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By Pastor Glenn Pease
CONTENTS
1. GOD IN MAN’S IMAGE Based on Gen. 3:8f
2. ABRAHAM THE INTERCESSOR
Based on Gen. 18:16‑33
3. REBEKAH-A DEDICATED DAUGHTER
Based on Gen. 24:42‑66
4. JOSEPH-DREAMS CAN COME TRUE
Based on Gen. 37:2‑20
5. JACOB AND JOSEPH Based on
Gen. 42:1‑20
6. JOSEPH THE ACTOR Based on
Gen. 42:1‑22
7. MOSES MEETS GOD Based on
Ex. 3:1‑15
8. RAHAB THE HARLOT Based on Josh.
2:1‑21
9. DEBORAH THE WISE Based on Judges 4
10. DEBORAH THE DELIGHTFUL Based on Judges 4
11. JAEL THE ASSASSIN Based on Judges 4 and 5
12. SAMSON THE SUPER FOOL Based on Judges 16
13. RUTH THE RISK TAKER Based on Ruth 3:1‑13
14. QUEEN OF SHEBA Based on I Kings 10:1‑13
15. ELIJAH THE PROPHET OF FIRE
Based on I Kings 18:20‑40
1. GOD IN MAN'S IMAGE Based
on Gen. 3:8f
A young boy
afraid of the dark called for his mother to come upstairs to his bedroom to be
with him. She came and sought to
comfort him by telling him God was there with him, and so he didn't have to be
afraid. He was all right for a while,
but then he called her again. When she
came up he offered this proposition:
"Why don't you stay up here with God while I go down stairs with
daddy?" The child was simply
expressing the natural desire for a tangible companion. The philosopher may feel at home with some
abstract concept, but most people are like the child, and their desire is for
something concrete.
Philosophy is concerned about God's nature and will, but it has never
had much appeal to the vast majority of people. It is abstract and talks about God as the Ground of being and the
Fundamental Force of the Universe. Most
people need a concept of God that can be embodied in some kind of a mental
image. This is why the Bible is filled
with what is called anthropomorphism. That is a big word that simply means the
picturing of God in the form of a man, and with characteristics of a man. God became a man in Christ, and Jesus said
that when we see him we see the Father, and so our image of God is very manlike.
Our highest revelation of God is in the man Christ Jesus. In Jesus God is a
man.
Even
before man knew of God the Son the Father was described in terms of human
characteristics. The reason for this is
obvious, for there is no alternative if man is going to have any intelligent
concept of the nature of God. If
anthropomorphic terms were not used to describe God He would be so abstract as
to be almost meaningless, and He would certainly not be thought of in a way
that would be of much comfort. God is
infinite spirit, and all His attributes are so infinitely superior to ours that
we cannot conceive of God at all in His essence. Our knowledge of God has to be on the level of the finite. This means we must be aware that even our
highest concepts of God are fall short of what He really is. God has had to descend to the level of our
finite minds in order to be known by us at all.
If
you want to communicate with a dog you do so with meat and bones and scratching
behind the ears. These are hardly the
highest expressions of man's nature, or of his love, but these kinds of things
alone can be understood by the dogs intelligence. You would get nowhere in communicating with a dog by mathematics,
art, or a lecture on biology. These are
above the dog's capacity, and so rather than get no response at all you stoop
to the dog's level and speak his language.
This is what God has done with man.
He has revealed himself in man‑like ways, and with man‑like
characteristics. The result is that
many young people form the concept in their minds of God as an old man of great
wisdom with a long white beard. Mature
believer know this is not so, but as C. S. Lewis has said, it is better that
God be seen this way than as a mere abstraction, which is even more false to
reality. He wrote, "What soul ever perished for believing that God the
Father really has a beard?"
It is
essential to think of God in human terms, and it is harmless as long as
recognize them as necessary symbols to represent God, but not necessarily what
He actually is. The Greeks fell into
this danger and had their gods on the same level with men, and this included
all of their limitations and immoralities as well. Most pagan peoples have done this, and so they have a very poor
concept of God. Any god who is too man‑like
is a partaker in man's evils. God
rebuked this in Ps. 50:21, "You thought that I was one like yourself. But
now I rebuke you, and lay the charge before you." We must use the benefits
of anthropomorphism, for the Bible uses them, but we must also avoid its
dangers lest we make God in man's image. God made man in His image, and so it
is reasonable to assume that God is man‑like in many ways. But we need to
avoid any idea that God is like man in his fallen nature.
God has
always been in heaven speaking the words that formed all or reality, but then
we come to Gen. 3:8 and all of a sudden we see God walking on earth in the
garden. He is now clearly in the image
of man. Our very first concept of God,
which we can visualize is of a man walking in the garden and talking with Adam
and Eve. We cannot conceive of what He
was before creation, but here we see Him as a man. What is of interest is that this is not just anthropomorphic, but
is a literal description of what God actually did. He made himself in the form of a man and dwelt with man. Only the literal interpretation fits the
total unity of the Bible. The ultimate
goal is that God will again dwell with man.
It is
not stated as such but it could very well be that this one walking in the
garden could have been the second person of the Godhead. Jesus became a literal man in the
incarnation, but here we see him taking on the form of a man. In the ultimate paradise that we see in the
book of Revelation we know it will be Jesus who will walk with us in white, and
we shall be like Him when we see Him as He is.
Anthropomorphism is justified because God began his relationship with
man as a man. He chose to reveal
himself in the form of a man at the beginning, and actually became a man in
history.
It is
implied that God had walked in the garden before this, for how could they have
known the sound of Him walking if they had not heard it before? They did not see Him but heard Him coming,
and if they had never seen God before in the form of a man walking, how could
they ever suspect it would be God making the sounds they heard? The text implies that God actually dwelt on
earth with Adam and Eve. This means
that earth was once the dwelling place of God, and God had actually been on our
world in the form of man before Christ.
It could have been the pre‑incarnate Christ who was here in the
form of man. He did not come into flesh
through birth, but merely took on the form of a man as we see He did on other
occasions in the Old Testament.
We see
that the Old Testament works away from an incarnation of God, which was lost
toward and incarnation of God, which gave hope. It is no wonder that the Old Testament concept of the ultimate
kingdom was earth centered, for this was the setting of the ideal in the
beginning. Even in the New Testament
where the eternal kingdom is pictured as heavenly, there is still the new earth
as a part of it, and it appears that this small planet will be forever a place
where God will dwell with His people, and walk in the beauty of paradise.
The
picture of God walking in the garden was like Jesus centuries later walking in
Palestine, for He was the only man on earth who was perfect. Adam and Eve had fallen and so they felt
naked before God and they hid themselves.
We see two frightened shameful people who do not want to be seen in
their nakedness. God's first question
to fallen man was, "Where are you?"
God was the great seeker of man, and Jesus came to seek and to save that
which was lost. Everything about this
first picture of God reminds us of Jesus.
God finds them, hears their confusion, judges them, and then provides
them with coverings and the hope of redemption. This whole account pictures God as Christ‑like. We see God in man's image as the God‑Man.
2. ABRAHAM THE
INTERCESSOR Based on Gen. 18:16‑33
What comes
down from the heavens has a big effect on the values of real estate. Take what happened in Stillwater in 1852 for
example. Jacob Fisher, who was a
surveyor, had found a small stream called Brown's Creek in back of the
town. He dammed it up and made a lake,
and he ran the water down the hill to power a saw mill. John McKusick bought the whole operation and
had a great business. But then came May
of 1852. It had been raining for many
days and people were just sick of it.
It would not stop, and the soil on the bluffs over looking the town
could not absorb anymore. On May 14 the
people heard a rumbling and a roar as a great chuck of the hill came crashing
down. It covered trees and
buildings. It buried barns and shops
and everything along the water front.
Fortunately the hill came down where the land was low, boggy, and
worthless. John McKusick would have
sold it for a $1.25 and acre. Now he
felt he was ruined, for his mill was covered along with the 5 acres that the avalanche
buried. For several days he lamented
the disaster of almost 20 feet of mud that entombed his mill. But when it dried up he found that he owned
5 acres of new land by the rivers edge.
It was excellent land for business purposes. The land slide converted his swamp into usable land, and he began
selling it for five hundred dollars an acre.
Much of the present business area of Stillwater is now located on this
land that was created by rain from heaven.
The flip
side of this is Sodom and Gomorrah where the heavens rained down burning
sulfur, and real estate values fell to zero.
The land became so totally worthless that it became the symbol of God's
worst judgment for the rest of history.
To be like Sodom and Gomorrah was to be hell bound. They were so completely devastated that to
this day nobody knows for sure where this real estate is. What the heavens rain down can do wondrous
things to the real estate of this world, and to the people who live on that
real estate. That is why any influence
we can have on the God who controls what falls from the sky can make a big
difference in this world.
Abraham was just such a man, for he could move the God who moved the
forces of nature. Abraham was the great
intercessor of the Bible. This prayer
of his for Sodom is the first intercessory prayer of the Bible, and it is one
of the most remarkable prayers in all the Bible. An intercessor is one who pleads with God on behalf of
others. Much prayer is seeking God's
gifts and guidance for your own life, but the intercessor seeks them for the
life of others. In the case we are
looking at the others are people who deserve judgment. They are so godless they would laugh Abraham
to scorn if they knew he was pleading for them. But we still see Abraham pleading on their behalf, and we can
learn some important truths about interceding from Abraham. The first is‑
I. THE INTERCESSOR IMPRESSES GOD.
It is
impressive to see just how impressed God was with the fact that Abraham cared
enough about these godless people to plead for them. God is very impressed with people who care about other people
enough to pray for them. There are many
people in the world who never get a chance to experience the mercy of God and
get a second chance. It is because
there is no person who intercedes on their behalf. The Bible reveals that if nobody cares about people who are going
to be judged, they are judged. But if
someone cares enough to intercede for them, God is impressed with that love and
compassion, and He will be open to compromise.
This
sounds like heresy doesn't it? God
compromising! Yet, that is precisely
what we see God doing because of Abraham's intercession. Abraham is bargaining with God. He starts with the plea that if there are 50
righteous people in Sodom that God spare the city for those 50. God agrees that this is fair enough. Abraham is immediately aware that he may
have been too optimistic. Sodom was a
hell hole and how could he expect there to be 50 people unspotted by such
corruption? He became a rapid realist
and knew he had to convinced God to come down from this original agreement.
Abraham
is very clever and he uses the argument of triviality to get God to lower the
number required to spare the city.
"What is 5 people less than 50?
Certainly you would not condemn the city for the lack of a mere 5
people. So what if there are only 45
righteous‑will you spare it for that many?" God agrees and Abraham keeps on lowering the
number until he gets to 10. He was too
optimistic even at that level, but honors this man of intercession, for God is
willing to compromise where he sees true concern.
God
makes it clear that where there is no concern, and where there is no
intercessor, it makes a big difference in His actions. Listen to these words of God in Ezek. 22:30‑31. "I looked for a man among them who
would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so
I would not have to destroy it, but I found none. So I will pour out my wrath on them and consume them with my
fierce anger..." God could not
find an intercessor. There was no
Abraham who cared enough to plead for mercy for these sinners, and the result
is that God's judgment fell on them.
Had there been an intercessor there could have been a compromise and a
second chance given.
Is God
really that impressed with the intercessor?
Yes He is, and that is why the ministry of intercession is one of the
most important there is, for it moves God to compromise and make deals for the
sparing of those who deserve judgment.
Some Christians think it is really being a spiritual giant to take a
strong stand and never make concessions.
If the law has been broken, then let the violator be judged with the
maximum penalty. God, on the other
hand, is looking for a way to show mercy.
If He can find someone who cares enough to intercede for the guilty, He
will be open for a deal. Abraham said,
"Shall not the God of all the earth do right?" That is precisely the way God is. He will always do the right thing, and the
right thing is to find a way to beat evil and overcome it. When God has to judge and let His wrath
fall, then evil has won a victory. God is ever looking a way to prevent that.
He has no pleasure in judgment and the death of the wicked.
The
sending of His Son to die for the sins of the world gives every sinner in
history a second chance to escape judgment and be saved. Jesus ever lives to
intercede for us that we might again and again escape the judgment we deserve,
and instead experience the marvelous mercy of God. It is true that the Old Testament is full of the wrath of God,
and at times you wonder if God delights in it because of its frequency. But the fact is, God hates judgement and
loves mercy. That is why He is so
impressed with the intercessor. The
intercessor gives God the basis for mercy.
It gives Him a just reason to hold back His wrath and patiently wait to
see if judgment can be avoided. God can
never care less than any other person, and so if there is an intercessor, God
will listen.
The
ministry of intercession makes such an impression on God that it is one of the
primary forces of history. That is why
Paul wrote in I Tim. 2:1‑4, "I urge, then, first of all, that
requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone‑for
kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in
all godliness and holiness. This is
good, and pleases God our Savior who wants all men to be saved and to come to a
knowledge of the truth." God wants
intercessors because He is pleased with those who care, and they play a major
role in who is spared and saved. In the
light of importance of the intercessor it is tragic to think that there are
people who have no one who cares enough about them to intercede for them. There are people everyday who suffer the
judgment of God because they had no intercessor.
They
deserve their judgment just as Sodom did, but they might have been spared if
someone had cared. God is willing to
make a deal. He is flexible and not
locked in like a computer to destroy on command at a certain point. The program can be altered by the presence
of an intercessor. God is willing to
listen to any angle and try to save rather than judge. Even when the cup of wickedness is running
over God is willing to seek some way of escape. This side of God is a side we need to see, for it motivates us to
be intercessors. Who knows what may be
accomplished if we care enough to pray?
In a fallen world compromise is a necessity. Even God does not say it is all or nothing. Give me 10 righteous people and I will let
the evil of the rest be spared. Just
give me a fraction of hope that the future can be changed and I will tolerate
the present evil. That is the
compromise God is willing to make, and that is why it pays to plead with God.
I know
this is suppose to be a negative thing to do, and it is one of the stages of
death and dying when people with terminal diseases try to make a deal with
God. It is the fox hole prayer that
says, "God get me out of this alive and I'll go to church and tithe and be
the best neighbor in town." I know
there is a lot of nonsense committed with this concept of making deals with
God, but lets not throw the baby out with the bath water. Abraham is not praying for his own
hide. He is interceding on behalf of
others. There is a lot of
difference. It is okay and necessary to
pray for yourself, and Christians need to do plenty of this, but in this area
of prayer it is easy to get self‑centered and operate on the childish
level of gimme, gimme, gimme. This is
not what we see in Abraham here. He is
interceding for others. He is making a
deal for the sake of others and not his own skin.
God is
willing to compromise when He knows someone else cares enough to seek away to
spare the wicked from judgment.
Compromise has its evil side, but we ought not to neglect its positive
side. Compromise says I will be willing
to change my plan for another if there is hope that good can come of it. God was willing to spare a lot of wicked
people who would go on being wicked if there was some sign that a hand full of
righteous people could survive in that environment and have hope of changing
it. God believes that where there is a
few righteous there is a way to change things.
Give Him 10 righteous people in a mass of the unrighteous and He will
hold back judgment to see what the 10 can do to modify the evil. God is an optimist, and if there is a ghost
of a chance of good making a difference, He will go for that chance.
That is
why God is amazed when there is a lack of intercessors. When they can make all the difference in the
world it does not make sense that they do not exist. Isa. 59:15‑16 says, "The Lord looked and was displeased
that there was no justice. He saw that
there was no one, He was appalled that there was no one to
intercede."" In a world where often the only hope is intercession God
is appalled that there is no one who cares enough to intercede. But He is so impressed when He finds an
intercessor, especially for the very wicked, as was the case in Sodom, that He
is willing to bend to the limit to find a way for mercy.
In the
light of this fact one of the greatest roles in the kingdom of God is the role of
the intercessor. To be an Abraham type
person is to care enough for a lost world to intercede for it, and possibly
give a specific sinner in it to be saved from certain judgment. This is possible because the intercessor
impresses God.
Intercession leads to a lot of believe it or not
stories. One of the greatest generals
of World War II was Erwin Rommel. He
almost took Africa for Hitler. He was
right at the gates of Cairo and victory was in his grasp, but then the whole
plan unraveled. In the book Rees
Howells, Intercessor by Norman Grubb we are told that Rees had a group of
people who were interceding for Africa at that very moment. They were praying that Rommel would be
defeated. It seemed like a futile
prayer for the battle was already lost.
But God is impressed with intercessors, and when God is impressed
strange things happen.
The
British had just set up an 8 inch water line for fresh water. On that day they were testing it for 3 hours
with salt water. Fresh water was too
precious to use for testing. It was
during that three hour period that the Germans attacked. They shot the line full of holes and began
to gulp down the salt water because they did not realize what it was. In the hot desert sun of 120 in the shade they
were immediately immobilized. With
black tongues hanging out they gasped for air and life. They threw down their weapons and
surrendered, and the Bible lands were saved.
The
stronger was defeated by the weaker because of the power of the intercessor. Had the Germans attacked a couple of hours
earlier or later they would have taken the land, but thanks to God's providence
in history they were defeated by their timing.
Intercession does not manipulate God, but it does impress Him, and He
responds to it. It is not a matter of
certainty, however. Abraham saw Sodom go up in smoke in spite of the
effectiveness of his intercession, and many who see miracles and wonders happen
through intercession also see many unanswered prayers. There is no formula by which we can control
God, but intercession is a means by which we can impress God and possibly get a
hearing that can lead to His acting in our favor. Erwin Prange in A Time For Intercession tells of interceding for
a pilot who had a broken ear drum and he was healed, but of 4 others he
interceded for who were not healed. He prayed for one man who wanted to quit
smoking and he became nauseous at the smell of tobacco right away and never
smoked again. But many others had no such experience. The point is that intercession does not give you the power to
control God and guarantee results. It is just the key means by which we get
God's attention, and a possible answer that may never be if we do not
intercede. The second thins we see is,
II. THE INTERCESSOR IMPACTS MAN
This
does not seem to be supported by the facts, for Sodom and Gomorrah were utterly
destroyed and wiped from the face of the earth. It would appear that all the
interceding of Abraham was much ado about nothing. It was a much answered
prayer that in the end was an unanswered prayer. He got God down to ten, but he
just as well had left it at 50, for it was a hopeless cause he was pleading.
This is the most successful prayer never answered, and you might ask, what is
the point of it all when it didn't change anything?
But that
is just the point, it did, and the prayer was actually fully answered to the
extent that God could do so consistent with the facts. Abraham pleaded that the
righteous not be destroyed with the wicked, and that prayer was fully answered.
It was not a lot but Lot and his two daughters were saved, and it was a direct
result of Abraham's intercession. In
Gen. 19:29 we read, "So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, He
remembered Abraham, and He brought Lot out of the catastrophe that over threw
the cities where Lot had lived."
God remembered Abraham. That is,
He listened to his intercession and the result was that Lot and his girls were
spared. Lot became the father of the
Moabites, of whom Ruth was one, and she became the great grandmother of David,
and she is in the genealogy that led to Jesus the Messiah. The whole future of God's plan of salvation
was impacted by this prayer of intercession.
It even touched those who were judged and destroyed, for it had an
impact on history all the way to Jesus.
Jesus
will be the ultimate judge of all men, and He says in Matt. 11:23‑24,
"And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted to the skies? No, you will go down to the depths. If the miracles that were performed in you
had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day. But I tell you that it will be more bearable
for Sodom on the day of judgment than for you." The compassion of Abraham for those wicked people lives on in the
heart and mind of the Messiah, and in
the end they will still be dealt with in mercy.
The
point is that intercessors cannot ultimately fail. First of all they please God by being intercessors, and there is
no higher success than that. It pleases
God that you care, and even if God cannot spare those you intercede for because
they will not cooperate and respond to His grace, it is still a successful
ministry. God loved Abraham in a
special way because he cared about people.
He gave him the greatest promise in the Bible when He promised that
through His seed He would bless all the people of the world. The whole plan of salvation is a fulfillment
of this promise to Abraham. Every
sinner on earth can be saved through Jesus who is the seed of Abraham. Abraham is in the center of the whole plan
because he cared about lost people and was an intercessor.
To be
an Abraham means that you become a person who cares about others and it will to
intercede on their behalf. It is to
stand in the gap and link these people to the merciful heart of God. Caring might not change them, for it did not
change the people of Sodom, and it did not change the people of Jerusalem that
Jesus wept over. Intercession is not
fool‑proof, but it is always successful just because it pleases God and
makes you more like Christ. The rich
young ruler walked away and Jesus failed to win him, but Jesus wept because He
never failed to care. That is the
success of the intercessor. They never
fail to care. They impress God and
impact man in ways that may never be known in this life.
Abraham
did his best and when the cities he pleaded for were wiped out he did not say,
"That is the last time I waste my breath pleading with God." He just moved on to the next stage of life
and made the best of it. He did not say
that prayer does not work. He
recognized the limitations of what can be done by prayer. God as limits too. He could not say, "Okay Abraham, just ask me to spare Sodom
if there is one righteous man," for he knew Lot was there, and so the
whole evil population could be spared for this one man. Many wonder why Abraham didn't keep going. He was on a role, and so why not go all the
way to one? If God would spare it for
10, why is the lack of a mere 9 people the cause for their destruction? Just 9 more people could have spared them
all.
There
comes a point where that logic has to stop.
If Lot had lived in Sodom all that time and had not won another person
into the kingdom of God, then it was obvious there was no soil fit to receive
the seed. It there had been 10, it
would show signs of growth, and the possibility of that 10 becoming 20, or many
more. Where God can see the seed
planted and growing there is always hope.
But where there is no growth it makes more sense to take the righteous
out and destroy the wicked, and that is what God did.
This
reveals the importance of growth. If
Christians can just touch a few lives, it holds back the judgment of God. God will patiently wait as long as He sees
any progress. That is why intercession
is not enough. It is not God's will
that all be like Abraham. There has to
be people like Barnabas who befriended people and Andrew who won people, and
Timothy who trained people in order to have total success. But the Abrahams are vital to the whole plan
of God. May God help us all to improve
in the area of the ministry of intercession.
3. REBEKAH-A DEDICATED DAUGHTER Based on Gen. 24:42‑66
Bach never
wrote an opera, but the closest thing to it was his Coffee Cantata. He became quit an expert on coffee because
in his day coffee drinking was the popular vice much like drugs have become in
our day. There were laws against it and
spies roamed the city sniffing the air to catch people in the act of
roasting coffee beans. Frederick the Great was disgusted with the
increase of coffee drinking among his subjects. He was brought up on beer, and many of the great battles had been
won by soldiers nourished on beer. The
king felt that coffee drinking soldiers would not be strong in their warfare
against his enemies.
The cantata
of Bach is about a father who was greatly disturbed about his daughter was hook
on coffee. If she does not get it three
times a day she says, "I'm no better than a piece of dried up goat
meat." Papa tries everything‑he
argues, he threatens, but nothing works until he promises to find her a husband
if she will kick the habit. She agrees,
but in the closing trio she confides that she will only marry a man who will
let her drink all the coffee she wants.
This is Bach's idea of a prodigal daughter. It is a rather mild rebellion in comparison to the Prodigal
Son. We know that daughters can be
equally rebellious and as foolish as sons, but the Bible seldom reveals a bad daughter. There are sons galore who bring grief to
their parents, but very few daughters.
The
Bible is much more son oriented than daughter oriented. But there is more about daughters then we
realize. Believe it or not, there are
about 500 references to daughters in the Bible, and about 90 of them are in
Genesis, which makes it the most daughter oriented book in the Bible. Most of Genesis is about Abraham, Isaac,
Jacob and his 12 sons. But here in
Genesis 24 we see entire long chapter of this male dominated book revolving
around the young daughter Rebekah who would become the grandmother of the 12
sons of Jacob.
Rebekah
got in on God's plan for history because Abraham did not like the girls he saw
in Canaan. They were idolaters and
corrupted by their culture. He did not
want his son Isaac to marry one of these girls, and so he sent his servant
Eliezer back to his native Mesopotamia to find a daughter among his brother's
family. This was probably the longest
journey in the Bible to find a wife. It
was a 6 weeks trip across the desert.
In our culture we don't send servants out to shop for a wife. We prefer to see the merchandise for
ourselves and make our own choice.
Isaac is 40 years old, and yet he does not go along to have some input. He just took the one the servant selected,
and they had a long and fruitful marriage.
They had their fights, but they overcame them and became the
grandparents of the 12 tribes of Israel.
For
some reason the Patriarchs had a hard time having daughters. Abraham had just 2 sons‑Ishmael and
Isaac. Then Isaac had his 2 boys‑Jacob
and Esau. Then Jacob had the 12 sons
from his 4 wives, but then Leah finally came through with one daughter named
Dinah. She is the only daughter we know
of for 3 generations in that family tree.
Because of this lack of daughters the line of Abraham had to go back to
the family of Nahor his brother to find their wives, for girls were abundant in
his line. It gave us Rebekah, Rachel
and Leah. It is a strange reality, but
it is still true today that some families tend to have all boys and others have
all girls, But the majority get a mixture of the two. Such was the case with the family of Rebekah. She had a brother named Laban.
The
thing that surprised me in studying the families of Genesis is that many of
them just had 2 children. I guess I
assumed that most families were large in the Bible, but if you read with the
intent to count, you discover that families with from 1 to 5 are the majority,
and 2 or 3 are very common. Part of the
problem in counting is that daughters are often not listed, for the family tree
followed the sons. That is why it is
rare to have a passage like the one we are looking at where a daughter plays
the leading role on the stage of history.
She was not forced to play it either, but chose to play it by her own
will. It was a male dominated world,
but we see that the males who dominated Rebekah's life respected her right to
determine her own destiny. We read in
verse 57‑8, "Then they said, let's call the girl and ask her about
it. So they called Rebekah and asked
her, "will you go with this
man?" "I will go," she
said."
She did
not hesitate to make the choice of leaving her family to go to a far land to be
married to a total stranger. It was an
awesome decision, but she choose to go.
She was the female equivalent of Abraham leaving his family to go to
Canaan. Good parenting and good
relationships of all kinds demand that we respect the rights of people to have
a say in the direction they go. They
should be consulted and given the right, and not have their destiny determined
by someone else.
It is
one of the hard parts of parenting to give guidance with trying to impose your
will on your child. A mother was
listening to her little daughter say her prayers one night. She was really into blessing with God bless
daddy and mommy, grandma and grandpa, uncle Bill and aunt Dorothy, and the
mailman and Mickey mouse and, the mother seeing no end to the list said
"Amen." But the little girl
said, "Don't listen to her God.
She doesn't know when I am done."
It is
hard to let children be children and have their own feelings because they often
do not fit our adult agenda. One of the
major problems in our culture is the refusal of parents to let their children
be children. The parents are captives
of the culture, and they feel the pressure to impose an adult life style on
their kids. Childhood is a non‑productive
period of life, and so the goal is to get over it as quickly as possible. Such is the thinking of many. It is a waste of time to be children in
their minds, but this is in direct contradiction to the Bible.
John
Drescher in What Parents Should Expect writes, "Because we do not see
childhood as a legitimate phase of life itself, and because we as parents feel
the need to find our success in our children, we do many ridiculous
things. At 3 months we buy toys parents
like to play with. And electric train
is purchased and set by parents whose child still wants to stack blocks. A tricycle stands riderless with the driver
still in diapers. We dress 5‑year‑olds
in caps and gowns for kindergarten graduation.
A little fellow recently said, 'I think it is bad I graduated because I
can't even read.'" He goes on
giving numerous illustrations of how parents refuse to let their children be
children.
We
live in a childhood denying culture.
Animals do not have much a childhood.
There born and very quickly are on their own. God made people different from the animal kingdom. He made them to need a long period of
childhood before becoming adults. We
don't like God's plan. The animal
kingdom is what we want, and so we deny that man is different and go along with
the evolution philosophy that man is just another animal. And so we reject childhood as a waste and
want our children to become adults as quickly as possible. This has led to children having breakdowns
increasing numbers, and at younger ages.
The drive to be grown up leads to inferiority feelings. This has become the number one emotional
problem of teens. Almost all of them
feel inferior because they cannot be mature adults, and so they turn to
alcohol, drugs, and suicide to escape a world where they don't fit in.
Jesus
said adults are to become like children, and we have reversed that to say that
children must become adults. The result
is a culture where families are breaking down at record pace. You cannot contradict God's plan for life
and not pay a price. There needs to be
more of verse 57 in family life. It
says, "Let's all the girl and ask her about it." Let your children share their feelings and
dreams. Let them have choices about
their destiny. Don't impose your
dreams, or those of your culture on them.
Let them be who they are as God has designed them.
Florence Nightingale changed the history of nursing in hospitals, but
few realized how her choice to do so was fought by her family. She and her sisters were educated at home by
their father. As a teen she fell in
love with the idea of studying nursing.
Her mother had other dreams for her.
She was pretty and witty, and she smart and talented. Her mother did everything she could to
frustrate her dream of becoming a nurse.
It was not a respectable profession in those days. Her mother and sister actually felt it was
immoral to be a nurse, and her sister refused to talk about the degrading
topic.
Florence felt called of God to be a nurse, but her family's resistance led her to depression so deep that she wanted to take her own life. At age 30 she finally escaped the clutches of her family and got some training with the deaconesses in Munich, Germany. But when she came back home she