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Scot

In Genesis, we soar through the stories of generations in a few pages, as if we were flying thousands of feet above them and getting the merest glimpse. Then suddenly we drop for a closer view for many chapters of one man and his family—Abraham.

He is not a stick figure with an interesting story who lived so long ago, we can’t relate, but someone central to the covenant blessings we depend on, whose story is so much richer than we ever know.

Three world religions claim Abraham—Judaism, Islam, and Christianity and he is a uniquely central person in history.

Hugh Nibley explained, “Abraham is squarely in the middle. All things seem to zero in on him. He has been called ‘the most pivotal and strategic figure in all of human history.’ In his position, [especially in his covenant with God], he binds all things together and gives meaning and purpose to everything that happened.”

Maurine

Hello, we’re Scot and Maurine Proctor and welcome to Meridian Magazine’s Come Follow Me podcast. Today we’re studying Genesis 11-18 and Abraham 1,2 where we come to know Abraham. When God made His covenant with Abraham, the course of history was changed and the entire world is blessed by His posterity and those promises. What happened in His life is repeated in the lives of the covenant children and the promises are sure.

E. Douglas Clark wrote, “Since the days of Abraham, in times of grave danger for the House of Israel, it is the God of Abraham who comes to their rescue as both God and His people remember Abraham and the covenant made to him. When the Israelites groaned under the heavy burden of Egyptian bondage, ‘God heard their groaning, and . . . remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob’ (Ex. 2:24)… He announced himself to Moses and his colleagues as ‘the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob’ (Ex. 3:6, 15–16). Later when Israel was about to be destroyed in the wilderness for worshiping the golden calf, Moses persuaded God to mercy by imploring Him to remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (see Ex. 32:13). ‘In each of these dangerous times,’ notes a prominent scholar, “the memory of Abraham induces a turn of mind and opens a possibility for overcoming a dire crisis.”

Scot

Clark continues,”Likewise at the commencement of the New Testament story, with Israel under Roman oppression, God’s impending intervention in sending His Son is hailed by [both] Mary and Zechariah praising God for rescuing Israel in remembrance of His covenant to Abraham (Luke 1:46–55, 68–79). A similar phenomenon is seen repeatedly in the Book of Mormon. Limhi’s people in bondage are counseled to ‘put your trust in God, in that God who was the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’ (Mosiah 7:19), while the three different reports of God delivering Alma’s people from bondage all emphasize that it was done only by the power of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Mosiah 23:23; Alma 29:11; 36:2).

“Later when the Nephite nation is delivered from their enemies, they declared: ‘May the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, protect this people in righteousness’ (3 Ne. 4:30). And when Moroni seeks to convince latter-day readers about the power of the Almighty, he promises to show them ‘a God of miracles, even the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’ (Morm. 9:11).

“What all these passages consistently presuppose is some kind of miraculous deliverance of Abraham himself, momentous enough to inspire his future descendants to trust in that same God for their own deliverance in the face of otherwise impossible odds. (E. Douglas Clark, The Blessings of Abraham: Becoming a Zion People, Salt Lake City: Covenant Communications, 2005).

Maurine

God is introduced, and blessings are sought for in the name of their covenant with Him. That’s how important it is. God will protect, rescue and prosper His people, not only because He is God, but because they have made a covenant with Him that puts them in a special position to receive rescue and other bounteous blessings. In the covenant, God says to his needy children, “I will come,” and his faithful, covenant children answer, “I know you will.”

The restoration has given us a more personal look at Abraham than we receive in Genesis, because in the Book of Abraham, he speaks in first person, starting with this verse I have always loved and gives us an intimate look at his heart. What kind of person does the Lord bless? This kind of person.

Abraham said, “Finding there was greater happiness and peace and rest for me, I sought for the blessings of the fathers, and the right whereunto I should be ordained to administer the same; having been myself a follower of righteousness, desiring also to be one who possessed great knowledge, and to be a greater follower of righteousness, and to possess a greater knowledge, and to be a father of many nations, a prince of peace, and desiring  to receive instructions, and to keep the commandments of God, I became a rightful heir, a High Priest, holding the right belonging to the fathers” (Abraham 1:2).

Scot

There is a bold seeking in this. He has been a follower of righteousness, but he wants to be a greater follower. He has sought knowledge, but he wants to possess a greater knowledge. He has a sense there is so much more.  He is hungry, willing to give up home and all he has known to go on this quest. It makes me wonder. Do we become too easily satisfied with where we are?  Are we complacent? Or offended that the Lord would ask anything of us? Elder Neal A. Maxwell said, “To those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, it is clear that the Father and the Son are giving away the secrets of the universe!” (Neal A. Maxwell, “Meek and Lowly”, Brigham Young University devotional, Oct. 21, 1986. Are we willing to channel our energy to receive those secrets? Do we want what we want enough or are we resistant?

Our lives are ultimately shaped around what we really want and wanting God  the most changes everything.

Maurine

In my soul, I feel this overpowering urge to be close to God. I want to be a greater follower of righteousness. What stops me?

Wendy Ulrich wrote of a powerful experience she had with God.

She said, ““I had learned to speak freely to God of my desires for His blessings, my concerns for those I love, my struggles and gratitudes and hopes. But on that day I don’t recall that I was particularly concerned about anyone, nor was I upset or worried. 

“I was simply gazing at the distant sky and talking to God as I often did about whatever was on my mind when a still, small voice startled me by talking back. Out of the blue (pretty literally), the questions came clearly and distinctly into my mind:

“Why do you keep me so far away?

Scot

She said, “The question stopped me cold—both because it wasn’t often that I had such a direct experience of the Spirit speaking words to me, and because the question itself caught me completely off guard. Most of my life I have wanted—longed,in fact, to feel closer to God. I certainly never thought I was the one who kept Him at a distance. Not intentionally, and not consciously. I could feel my mind sort of grind to a stop; I was sputtering and stammering and blinking in confusion. I could not quite imagine what to think, but the implication of the question was clear: God was inviting me to invite Him closer. For right now, at least, I was in charge of the distance I felt between us.

That is an expansive thought—that we are in charge of the distance between us and God. He doesn’t move away. We do.

Maurine

Something else stands out in this verse in Abraham 1. I was struggling one day with a prayer that seemed unanswered and unanswered and wondered, “Heavenly Father, do you even hear me?”  I was impressed to turn to this verse about Abraham’s wanting to be a greater follower of righteousness. In the next chapter, his prayer is fulfilled far beyond expectation. The Lord comes to him and gives him the covenant.

Abraham said, “Now, after the Lord had withdrawn from speaking to me and withdrawn his face from me, I said in my heart: Thy servant has sought thee earnestly; now I have found thee” (Abraham 2:12).

It felt like a direct answer to my prayer. Abraham asked, and he was answered. If I ask, I too will be answered in God’s own time and way with the blessings he has prepared for me.

Scot

Yet, there is still a larger context to this.

Abraham says, “Finding there was greater happiness and peace and rest for me, I sought the blessings of the fathers, and the right whereunto I should be ordained to administer the same” and “desiring to receive instructions, and to keep the commandments of God, I became a rightful heir, a High Priest, holding the right belonging to the fathers.

“It was conferred upon me from the fathers; it came down from the fathers, from the beginning of time, yea, even from the beginning, or before the foundation of the earth, down to the present time, even the right of the firstborn, or the first man, who is Adam, or first father through the fathers unto me.

“I sought for mine appointment unto the Priesthood according to the appointment of God unto the fathers concerning the seed” (Abraham 1:2-4). He was seeking the priesthood, the covenants and a re-ordering of the world where Zion, God’s way of living was possible.

Maurine

According to Jewish sources, there are ten generations between Noah and Abraham, and Abraham would have been in the direct patriarchal line, the rightful heir to receive and administer the priesthood with its accompanying covenants. The priesthood and these covenants were from the beginning. Adam received them. But Abraham lived in a world turned wicked and wild where these had been lost. He was alone in a world without Zion.

Now, here and often during this podcast, we will turn to insights gathered by E. Douglas Clark and shared in a book called The Blessings of Abraham. We can’t recommend this book highly enough for understanding Abraham. It was decades in the making as Clark combed ancient sources in many traditions that speak of Abraham, many of which have only become available to us only in the last century. Parallels abound in what Joseph gave us both in the Book of Abraham and the JST-Genesis with these other sources

Scot

Abraham was born in Ur of Chaldees, which most Latter-day Saint scholars take to be in the land that is today Turkey. Noah’s children, according to the Book of Jubilees had begun “to fight one another, to take captive, and to kill one another; to shed human blood on the earth, to consume blood; to build fortified cities, walls, and towers, men to elevate themselves over peoples…people against people, nations against nations, city against city.” They made molten images to themselves, sold men and women as slaves. The art of warfare had reached its highest pitch. ”The savage ones were leading them so that they would commit sins, impurities, and transgression” in the darkness of every sort.

Instead of the rightful heir of the priesthood, Abraham, creating Zion, there was a pretender on the throne, whom tradition names as Nimrod. The name Nimrod seems to derive from a Hebrew word that means “to rebel” while tradition remembers him as “a deceiver.” Clark says that “according to Jewish sources, his claim of divine authority to rule the world was based on the patriarchal garment he had in his possession, the garment handed down from Adam through Noah and then stolen from him.” With his magnificent building projects, his idol worship, Nimrod ruled as the very “antithesis of Zion.” He was a pretender on the throne in the same vein as Satan wished to take God’s place.

Clark said, “Nimrod had subdued nations and extended his kingdom far and wide, and he is remembered in legend as one of the most ruthlessly effective conquerors ever.”

Maurine

Terah, Abraham’s father worked in this world of palace intrigue and idol worship, perhaps second only to Nimrod himself, and so into this very dark world Abraham was born. It was a place where Abraham was exposed and had access to the most learned minds and advanced thinking of the day. Yet, when he was very young Abraham began to ponder the heavens and wonder about its sublime order and who moved it.  Hugh Nibley noted, “From infancy he was asking searching questions about God, the cosmos, and the ways of men.” At a young age, he began to understand something about the nature of God. Nibley says, Young Abraham “was alone with God, dependent on no man and no tradition, beginning as it were from scratch…Having no human teachers, he must think things out for himself, until he receives light from above.”

“God inspired Abraham,” declared Elder Wilford Woodruff, “and his eyes were opened so that he saw and understood something of the dealings of the Lord with the children of men. He understood that there was a God in heaven, a living and true God, and that no man should worship any other god but Him”.

Scot

Abraham’s people had ostentatious ceremonies and incantations around their idols, which was just an excuse, of course, to legitimize them and any supreme crime or cruelty they sought to commit. A story not found in the Bible, but in the Qur’an, many Jewish sources and repeated by Brigham Young, John Taylor, and Wilford Woodruff is that young Abraham found himself alone in a room full of idols during a major religious festival called by King Nimrod himself. It is recounted this way. [Abraham] took an axe in his hand, and as he saw the idols of the king sitting, he said, ‘The Eternal, He is God” and pushed them off their thrones to the ground, and he smote them mightily. With the large ones he began, and with the small ones he finished. He lopped off this one’s hands, he cut off this one’s head and blinded this one’s eyes, and he broke that one’s legs’ until ‘all of them were broken.’ Then placing ‘the axe in the hand of the largest idol,’ Abraham left.

“When his father and the king returned and discovered the wreckage, they were wroth. ‘The king commanded that Abraham be brought before him. And they brought him. The king and his ministers said to him, ‘Why did you shatter our gods?’ He said to them, ‘I didn’t break them, no. Rather the large one of them smashed them. Don’t you see that the axe is in his hand? And if you won’t believe it, ask him and he will tell.’ And as [the king] heard his words, he became angry to the point of killing him.’” (Clark, pg. 47).

Maurine

The young Abraham, like Joseph Smith after him, was in trouble with his world—and it was a dangerous world to cross. He was denounced and scorned, reviled and cursed because he was true to the living God. The traditions are that he was imprisoned many times, and finally in this world of human sacrifice, he was offered up as a human sacrifice himself, at the instigation of  Terah, his own father.  Abraham tells us that they offered “up their children unto these dumb idols” (Abraham 1:7). We read that the “priest had offered upon this altar three virgins at one time, who were the daughters of Onitah…offered up we are told “because of their virtue; they would not bow down to worship gods of wood or of stone; therefore they were killed upon this altar, and it was done after the manner of the Egyptians” (Abraham 1:11).

Two points about this. First, we know that Abraham will be saved from this death by an angel, but, what about the three virgins of Onitah? God spares some from certain tragedies and not others, and that is the hour when complete faith is required. How much we would like to be the one spared, yet it is noteworthy that the entire future of the earth hung in the balance when Abraham was upon that altar—for it was designed that through his posterity the covenant would be carried.

Scot

Second, Egypt’s cultural influence had spread to be important here in northern Mesopotamia.  It is Pharoah’s priest who is going to perform the sacrifice to four Egyptian gods. Abraham gives us their names—Elkenah, Libnah, Mahmackrah, and Korash. When the book of Abraham was first published, people hooted at both those ideas, calling Joseph Smith a fool who wrote fiction. Egypt didn’t have influence this far into Mesopatamia and there were no Egyptian gods with these names. Long after publication, scholars changed their minds. Egypt did, in fact, have this reach, and they have found three of these four names as accurate for Egyptian gods. That this record, the book of Abraham, reflects that suggests something of its ancient origins or you’d have to say that Joseph Smith was a very, very good guesser.

The Book of Abraham tells us of a place of sacrificial offering “called Potiphar’s Hill at the head of the plain of Olishem” where Abraham was taken and laid on the altar of sacrifice depicted in Facsimile No. 1 in the Pearl of Great Price. This was not a small, private gathering, but a plain of assembly, an ancient cult place where a vast audience could be assembled to watch the sacrifice. Potiphar’s Hill may have been an elevated mound, hill, tower or zigguraut. Jewish traditions tells of a vast audience assembled: ’’ the king’s servants, princes, lords, governors and judges, and all the inhabitants of the land, about nine hundred thousand” came “to see Abram. And all the women and little ones crowded…together…; and there was not a man left that did not come on that day to behold the scene” (Clark, p. 54).

Maurine

In the Book of Abraham, he says, “As they lifted up their hands upon me, that they might offer me up and take away my life, behold, I lifted up my voice unto the Lord my God, and the Lord hearkened and heard, and he filled me with the vision of the Almighty, and the angel of his presence stood by me, and immediately unloosed my bands;

“And his voice was unto me: ‘Abraham, Abraham, behold, my name is Jehovah, and I have heard thee, and have come down to deliver thee, and to take thee away from thy father’s house, and from all thy kinsfolk, into a strange land which thou knowest not of” (Abraham 1: 15,16).

Clark notes, “One can get some idea of the horrific scene from atop one of the pyramids at Teotihuacan outside Mexico City, where Aztec priests likewise sacrificed human beings in front of multitudes. Why the grandiose display? Because these were not just executions, but carefully staged rites designed by the ruling powers pursuant to an elaborately evil theology.”

In Abraham’s case, “the Lord broke down the altar of Elkenah, and the gods of the land and utterly destroyed them and smote the priest that he died; and there was great mourning in Chaldea” (Abraham 1:20). This may be because in Jewish and Muslim traditions, there is also description of a great earthquake and of a cataclysmic fire that consumed many thousands of onlookers.

Scot

What follows is a famine which “waxes sore” in Chaldea, killing Abraham’s brother Haran. Abraham takes Sarai to wife, and in an act of astonishing forgiveness, Abraham allows Terah, his father who had sought his life, to follow, as they all move to a land they call Haran. Terah temporary repents, but when the famine abated, he turned again to his idolatry.

Abraham also has with him something unparalleled and precious. Some traditions call it the chest of Adam which contained the books written by Adam, Seth, Enoch and more. Abraham says it this way:

“But the records of the fathers, even the patriarchs, concerning the right of Priesthood, the Lord my God preserved in mine own hands; therefore a knowledge of the beginning of the creation, and also of the planets, and of the stars, as they were made known unto the fathers, have I kept even unto this day” (Abraham 1:31).

Maurine

Clark said, “These records were written in a strange language, long since extinct, the original “language of creation. How was Abraham to read them?” We can think of another prophet, Joseph Smith, who had a similar dilemma, when he retrieved the record of the Nephites, written in an extinct language on gold plates, and the solution for both was the same. Joseph Smith was given a Urim and Thummim and so was Abraham.

Abraham tells us in Abraham 3:1, “And I, Abraham, had the Urim and Thummim, which the Lord my God had given unto me, in Ur of the Chaldees. In these records he learned about creation and covenants, priesthood and purity, faith and power, fall and atonement, and the precious role that Jehovah would play as Savior and Redeemer.

Scot

Abraham and Sarah were widely known for their charity and hospitality, their love and nurture. They were the consummate missionaries, and when they left Haran 14 years later, they took with them many others whose hearts had turned to the gospel. In the records, we read that Sarah was not one whit behind her husband in loyalty, charity and devotion. In some records she is also called a seer and some suggest that Proverbs 31 is about her.

“Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies.

“The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil…

“She girdeth her loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms.

“She stretched out her hand to the poor; yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy.” (See Proverbs 31: 10-20).

Maurine

The time had come, in the land of Canaan, for the Lord to give a covenant to this remarkable son, Abraham. Sarah, too, would be essential, as it was only through her that a covenant child could come.

God’s dealings with man have always been about the covenant. 

Sacred history is about the covenant. As a covenant people, we are part of this huge sweep of history. Who is God? He has many attributes, but foremost, He is a covenant maker because that is the means, powered by the Savior’s Atonement of saving his children from a fallen world and from their own fallen natures. From eternity to all eternity, this is the way he does things. On this earth, covenants have been with us from the beginning.

Scot

The scriptures are essentially a history of the covenant. Another name for the Old Testament is the Old Covenant. The word testamentum  means a will or bequeathal. The New Testament is the New Covenant. The Book of Mormon, as we learn on the title page, is so that the Children of Israel may know the covenants of the Lord, and the Doctrine and Covenants is about the restoration of the covenant in the latter days.  

Kerry Muhlestein said that in the process of writing his book God Will Prevail, another of our favorite books, he “came to understand that the first and foremost aspect of the covenant, the concept on which everything hinged and from which everything flowed, was that God wanted an increased relationship with His children.”

Maurine

Muhlestein said,”God wants to have a different relationship with His children than they are capable of when they are both in and of this world. He wants us to take a step away from the world and towards Him. Because of this desire, He willingly binds Himself to us if we are only willing to bind ourselves to Him. This binding happens through an ordinance administered covenant, which allows His sanctifying power to enter us and change us into beings that are capable of being closer to Him, and which ties us to Him in an intimate and empowering relationship.

“We enter this covenant at baptism, where we become the seed of Abraham and Israel. We enter into it more fully in the temple. In all of these ordinances, priesthood power infuses us, sanctifying us and allowing us to have an ever-increasing relationship with God. Understanding this aspect of the covenant is crucial to understanding all the blessings that are promised to Israel.”

Scot

Muhlestein continues: “The foundational element of the covenant is that God will be God to Abraham and his seed (Genesis 17:7, 8; Exodus 6:7; Leviticus 26:12; Deuteronomy 29:13; Abraham 1:19, 2:7). This means so many things. It means that Abraham and his seed will worship God and God alone. It means that God will prevail in their lives above all other things. In return, God will take care of Abraham and his seed in the way that only God can. It also welds a special connection between covenanters and God, one in which they behave more like God and develop/receive a more godly nature as God aids them in this process. Covenants are about connections, and the primary connection is the one we make with God. This is one of the main reasons why the path God has chosen for us is the covenant path, because it has within it the ability to help us become what we need to become by helping us create an exalting connection with God.

“There are two covenant phrases that best capture this heightened relationship God is seeking for. The first is that God will be Israel’s God, and the corresponding second phrase is that they will be His people. These phrases are the most common way that the covenant is referred to. Whenever we read any form or part of these phrases, we should recognize it as a way of referring to the covenant. We should then pause and try to identify just what we are being taught about the covenant by the use of a covenant phrase. Yet beyond that, we should recognize that the phrase itself is teaching us something about the blessings of the covenant. It is teaching us about our relationship with God and how that relationship changes our very nature.”

Maurine

Muhlestein says, “This special relationship and changed nature is what makes Israel God’s people. As a result, they are promised that they will be a peculiar treasure, or a special people, to God (Exodus 19:5). They will also be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (Exodus 19:6). This is another way of describing and explaining that more godly nature and relationship we have been speaking of. As we form a new relationship with God, we become a new people. In fact, the new relationship created by being begotten of God can provide us with His nature as our new nature. We can become like Him. That is the idea behind the new relationship and why Israel is described as a holy nation or a kingdom of priests. The concept of a new and higher nature based on a new relationship with God was supposed to, and usually did, shape Israel’s identity. It should continue to do so today. The bond that the covenant forges causes us to interact with God differently, which causes us to enter into a higher plane and thus into a higher form of relationship.

“It is important to note that while experiencing a closer relationship with God is a glorious blessing that comes from the covenant, it is also our primary obligation within the covenant. The principal obligation for covenant holders is to keep the commandments. Within those commandments we know which is the greatest, and therefore which is the most important and primary of our obligations. ‘Ultimately, loving God is the fullest realization of what it means for Abraham, Sarah, and their seed to have God as their God (Genesis 17:7).’

Scot

Muhlestein continued, “When we remember that the purpose of the covenant is to increase our relationship with God, then it comes as no surprise that the great obligation is one that is designed to heighten that relationship.

“It is the connection with God that counts. In other words, the defining duty of covenant holders is to remember what God has done for them, to be grateful for it, and to serve God. But above all, both in terms of duty and how it defines them, covenant holders are to love God. This love is to be the primary feeling of their heart, the central emotion of their consciousness, the consuming core of who they are.

“Because this covenant connection is so important, we will best understand the scriptures that speak of the blessings promised to Israel when we keep in mind the relationship God is trying to build with those blessings. The ultimate expression of that relationship will be when He has changed our natures so substantially that we have become Christlike, or godly, and thus will finally be capable of having the kind of full, close, and understanding relationship that God has been seeking for. If we understand passages about prosperity, protection, posterity, land, and having God as our God and being His people with this in mind, then we will find a greater recognition of those blessings in our lives.” (Kerry Muhlestein, “The Unique Relationship we are Promised with God in the Covenant” https://latterdaysaintmag.com/the-unique-relationship-with-god-we-are-promised-in-the-covenant/


Maurine

The Lord usually introduces his covenant to His children by introducing who He is and what He can do. In other words, He is the great God and can fulfill His promises to you and His end of the covenant. He told Abraham:

“My name is Jehovah, and I know the end from the beginning; therefore my hand shall be over thee” (Abraham 2:8).

He explains: “For I am the Lord thy God; I dwell in heaven; the earth is my footstool; I stretch my hand over the sea, and it obeys my voice; I cause the wind and the fire to be my chariot; I say to the mountains—Depart hence—and behold, they are taken away by a whirlwind, in an instant suddenly (Abraham 2:7). This divine partner with whom we enter a covenant is our place of complete safety, power and generosity.

Then, in giving the covenant, the Lord explains the obligations and asks that His people commit to them.

Scot

Our small, mortal minds can hardly comprehend the blessings of the covenant. If you were to list what mattered to you most, they are already encompassed there. I like to remember those blessings as six words that begin with the letter “p”.

First is promised land – Remember the Lord gives Abraham and the Children of Israel the land of Canaan.

Second is posterity –The Lord tells Abraham that his posterity will be as numerous as the sands of the sea or the stars of the heaven. Through his posterity all blessings will flow “for as many as receive this Gospel shall be called after thy name, and shall be accounted thy seed, and shall rise up and bless thee, as their father (Abraham 2:10).

Maurine

Third is priesthood, which is also coupled with fourth, protection: The Lord said:

“And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curse thee; and in thee (that is in thy Priesthood) and in thy seed (that is, thy Priesthood), for I give unto thee a promise that this right shall continue in thee, and in thy seed after thee…shall all the families of the earth be blessed, even with the blessings of the Gospel, which are the blessings unto life eternal” (Abraham 2:11).

Fifth is prosperity, which is meant in the broadest terms, not necessarily just materially. The Lord will prosper your way, guide you as Lehi, to the most fertile parts of the wilderness.

Scot

And sixth is presence, meaning the Lord’s presence. In this special covenantal relationship, if you follow and not resist Him, He will give experiences that develop godly characteristics. The end point of the covenantal path is seeing the face of God.

So promised land, posterity, priesthood, protection, prosperity and presence are how we remember those covenantal blessings. As Abraham endured famine in Canaan and both Abraham and Sarah endured their own test that would stretch them in Egypt, they could live with trust because they knew whose covenantal arms protected them.

Maurine

There is so much more to say, but no time. This is Scot and Maurine Proctor with Meridian Magazine’s Come Follow Me podcast. Join us next week to study more about Abraham in Genesis 18-23. Thanks to Paul Cardall for the music and to Michaela Proctor Hutchins, who produces this podcast. See you next week.