saved from.

Gen 19:24 –  Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven;

Gen 19:25 –  And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.

Gen 19:26 –  But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.

 

Conclusion of Awesome Hands Part 7

Gen 19:18 –  And Lot said unto them, Oh, not so, my Lord:

Gen 19:19 –  Behold now, thy servant hath found grace in thy sight, and thou hast magnified thy mercy, which thou hast shewed unto me in saving my life; and I cannot escape to the mountain, lest some evil take me, and I die:

Gen 19:20 –  Behold now, this city is near to flee unto, and it is a little one: Oh, let me escape thither, (is it not a little one?) and my soul shall live.

Gen 19:21 –  And he said unto him, See, I have accepted thee concerning this thing also, that I will not overthrow this city, for the which thou hast spoken.

Gen 19:22 –  Haste thee, escape thither; for I cannot do any thing till thou be come thither.

Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar.

Even with all that the Lord has done for us up until the point, even after sending deliverers to save us from the coming destruction, we want to plead with the Lord that we are gonna die.  He is going to deliver us, but each time we contend with the Lord about saving us it is interesting to note that He then allows us to reap what we sow. Out doubt, our lack of Faith, leads towards more death….. in this case, the death of our wife.

Gen 19:23 –  The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot entered into Zoar.

Gen 19:24 –  Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven;

Gen 19:25 –  And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.

Gen 19:26 –  But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.

At different parts of our walk with the Lord, we can see Him working His will so that when we don’t have judgment He sends His messengers to dwell with us in “our house” so that we can be saved from the inhabitants of the land that are going to be destroyed.

During the heat of the day, and while we dwell in the door of the tent, we see the Lord working His judgment in us so that we can later have the fruits of the promised covenant be born in us.

All of these types and shadows happen in us and to us so that we can go through the process of bearing the fruit that leads to aionion life and not towards reaping what only decays.

Next study, we will continue to look at the work of the awesome hands of the Lord in Gen 20:5  as He continues to work with us in our lives and as we continue to do everything in our power to preserve ourselves even given all that the Lord has done for us thus far.>