THE PROMISE LAND BY PASTOR CHRIS OYAKHILOME DSc. D.D
4 Excerpts from Chapter 1
Excerpt 3
The Promise had a Spiritual Aspect
The promise of a land to Abraham was beyond the physical land of Canaan. We need to understand that God was talking to a man who was not born-again, and therefore did not have the capacity or ability to enjoy spiritual things. Abraham was a man of faith, but he was also a man of the flesh. When I say of the flesh, I mean of the human body; he was not born-again. He lived in the sense realm, and God had to appeal to his senses to communicate faith. At the beginning when God told Abraham he was going to have a child, he found it difficult to believe God. His wife Sarah actually laughed when she heard God. So God took him out one night, and said, “Look at the stars and count them; if you can count them then it will be possible to count the children I will give you” (Genesis15:5). He actually started counting, but after a time it dawned on him that the stars were uncountable, and he turned to God and said, “They are too many, I can‟t finish counting them. “And God pronounced, “So shall thy seed be.”
Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. He didn‟t believe until that time, and it was only after he believed that God changed his name from Abram to Abraham. Do you understand now? God appealed to his senses to communicate faith to him from the Word of God. The promises that were made to Abraham included all spiritual, physical and material blessings. But Abraham could only enjoy the physical and the material but not the spiritual.
Even the people of the Old Covenant could not enjoy the spiritual benefits of the Abrahamic Covenant. They could not have the Holy Spirit of God come and dwell in them; it had to take another generation of Abraham to enjoy this. We who are of the New Covenant are those walking in the spiritual blessing of the Abrahamic Covenant.
SCRIPTURES FOR MEDITATION
A-SCRIPTURE-A-WEEK
WEEK 1
Romans 4:16
Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all,
WEEK 2
Romans 4:17
(As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom He believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.
WEEK 3
Romans 4:18 -19
18 Who against hope believed in hope, that He might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be.
19 And being not weak in faith, He considered not his own body now dead, when He was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb:
WEEK 4
Romans 4:20-22
20 He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God;
21And being fully persuaded that, what He had promised, He was able also to perform.
22 And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness.
