Confidence in the Covenant

In every covenant there are two parties. The very foundation of a covenant rests on the thought that each party is to be faithful to the part it has undertaken to perform.  

Unfaithfulness on either side breaks the covenant.  

It was so with the Old Covenant. God had said to Israel, "Obey My voice, and I will be your God" (Jeremiah 6:23; 11:4). These simple words contained the whole Covenant. When Israel disobeyed, the Covenant was broken.  

- an excerpt from Andrew Murray's "Covenants & Blessings"

Thus, the Old Covenant failed because of man's disobedience and lack of faithfulness! But what about the New Covenant?

For both the Old and New Covenants, God's side has always been secure because God is always faithful. God is the surety Himself that He will fulfill His part of the Covenants. Now, in this New Covenant, Christ is the surety for us that we will fulfill our part. Mankind, in and of ourselves, are unfaithful and incapable of maintaining our part of either of the Covenants. But God Himself, in His infinite grace and mercy, did what we could not do for ourselves.

God became a man so that He could become, for us, the ultimate representative for our side of the Covenant. As a result, God's faithfulness upholds both sides involved: His and man's.

The Father represents His own side and is faithful. The Lord Jesus, as the God-man, represents our side and is, too, faithful. Therefore, both sides are faithful to the part they have undertaken to perform. This guarantees the New Covenant to be an everlasting Covenant (Jeremiah 32:40) unlike the Old Covenant because of the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ on our behalf! How mighty is our God!

What is Manna?

We hear a lot about how God fed the Israelites manna from Heaven for forty years as they wandered throughout the desert, but how many of us actually realize what it was that God was feeding them?

Exodus 16:14 says...

"When the layer of dew evaporated, behold, on the surface of the wilderness there was a fine flake-like thing, fine as frost on the ground."

Did you catch that incredible description!?

I cannot even begin to speculate how many times I have eaten manna for breakfast!

The verse says that it was a "...fine flake-like thing, fine as frost..."

They were eating frosted flakes!

This answers so many of life's questions!

Now we know that the Kellogg family found the Ark of the Covenant and capitalized on God's manna by packaging it up into nice family-sized boxes and selling them all over the world so that kids everywhere could taste the blessings of God and remember how the Lord provided food for His people everyday for forty years.

How do we know that they found the Ark of the Covenant? What does that have to do with anything?

Because Moses was commanded by God in Exodus 16:32 to put some in a jar, seal it up, and keep it so that all generations could see how He faithfully fed them in the wilderness after He brought them out of Egypt.

Hebrews 9:3-4 tells us that this jar was placed into the Ark of the Covenant. Thus, the only way that this amazing cereal can even be available to us is if the Kellogg family found and opened the Ark and then put their findings on the market.

Conclusion

This post is not theologically accurate. The conclusions are in error and should not be used in the promotion of any doctrine, belief, allegorization, spiritual truth, and/or application. Please note that the side effect of using this post to defend one's stance will result in heresy and may bring you under the judgment of God.

No flakes were harmed in the writing of this post.

Lot's Descendants

Levi's Genealogy

These 23 Men of Genesis

The birth years and death years are not years in BC or AD. I simply began at zero (0) and began adding. For example: Noah was born 1,056 years after creation. He lived a total of 950 years. Thus, he died 2,006 years after creation.

Why Egypt?

Have you ever wondered why God sent the Israelites to Egypt?

He could have sent them to any number of nations among the Canaanites. They were a lot closer which would have made for a much easier and more convenient walking distance since Israel and his family were already sojourning among them. So why Egypt?

What if I told you that the reason God sent them to be enslaved under the Egyptians was to protect their purity? You may be asking, "Would God really send His children into bondage and hard times in order to protect them from being led astray from the truth?"

Genesis 46:34 says...

"...for every shepherd is loathsome to the Egyptians."

 

I took a screenshot of the definition of loathsome from Google for your reference.

 

Question

 

Why do you think God would send a people of shepherds into a nation that loathes shepherds?

 

Answer

 

So they wouldn't intermarry. God is concerned with the purity of His people. He knows how weak we are and how easy it is for us to follow after other gods. Thus, He sent them to the one place in which they would never mix races.

 

Deuteronomy 7:3-4 says...

"Furthermore, you shall not intermarry with them; you shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor shall you take their daughters for your sons. For they will turn your sons away from following Me to serve other gods..."

Conclusion

Simeon had already had a son by a Canaanite woman (Genesis 46:11) and this would have become a characteristic of many if Israel would have remained sojourning among the Canaanites. Thus, God moved them to protect them.

They suffered hard persecution and were forced into slavery, but God protected their purity and kept them as a chosen race to be His nation of priests who would serve Him and only Him by being a light to the nations.

Has God ever sent you into hard times to protect your purity?

Descendants of Jacob who went to Egypt

If you are like me then you enjoy reading through the occasional genealogy. You might even fancy spending long hours of your day trying to find out what time period specific people lived in. Charts and numbers may be your greatest ally if you are a visual person, but sometimes you find things that really mess you up. Numbers that just don't add up.

One such instance is found in Genesis 46:8-27.

I read this passage at least thirty times. I went over it and under it. I made charts, blogs, underlined and circled every name in this passage of Scripture, but I still couldn't figure it out. What was I missing? What was I forgetting? Why were the numbers not adding up?


Verse twenty-six says...

"All the persons belonging to Jacob, who came to Egypt, his direct descendants, not including the wives of Jacob's sons, were sixty-six persons in all."

The problem that I was facing, however, is that when you add up the four numbers given for his descendants through each of his wives the number does not equal sixty-six.

Verse fifteen says... "all his sons and his daughters numbered 33." (Leah)

Verse eighteen says... "and she bore to Jacob these 16 persons." (Zilpah)

Verse twenty-two says... "there were 14 persons..." (Rachel)

Verse twenty-five says... "there were 7 persons..." (Bilhah)

 

A Little Bit of Math

33 + 16 + 14 + 7 = 70

Then we subtract three because Joseph and his two sons (Manasseh and Ephraim) were already in Egypt.

70 - 3 = 67

All Done With Math

Verse twenty-six says there were 66 descendants of Jacob who went to Egypt, yet when we add the four numbers up we end with 67. Thus, we have a problem...or do we?

Verses 8-15 are Jacob's descendants through Leah. In these few verses we find that 33 sons are named and two daughters. One daughter is Dinah and the other is unknown. Her name is not found in Scripture. If you would like to know how 33 sons + 2 daughters = 33 persons total, then click here to read a previous blog post outlining the specific details of this.

Somewhere in the genealogy of Jacob and Leah's descendants was born another girl. Both daughters are numbered in the first number (33) given in verse fifteen, but only one is numbered in the overall number (66) given in verse twenty-six.

It is likely that the other daughter was born to them in Paddan-aram, yet died sometime before their journey to Egypt. Hence, she is not named in Scripture, like David's first son by Bathsheba, who died in infancy, is not named.

This makes the most sense because verse fifteen is only telling us the number of Jacob and Leah's descendants before entering into Egypt, while verse twenty-six is telling us the specific grand total of all Jacob's descendants going into Egypt. Thus, Jacob and Leah had a total of 33 descendants before Egypt, yet only 32 entered into Egypt.

Some More Math

33 + 16 + 14 + 7 = 70

Then we subtract four: the unnamed daughter who died and the three descendants (Joseph, Manasseh, and Ephraim) who were already in Egypt.

70 - 4 = 66

Verse twenty-seven then gives us a grand total of 70 because it adds the three who were already in Egypt and their father Jacob. Thus, all the persons of the house of Jacob, who came to Egypt, were 70.

Conclusion

I was struggling for a while trying to figure this out. Thankfully, I had amazing teachers at Bible School that I could email and they were all quick to help me in my time of need. If any of you are looking for a Bible School I highly recommend New Tribes Bible Institute. Click here for information.

Descendants of Jacob Through Bilhah

Descendants of Jacob Through Rachel

Descendants of Jacob Through Zilpah

Descendants of Jacob Through Leah

Genesis 46:15 says, "These are the sons of Leah, whom she bore to Jacob in Paddan-aram, with his daughter Dinah; all his sons and his daughters numbered thirty-three."

If you add up all of the descendants you will actually find them numbering thirty-four.

Why the discrepancy?

At the beginning of the passage in verse eight, Moses writes, "Now these are the names of the sons of Israel, Jacob and his sons, who went to Egypt..."

There is no discrepancy here.

We add them all up and then subtract Er and Onan from the list because they died in Canaan. They never made it to Egypt. Subtracting these two makes the number thirty-two, and then we add one as an unnamed daughter because somewhere in the genealogy there is a girl unmentioned. We know this because verse fifteen says "daughters" plural.

Judah's Five Sons

Descendants of Esau

Jacob's Immediate Family Tree

Esau's Six Wives

 

 

If you will also notice, not only did Esau marry two of Ishmael's daughters, but also two of Elon's (the Hittite) daughters: Basemath and Adah. In all, Esau had six wives.

Descendants of Ishmael

 

Abraham's Children



Abraham ended his life having a grand total of eight children.

Genealogy to Isaac and Rebekah

The War of Nine Kings

 

 

 

 

 

 

Never-Ending Promises in an Ever Changing World

Has there ever been a time in the history of mankind when the symbol of God's covenantal promise has been more popular than it is now? God is getting a lot of publicity lately and as you can see in the picture below that even the White House is showing off the colors of God's covenant!

Now it is true that many people who are flashing these colors around believe that they are propagating a different message. They believe that they have successfully hijacked the rainbow of God and have used it to further their own agenda. However, in the same way that it is impossible for one to redefine the God-given definition of marriage, the same is true for the God-given meaning of the magnificent rainbow.

You see, Satan's goal from the very beginning has been to take everything that exemplifies God's glory and deface its true meaning. The sad thing for him, however, is that it can't be done. Yes, he can deface the symbol, but he cannot remove God's covenant that it represents.

God promised Noah and all of his descendants after him [which includes you and me] that every single time He sees His rainbow He will remember His covenant to never again flood the entire world and destroy mankind. Genesis chapter nine tells us that it is an everlasting covenant that should not bring us fear but rather fill us with praise to our God who is faithful and is forever reigning.


The enemy wants us as believers to fear these rainbow colors and perhaps even shun them, but I say we praise God all the more. Yes, the homosexual movement seems overwhelming and unstoppable but I promise that He has not left us. On the contrary, He is on the verge of glorifying Himself among the nations!

Millions of people today think they are waving a flag around boasting about their civil rights. They need to think again. These are God's colors and they can't be hijacked. In a world where sin is rampant and every intent of man's heart is evil from their youth, just as it was before the flood, God's glory is being revealed among the sons of men. God's promise is everywhere and He will uphold it. God will not be mocked and He will vindicate these hijacked images that are meant to bring glory to Himself.