We read for our evening lesson in Genesis chapter 21, beginning at verse 22, in the earlier part of Genesis 21, verse 7 verses the birth of Isaac, verses 8 through 21, ascending forth as haigar and Ishmael into the wilderness, and now in verse 22, a covenant with a Vimolek came to pass at that time that a Vimolek in Thichol, the commander of his army, spoke to Abraham saying, God is with you and all that you do. Now therefore swear to me, by God, that you will not deal falsely with me, with my offspring or with my posterity, but that according to the kindness that I have done to you, you will do to me and to the land in which you have sojourned. And Abraham said, I will swear. The Abraham reproves a Vimolek because of a well of water which a Vimolek servant had seized, and a Vimolek said, I do not know who has done this thing, you did not tell me, nor had I heard of it until today. So Abraham took sheep and oxen and gave them to a Vimolek and the two of them made a covenant, and Abraham set seven U lands of the flock by themselves. Then a Vimolek asked Abraham, what is the meaning of these seven U lands which you have set by themselves, and he said, you will take these seven U lands from my hand, that they may be my witness, that I have done this well. Therefore he called the place where Shiva, because the two of them swore on an oath there. Thus they made a covenant at Bishiva. So a Vimolek rose the Michael, the commander of his army, and they returned to the land of the Philistines. The Abraham planted a tamerous tree in Bishiva, and they are called on the name of the Lord, the everlasting God. The Abraham sojourned is the land of the Philistines many days. Let us pray. Guide us into all truth, blessed spirit of God, as thou hast promised. We give our minds ourselves to thee, Holy Spirit, rejoicing the bowards just like the sun, and in dwell us in his stead. And we pray in our Savior's name, amen. Here is a passage that is both practical and spiritual. They argue over, well, no mean thing you understand in that part of the world, with herds, with livelihood, with livestock, limited water supply. This is the arena, the business arena, for the conflict, the treachery, really, for the tensions, the interplay between Abraham and the Vimolek. Here is the Old Testament answer to an often misused New Testament passage, while marriage with unbelievers is forbidden. That passage is often taken to us. Can the believer and the unbeliever enter into business together? Can they be in practice together? Here's a business arrangement, if you please. Here's the arena of the real world. And Abraham enters into a covenant with a Vimolek. They give each other an assurance in this arena. A Vimolek is aware somehow in the general providence of God, in his general mercy that Abraham's God, whoever he might be,
is blessing Abraham. Though Abraham is still just a soldier at this point, he's in a Vimolek's territory, and the Vimolek wants to make sure that he is incorporated into the blessing apparent upon Abraham's life. And Abraham does not shun him. While it is right for us and biblical for us to shun bad company, it is not right for us to shun all company and be inconversable with all company. Abraham surely is. And so after a Vimolek's expressed concern in verses 22 and 3, Abraham retrieves him. It's my well of Vimolek. I dug it. Did Abraham himself use him for best and do the labor? His men did. It's his. And the Vimolek says, I did not know the wrong. And when he knows the wrong, he is willing to win her into covenants to make it right.
The interesting thing, as far as we know, of Vimolek is an unbeliever. But he is not without any integrity. Remember when we say man is totally depraved, it means the totality in the sense of all of his being, mind, emotions, body. But the image of God is not removed. And man is not as bad as he could be. Here's a Vimolek, willing to make things right with Abraham when he knows the wrong that has been done. And so Abraham gives him assurance and they enter into this covenant relationship. The covenant, the old, is rightly established, believer, unbeliever. This is marriage. I should tell this story because of tapes, oh, mercy, how we restrain. With all these electronics, I used to be able to tell things more freely. But our son had a roommate right here in Alabama outside of Fort Rucker, an interesting fellow. We were there one night. These two fellows had gotten by on pizza and Coca-Cola long enough so we fixed dinner for them. Chris and I, and this one thing I know how to cook. Can't live on it, but this is the one thing I know how to cook. And we incorporated it into the meal. I tried the chicken. So all the smoke alarms and all of that, but the chicken was wonderful when they say so. And in the course of the meal and conversation, we were talking about the marriage of young John Kennedy. Remember he was married on an island off the coast of South Carolina.
And our son was saying how remarkable it was that this minister married him on a South Carolinian island. They had two hymns. I suppose the roommate had been listening only with one ear and he said two hymns. Did he marry another man? They see why I said I shouldn't have told that story. It really happened. We laugh about it on occasion to this hour. This is not a marriage covenant. Abraham and a Demolek. We marry in the Lord only, but this is nonetheless a covenant. There you have the biblical pattern because the person is on stage. He is not without integrity, honesty, fairness. Is he? I hear Christians saying, well, I want this surgeon or that broker because he's a Christian. I want this surgeon or that broker, frankly, because he's the best surgeon and a competent broker.
Here's an oath and assurance in its arena of tension, misunderstanding, potential conflict, and it's registered, if you please, by changing the name of their Shiva. Two bear Shiva. Place of seven. And you remember that the seven U-lams were given not sacrifice in symbol. Now the oath is made on the basis of God being a God of covenant. And you and I, especially as Presbyterian believers, need to understand that God is covenantal in his dealings because he is totally holy and has absolute integrity. And it is right and natural for him, then, in absolute integrity and total holiness to impose upon men who have lost a portion of both
in order to hold them to their word in their own affairs one with the other. That's what you have going on here. In this arena, assurance is given both by an elect and Abraham on the basis of a covenant. And a covenant is established. I'll just put it like this. You'll get the point to hold feet to the fire with people who, because of the fall, can be slippery and clever and treacherous. How many brides have stood at this oil dead and changed their mind about what they promised
or groomed? Saying on the one hand that a demolec had not lost all of his integrity, character, fairness, I say also all of us have lost enough. Every one of us that we need the rigger and the requirement of covenant and oath. There isn't one of us who hasn't wiggled and stretched and excused in a tight spot. And covenant comes from the existence of God who does not need covenant but who imposes covenant and requires covenant because he knows in holiness and integrity we must have them. That's why the church, for example, will not recognize marriages without vows. You don't have to have music, you don't have to have attendance, you don't have to have flowers, but you must have vows. Where is that in the Bible? There's no marriage vow in the Bible. The various Christian traditions and there is a wonderful similarity have acted on the basis of God's revelation and how God has required man to enter into relationship with him and with each other. Why do we have membership, vows, marriage, vows? Why do we sign contracts and agreements in business and have them notarized, authenticated, validated because we all have within us a bent
in a pinch to be swiftly, with fast-true rationalization. And we learn from this little account between a Demolek and Abraham, the necessity of covenant of oath in our law and living up to it.
As Ecclesiastes the preacher said, the fifth of Ecclesiastes, it is better not to vow than to vow at notay. I want to learn from this, I want you to learn with me from this that the best of us, even when we have by nature a temperament that seems so calm and orderly, honest and dependable, can deny, stretch the truth, cloud the issue, excuse our own indulgence,
here is God, holds mankind to covenant requirements, and I simply say and remind you that every person who has ever lived in the human race, descendant of Adam, is being dealt with by God on the basis of a covenant, every human being. Whether they acknowledge it or not, it is the covenant with Adam or the covenant with Christ. Just as it makes sense to be into the covenant that works,
the covenant with Adam did not work, the covenant with Christ wins, converts, changes lies, but all of us, all of us, are being dealt on the basis of a covenant.
And I'll tell you how to make your witness true, sometimes we have to speak the word of the gospel, how will they know the way of salvation unless it's spelled out? It better be packed back up by covenant keepers, when if we have done wrong upon learning of it immediately, we do write incorrect it. I'll better like did that. We have all the greater resources and reasons to live like us. I call us to a new era of covenant thinking, are all the people today who could be here, who took a vow to attend worship when they joined. What did it mean? Did they intend to
marriage, church, read in financial organs, federal government endeavors to close the loophole from people who never intend to pay back loans, making it harder to declare bankruptcy and not meet obligations? It's interesting to listen to the edibilics on Capitol Hill as they wrestle with the problem of weaseling life, better not to vow than to vow on not to pay. So there follows that the conclusion of this family worship. We have been in the prayer meeting until last week looking at a number of verses in Genesis in particular, which have the phrase called on the name of the Lord. I remind those who have been in those prayer meetings and all of us this night that that is the characteristic of the godly line as distinct from the godless line. And it is the distinction that is made and is an identification factor. I just want somebody who can formulate a prayer, person who's good with words can do that. We're talking about the reality of the life that calls on the name of the Lord. And you have that here, one of these places where it is said of Abraham. He planted, according to this new King James translation, a tamerist tree. You have, I believe, in the old King James, he planted a grove of trees. I'm not interested in how many trees he planted.
It is a place of testimony where he is reminded of this solemn oath that he made with a bemaleck.
And at that place having demonstrated integrity with an unbeliever and before unbelievers, he now gathers his own plan and worships the one true and living god. This may be the first place where unsaved that is Gentile peoples, not in great numbers, but historically in reality through the generations of Israel, joined themselves to Israel. You find in the records of the Old Testament, Gentile names, names from Moab, names from Ammon, and so on. When did they come? Why did they come? It may be because of this kind of thing in their midst, confronting a bemaleck in honesty, working out fair arrangements, giving assurance of oath in Bahririna so that when they assemble to call on the name of the Lord collectively, not privately, only but collectively,
was there somebody of a bemaleck's crowd that believed and joined Israel? I don't know,
but I do know that you find in the records, let me say it again, names of those who have come from the pagan tribes of Canaan, counted as a part of Israel. I call on us in the life of Abraham
to mean it when we promise it. The Mary's altar, we ring our hands and talk about the last days and the Lord is coming soon. What would have happened in our land if the churches had been full of people who meant it at Mary's altars? And what would it change in banking if church members in Montgomery were as good as their word on every arrangement financially? How salvation
we run around saving the lost, show the lost we're saved of this prayer. Father, we thank you for this account. May it sink into our minds and hearts, and may there be a hammer of tree, a grove of trees, whatever Lord is a testimony to remind us this night, commitments we made that we will keep, whether it is convenient to us, whether we feel like it all father deliver us from feelings,
help us to deal factually and fairly. The salvation may be shown as well as spoken, and oh God, as loud as do an Old Testament days, and very likely, possibly, at least, in this account with Abraham and the Benelic ad from the ranks of the Gentiles as it were, those whom though was strong to the covenant Savior, whose word is eternally true, heaven and earth may pass away, thy word oh God, thy word of Savior and blessed Spirit will never pass away. And we depend upon it because our dependable give us this kind of godliness, god likeness, in all of our affairs, the witness of our church may be the more compelling and this also the greater glory of Jesus Christ in his name we pray on that.