The Official Journal of the Ensign Trust, London

Search

THE ENSIGN MESSAGE

THE ORIGIN OF THE SERVANT NATION – (1)

By

ABRAHAM, PATRIARCH AND FRIEND OF GOD

FROM righteous Noah through his only obedient son Shem, from whom the name Shemite or Semite is derived, we now come to the great Patriarch, Abraham. To perpetuate the Adamic or White race for the purpose of demonstrating God’s laws, our
Heavenly Father chose a man of great faith and obedience. The reasons for the choice of Abraham as father of God’s chosen people were few and simple. He was of the Kingly line. That is, he could trace his ancestry from Seth through the eldest son of each generation, and he believed God; for we read in Hebrews 11:15,

“By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing where he went.”

Today there are those people who, for one reason or another, choose to ignore the contributions of the white or Caucasian race and are quick to blame us for all the ills of other races or mixtures in our midst. Yet, the only civilised standards they have were taught to them by us. There is something very special about the Caucasian race, altogether aside from our abilities and accomplishments; that the very origin of the true Israel people of God, the Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian, Germanic and related peoples, was in itself a miracle from the hand of God,

You will remember that God first made His promises of a marvellous future to Abraham, telling him,

“I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth, so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, {then} shall thy seed also be numbered.” – (GENESIS 13:16);

“My covenant {is} with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations” – (GENESIS 17:4);

“And I will establish My covenant between Me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant” – (GENESIS 17:7),

then went on to tell how these nations would be a blessing to all the earth.

Abraham had 8 sons by three wives: Hagar, Sarah and Keturah. But God told him that only his son Isaac was to be the ancestor of the promised line, called by God to become His people, saying,

“In Isaac shall thy seed be called” (GENESIS 21:12), and “My covenant will I establish with Isaac.” (GENESIS 17:21)

Not only was Isaac, our ancestor, specially selected by God, but his very existence was a miracle. Two parties are necessary for the birth of all other children – a father and a mother; but the birth of Isaac required three parties: his father, Abraham, his mother, Sarah – and GOD.

ISAAC, SYMBOLIC PROPHECY OF RESURRECTION THROUGH CHRIST

 

A year before the birth of Isaac, God gave him his name, in Genesis 17:21. When God spoke of a child being born to Sarah, both Abraham and Sarah laughed at the obvious impossibility; for Sarah was then 89 years old, certainly a great age – many years past the time when she could bear a child and, indeed, she had been barren all her life, and Abraham was 99 years old. But, God performed the miracle He had promised, and a year later, at the age of 90, Sarah bore her first and only child, Isaac.

This was only the first of miracles. Like his descendant, Jesus Christ, Isaac was named by God Himself before his birth. Jesus Christ brought the reality of resurrection from the dead; but Isaac was used to furnish a symbolic prophecy of our loved ones given back from the dead. Naturally, all of Abraham’s hopes were now centred upon this miracle son, through whom all of God’s great promises were to be fulfilled; then came the stunning command from God,

“Take now thy son, thine only {son} Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a bumt-offering.” – (GENESIS 22:2)

Did God now mean to take away all that He had promised? No, Abraham knew better than that: not in the awful grief of a father about to witness, even to cause, the death of his beloved son, but in serene faith, Abraham obeyed God. He took the boy Isaac and went to Mount Moriah, prepared the wood fire for the burnt offering, never doubting that God would keep His promise; either God would intervene beforehand, or God would give him back his son from the dead. Abraham told Isaac, “My son, God will provide Himself a lamb for a burnt-offering.”

sacrifice.jpg (170753 bytes)

 As always, God honoured His word. The 22nd chapter of Genesis tells how God did provide the burnt-offering, a ram trapped in a thicket by his horns, so Abraham made the sacrifice with the offering provided by God. Again, here is Christianity in the Old Testament. We have nothing of our own to offer in atonement for our sins. It is God who provides the lamb as the sin-offering. The offering of the beloved son prefigures the sacrifice of Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God; and the fact that his promised career was not interrupted by death symbolises the swift resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to continue His promised work on our behalf. For us, the threat of death is not real, for God has not only promised us continued life, but has strengthened our faith by clear demonstration of His power and will to resurrect US.

It is very fitting that Isaac was specially chosen and called by God to be our ancestor – as we are specially chosen and called by God to be His people and to do His will in the earth. We are all the children of Isaac; only by a miracle from the hand of God did he ever come into existence at all, and remember, that miracle is our miracle too, for without it we also would not exist today. Only by another miracle from God did Isaac grow to maturity and become our ancestor, and again, we are the product of that miracle. God told Isaac,

“I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and will give unto thy seed all these countries; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. “ – (GENESIS 26:4)

With all our human imperfections, we have fulfilled this prophecy. We have brought the other races the first sanitation they ever knew, and stopped the pestilences which had previously ravaged their lands; we stopped their murderous tribal wars and brought them peace, as long as we remained in command of their lands; we brought them the only public education they had ever known; we taught them improved methods of agriculture, and when they still were not able to feed themselves, we sent them on many occasions the shipments of food which saved millions from death by famine.

By a miracle, God created Isaac for a purpose – to be the ancestor of our race; by miracles, God brought us to the great numbers and power which He had promised; God said of us, “They shall show forth My praise” – and despite our human faults, we have done so.

TO BE CONTINUED

Courtesy The American Institute of Theology

|