Greg Ford - How God Demonstrates His Love
What I want to do today is talk to you about the promised land. Okay, we’re going to discuss that. You’ve probably heard of the promised land in the Bible, and so we’re going to explore its significance and what it has to do with us. To give you a little summary of the first five books of the Bible, right? So in Genesis, it has the cosmology or the account of the cosmos-how the world was created-and then a kind of flyover of human history, showing how mankind went from hunter-gatherers to nomadic herders to city dwellers to eventually empires. We see that God says, «You know what? I see the chaos of the world, and I want to raise up a group of people. I’m going to make a partnership; I’m going to make a covenant with a guy named Abraham. Through Abraham, I want to make a covenant that will bless the world. I want to set them apart out of the chaos, and I want to partner with them to put something in the world that will ultimately reach the ends of the earth.» Well, He says, «Every family of the world will eventually be blessed through what I want to do through you.»
Then we see the family of Abraham in the book of Exodus; we see that the family of Abraham is becoming a nation or a tribe, and they eventually end up in bondage in Egypt. They’re in Egypt for over 400 years, and God eventually leads them out of bondage and captivity and into the wilderness. So then we see what happens in the wilderness. In the book of Leviticus, we see the establishment of the priesthood and some of the ceremonial laws. Essentially, how do we worship God? God’s hitting a reset button. He’s starting to create definitions for how He wants us to live, and all of those things are designed to help us be in right relationship with God, right relationship with ourselves, and right relationship with each other. So He gives them the law; He establishes a priesthood. In the book of Numbers, they wander through the wilderness and are lost for 40 years, and they end up basically right on the precipice of the promised land.
In the book of Deuteronomy, you have a series of speeches from Moses, who is saying, «Look, guys, let’s learn everything we can from our history because those who fail to pay attention to history are doomed to repeat it.» So we’re going to painfully go through our history and look at how we can do better as we move with a new generation into the promised land. The book of Deuteronomy ends with Moses dying, so Moses doesn’t go into the promised land. We pick up now in the book of Joshua, where we find the new leader — kind of like the new Moses-and he’s going to lead the children of Israel into the promised land.
Now, in order for us to really understand this promised land, we need to think about the concept of covenants in the Bible. You’re going to see a lot of covenants. A covenant is like a contract — an agreement, a deal done between two parties. When the covenants are described in the Bible, they use these covenants with God — God making a deal, making a partnership with people. They use the same historical style of how they would have made covenants economically, like how they would have dealt with nation- to-nation business covenants or even marriage covenants. They follow the same style.
In a covenant, you have two parties: one is called the suzerain, and the suzerain would be the person in the power position, often a powerful ruler or king. Then you have the vassal, the weaker party, who would make deals together. Within those deals, they would have a ceremony to demonstrate what they’re committing to. For example, in a betrothal covenant, there would be a ceremony and a covenant between the groom and the father of the bride. Here’s what they would do: they would take a few clean animals — like a heifer, a ram, a lamb, or a goat-and cut the animal in half. They would set the halves across from each other and place them on the edge of a trench; the blood of the animals would run into the trench.
Now you have this runway of animals that have been cut in half, the blood having run down into the trench. The vassal always goes first, so the lesser party- in this case, the son-in- law, the groom — would put on a white robe. There is now what’s called a blood path because the blood has run down, and first, the groom would stomp through the blood path in a white robe. As he does, predictably, the blood splashes up onto his white garment. Symbolically, he is saying to the father of the bride, «I made a deal with you, and this is how I’m going to treat your daughter. This is what you can expect of me in this relationship.» His commitment is clear, and his promise of commitment indicates that if he doesn’t hold up his end of the deal, he will suffer the same fate as the animals that have been cut in two; just like the blood is all over his garment, it will be his blood, not an animal’s blood. This shows how serious he is that you can trust him with the commitment he just made. Then, the father-in-law does the same thing; he walks the blood path.
The reason I tell you that is because this shows up all the way back in Genesis in a covenant between God and Abraham. In Genesis 12, God says, «I’m going to make a great nation out of you.» He makes a promise: «I’m going to make a great nation out of you.» But don’t miss the point: the reason He wants to make a great nation out of you isn’t to give you preferential treatment. He’s doing this because He wants to bless the world through you. The world is in chaos, and He wants to bring order to it. He wants to show the world who He is and what matters to Him through you, and it will go to the ends of the earth. That’s in Genesis 12.
In Genesis 15, based on what we now know, it says, «The Lord said to him, 'Bring me a heifer, a goat, and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.'» Look, Abraham already knows-it’s like God said to him, «Hey, we made a deal; now draw up the papers.» That’s basically what He just said. Abraham brought all these to him; God didn’t even have to tell him he cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other. Birds, however, he did not cut in half. Then, the birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abraham drove them away.
Now we don’t have to look too far into the text to figure out what’s going on here. Draw up the papers; set up the scene; set up the blood path. Abraham does so, and who’s supposed to go first through the blood path? It’s Abraham; he is the vassal. It says that birds are starting to swarm the carcasses, which means this thing has been set up for a minute. It says in verse 12, «a thick and dreadful darkness came over him.» In other words, Abraham is scared out of his mind because he’s going, «Hold on a second — if we do this ritual and I don’t hold up my end of the deal with a human, I might be able to talk my way out of it, I could possibly run my way out of it. I might be able to do some sort of maneuver to get out of the commitment I made. But if I’m walking the blood path with God, with Yahweh, and I don’t hold up my end of the deal, there’s no escaping!» He’s terrified.
If you keep reading in Genesis 15, you’re going to see that God is going to speak to him to give him an idea-essentially, prophetically speak to him about what’s going to happen. In verse 17, it says, «The sun set and darkness fell, and a smoking fire pot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the two pieces.» In verse 18, it states, «On that day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, 'To your descendants, I give this land.'»
What happened? This is again one of those texts where, if you’re not careful, you just read over it. But to the first hearers of this text, this would have jumped off the page because what you have is Abram never walks the blood path. He never does what vassals do in the covenant; he was too afraid to do it. God ultimately reassures him of His faithfulness, and the imagery of the flaming smoking pot and the torch passing through is ultimately a statement of the presence of God.
In this covenant, you have foreshadowing: you have the suzerain, the person in the power position. You have God saying to Abram, «Even though I know you’ll have some good moments and some bad moments, there will be times when you’ll believe and times you’ll doubt. You will at times be faithful to what I’ve asked you to do, and that faith will be counted to you as righteousness, but other times you are going to totally mess this up. But I will be faithful.»
In Genesis 15, you have God faithfully passing through, doing the blood walk by Himself, by Himself. Now we see as part of this covenant, He says to him, " I’m going to give this land to your descendants.» So now we start to think about the promised land, right? The promised land in many ways is a sign of the covenant. In covenants, there would be different signs. If you remember the one God makes with Noah, He uses a rainbow as a sign. Even when we do communion in the New Covenant, Paul says in Jesus, «This is a sign of the covenant.» Just like if you think about marriage, we have a ring as the sign of the covenant. This ring has a monetary value, but its value is not monetary; it’s in the commitment.
In fact, that’s why sometimes, when people break their commitment and the vow is broken, they end up taking the ring off and saying, «You can have it back,» or they throw it in the ocean or pawn it. The point is, this ring only matters as much as the vow matters, as the commitment matters. It’s a sign — a sign to me, to you, and to my wife of the commitment I’ve made to her.
Now, what we can never forget is the why. Why get married? Well, I don’t get married because of her money. I don’t get married simply because of her beauty. I don’t just get married because I want something from her or because of how she makes me feel. We get married because the greatest treasure we have on this Earth is love. The greatest demonstration of love is God’s love, who demonstrated His love toward us in that while we were sinners, He died for us unconditionally.
The closest thing we have to that is a true marriage commitment-a vow that I will not leave you or forsake you. Of 8 billion people in the world that will come and go out of my life, there is one I’ve promised; and they’ve promised to drop everything for me. No matter what, if you need me, you’ve got me. In sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, till death do us part. That unconditional love, when we honor that commitment and live that way, is the greatest treasure on this Earth.
It’s worth more than monetary value, and frankly, when it is honored, everything comes with it. Your body comes with it; your money comes with it. Anywhere I go, she can go. We share everything. But it’s not about the money that the person has; it’s not about the clout or influence they have. You didn’t marry them for material possessions, or at least you shouldn’t have. It shouldn’t have been about the luxuries that come along with that. All of that is just icing on the cake to the commitment of the why behind this thing, which is unconditional love.
With 8 billion people in the world, I can count on one for sure that if I lose everything, they will be there for me-ride or die. So you can see how it would get warped pretty quickly if we started making it about stuff or anything other than unconditional love. When we think about the land, the promised land, what is the point? Part of it is a sign of God’s commitment, but it was a geographic location for God’s purpose-the why behind the covenant- to come to fruition.
We need a place. God has now made you a nation. He has now given you laws of conduct for how to behave in right relationships with God, yourself, and each other. Now, He must give you some space; He has to give you some land to do this. Think of it like this: sometimes there’s a term in organizations and business called a green field project. A green field project would be something like this: imagine you own a business, and you love that business, the people, and the employees. But this business has gotten out of hand; it’s become toxic. There’s been abuse of power; there’s a ridiculous amount of turnover; people are getting hurt; it’s chaotic. Every time you show up at one of the sites, it’s completely out of order.
You love this business; you’re not quitting on it, and it gets down to you loving the employees and the people. You decide, «You know what? We’re going to do a green field project. We’ve got locations all over the world, but we have this one in Columbus. I’m going and Columbus might have had some of the most toxic team members you’ve ever had.» You show up to Columbus and say, «Look, we’re relocating everybody from the Columbus branch; you’re going somewhere else. I’m going to pick 100 employees from this company, and we’re relocating you to Columbus. Now here’s what’s going to happen: We’re going green field! We’re tearing down the buildings. We’ve got 100 acres and five buildings. We’re taking down the buildings to the green grass, and we’re going to build new buildings here.
These hundred employees are going to come here, and we’re going to take a year to train you thoroughly. I’m going to train you in mission, in vision, in our values, and in our culture. I’m going to bring a 613- page document with the most unbelievable definition of how I want you to behave and treat one another. The problem is we got here because of the way we were treating each other. The people who were on this property before were some of the worst violators of the toxic culture that I’m trying to fix. Now, be very clear: I actually want to bless those people; I genuinely want to help them eventually. But based on how they think and what their culture is, if we leave them here and you mix with them, you’re going to have me in one ear and them in the other, and you’re going to be confused.
A lot of what they say is seductive and will try to get you to think in the old way that got us into this mess to begin with, so I am banning them from the land. They cannot go into the land, and I’m going to tell you: ghost them. Don’t text them; don’t FaceTime them; don’t have lunch with them; don’t connect; don’t do anything with them. Eventually, I’m okay. I’m setting you apart for now, for a season, because I want to take this law and this nation, and I want to work with it here. When it works, eventually you’ll see that it works, and you’ll love it because it’s intended to work.
When you do that, it’s going to become second nature. Eventually, I’m going to send you back into the rest of the company as my ambassadors to go to these different locations, and you’re going to bring this perspective. You saw it work; you felt it work, and now you’re going to demonstrate it to them. In the meantime, until I say go, have nothing to do with the people in Columbus. Lock in and do what I’m asking you to do. This is ultimately what God is doing.
Now this helps to explain a little bit. When you start reading in the book of Joshua, the book of Judges, even the book of Deuteronomy, you’re going to see some stuff that will weird you out. You’re going to read it and see things about total destruction, about people being driven off their land. More than just being driven off their land, you’re going to see that they put the sword to people and left no survivors. Let me give you one example: this is in Joshua 10: 28. It says that Joshua „put the city and its king to the sword“ and „totally destroyed everyone in it,“ and „he left no survivors.“ He did the same to the king of Makkedah as he had done to the king of Jericho.
So this is probably the FAQ number one that people have, especially as it relates to the Old Testament. It seems like God is ordering up genocide, total destruction of people. You’re going to see that idea of „no survivors left behind“ and complete and total destruction repeated multiple times. Everybody who’s ever read it has to address the question: what do we do with this? Usually, you see one of three responses. One is that it’s literally a Bible deal-breaker; they go, „I’m out of here. There’s no way I’m going to serve a God who orders up the death of a bunch of people. That’s just not right. Genocide is bad, and I cannot worship a God who would just order up genocide haphazardly.“
Number two, you take the opposite approach: you say, „God gave us permission; we kill bad people,“ and so that’s what we’re going to do. God did it; if you have a problem, take it up with Him. So we see bad people, and we’re going to wipe them out. Or number three, you do what probably most people do-it’s almost like you caught God in some compromising position, and you don’t want to ask about it. You’re like, „I don’t know what to do with that. I’m a little confused.“ You’ve got the warmonger Yahweh of the Old Testament, and you’re trying to reconcile that with Jesus, who said to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. It seems like God changed moods; it almost seems like God was a young parent in the Old Testament, and in the New Testament, Jesus is like a grandparent.
It’s confusing, right? So this is a very complicated subject. I’m going to touch on it today and give you a summary. This week I will post on my Instagram stories; I’m going to post links to a few different academic resources if you’re interested in this subject and want to know more than what I share with you today because I won’t be able to handle the whole thing today.
So here’s the basic idea. When you look at this concept-word by word and context-while we’ve been taking our approach of looking at the literature and history, the Bible is literature; the Bible’s history. Before we get to the Bible’s theology, if you look at it in its literary form and start with the Hebrew word that’s used, you’ll find that when people study words (particularly in the Old Testament), they take a word and look at it in the biblical context-how often is it used? So the word used in Joshua 10:28 is used about 20 times in the book of Joshua, not in the same form but think of the root word and then consider the family of words around that root.
When they interpret a word, they will look at other Hebrew texts outside the Bible to see how it was used culturally. For example, if you said, „Hey, did you watch the Rose Bowl?“ and I said, „Yeah, man, the Buckeyes smoked Oregon in the Rose Bowl!“ Well, 2,000 years from now, someone studying that would go, „What does he mean by 'smoked'?“ They would look for other references in that time where someone used the term „smoked,“ and they would likely conclude that it means „they won the game by a lot.“
In a similar way, scholars will take the word „harim " — the root word for total destruction- and look at it in other Hebrew texts. The challenge with this word is that it’s not used a lot in other Hebrew texts. They’ll look at sister languages like Aramaic or Akkadian and see its usage there, but there is really not a lot.
Bible scholars and interpreters usually focus more on genre to determine how to read this word. The genre of the book is known as conquest literature or conquest narratives. At the time in the ancient Near East, conquest literature was standard. Royal figures wrote about their victories, and when these figures would write about their victories and who they beat, they often used hyperbole. A royal figure might say, «We defeated these people so badly that the streets had blood ankle deep.» Well, that’s hyperbole!
Imagine the amount of blood it would take for it to be literally ankle-deep in the streets. When a royal figure would say they totally destroyed someone, that’s not the literal reality. In the same way, we might say today, «The Buckeyes killed Oregon!» In reality, everyone walked away from the game; nobody died. We use hyperbolic terms to express that they completely defeated them.
So when we look at it and see, «There were no survivors left,» we have to question it. First, it’s coming from hyperbolic conquest literature. Secondly, the text doesn’t even bear this out.
For example, in Joshua 10:36–38, it says that Joshua «put everyone to the sword; he left no survivors.» Yet it names the cities, and in Joshua 15, it again names the same cities, and there are still Canaanites living there. They’re contending with these people. You’ll see the same concept in Deuteronomy 7, where God tells the nation to «utterly destroy the Canaanites.» But then, He says later in that same chapter, «Don’t intermarry with them and don’t do business with them.» If what He means is to kill all of them, why would you need to follow that up with «Don’t marry them»? You can’t marry and do business with people who are all six feet under the ground.
The point is that this word is rich and broad; it’s difficult to adequately translate. Some people use the term «devoted to the ban,» meaning «when you utterly destroy, I want you to be devoted to the ban.» In other words, «Have nothing to do with it; ghost them.»
Now, what’s the purpose? Is it because God hates Canaanites? No, in fact, you’re going to see in the book of Joshua that God is going to spare Rahab because of her belief, and some of the children of Israel who live in disobedience to God’s greenfield project are going to be banned themselves.
Again, God is saying, «I want to do something in the earth.» I’ll provide more content if you want to listen more about it, but that’s the general idea. He’s saying, «I don’t want this mindset. I don’t want this culture to come in and contaminate your theology, to contaminate your culture. These countries are bigger than you. They’re more established than you, and if you listen to them instead of Me unless you are fiercely devoted to what I’m saying, they’re going to affect you.
In this greenfield project, it doesn’t work out that way. They end up inhabiting the land in the story of Joshua and Jericho. They do take over the land, but instead of completely driving out and fully banning the Canaanites, they take on their idolatry; they adopt their culture and mindset. Because of that, the whole reason that God gave them the land to begin with -He didn’t do it for the land or for the wealth. It was because He had a purpose in His promise: His promise is that if you honor the purpose of unconditional love, you can have all that I have is yours.
But if you lose sight of that purpose and you don’t hold up your end, God is saying, „I’ll be faithful to my end.“ But if they weren’t-what they end up doing is losing the land. Eventually, they’re going to be driven off the land. They’ll end up in exile in different countries. Ultimately, this sign of the covenant will be lost; it’s almost like the ring that they end up losing.
Next week, we’re going to look at why God has such a short fuse with idols. We’ll dive deeper into this, but now we want to move forward into Jesus. You’ve heard this term, „the new covenant.“ In the new covenant, what we have is the same purpose that God has had since the Garden of Eden-to bring Shalom to the earth: peace with God, peace with yourself, and peace with other people. Right relationship here, here, and here!
Within the new covenant, the promise is Jesus. Often, in this new covenant, people start getting so hung up on the idea that if you follow God and give Him what He wants, He’ll give you prosperity-He’ll give you more money; He’ll give you a bigger house; He’ll give you a bigger standard of living. They start making it about possessions, which is just as warped as if you married someone because of their net worth-not because of unconditional love.
We just know it is wrong at this level; we know it’s messed up, shallow, and wrong. Within the new covenant, we have relationship and presence with Jesus. It’s through Jesus that we establish Shalom, peace with God. How? Through Jesus, it says in Romans 5:6-10, „You see, at just the right time when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person, someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrated His own love toward us in that while we were sinners, Christ died for us.“
Think about that foreshadowing all the way back in Genesis 15 of the blood path. Yahweh walks through it by Himself, with no Abraham. God is saying, „Abraham, I know you are human; I expect you to fail. Some days, you’re going to believe; some days, you’re not. Some days, you’ll obey, and other days, you won’t. Still, I will continue to be faithful to My promise attached to My purpose.“
Through Jesus, it’s like Jesus walks the blood path. Even when I’m unfaithful, it says God demonstrated His love through Jesus toward us, in that while we were sinners, Christ walked the blood path. In verse 9, it says, „Since we have now been justified by His blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through Him? For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to Him- right relationship with God-through the death of His Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through His life?“
When you look at the new covenant, the New Testament, you’ll see time and again the idea of peace and right reconciliation with God, self, and the world around us through the person of Jesus. Paul talks about this in two chapters later in chapter 7 when he describes the lack of peace he has with himself. He says, „Wretched man that I am! Who will save me?“
When you flip to the next chapter, it’s like, „Thank God for Jesus!“ He declares that „there is therefore no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.“ We receive grace, we receive reconciliation, and we receive all the promises through Jesus of restoration with self. Paul comes to such peace with this that in Philippians 4, he says, „I’ve learned a secret! I used to think it was about stuff; I used to think it was about prosperity; I used to think it was about standard of living.“
But he says, „I’ve learned the secret through Christ. I’ve learned that I’ve been hungry, I’ve been full; I’ve been in danger, and I’ve been safe; I’ve had a roof over my head, and I’ve slept out under the stars. I’ve had a job, and I’ve lost a job. I’ve been through it all! What I’ve learned is that I can do all things through Christ.“ My right relationship with God and myself and the people around me come through the promise of Jesus.
Paul says, „I have come to such peace with that, I know it at such a deep level that actually it doesn’t really matter what land I’m on.“
I end with this: when we think about the promised land, I think it is totally appropriate for us to think about our version of the promised land. Don’t just think of the promised land as land; think of it as a context. It was a place; it was a symbol and a sign of the promise, but it was a location for the people to live out the covenant and demonstrate God’s purpose.
What is your context? You have your own promised land. Sometimes, we think of the promised land like the children of Israel did-as this magical place of milk and honey where everything is perfect, and nothing’s wrong. But no, it was an actual earthly place. There are weeds that grow there; if you don’t pull them, they’re going to take over.
What is your context? What is your promised land? Where has God placed you to demonstrate His purposes and promises in the world-to bring Shalom to the earth, to create right relationships with God, yourself, and the people around you?
We look at it through Jesus. Jesus teaches us how to have a right relationship with others when He forgives those who are hurting Him in real-time. He reconciles with friends who have hurt Him; He forgives those who were yelling „Crucify Him!“ He had peace with people who didn’t have peace with Him, and even though it didn’t look peaceful, it was peaceful internally.
Where is your place? Is it a job site? Is it in your home, in your neighborhood, in your community? Where has God given you influence? What context do you exist in that is your promised land — a sign of God’s covenant through Jesus? This is where you’re supposed to demonstrate His will in the world.
I think it would be of great benefit for all of us to look at how a nation made it about the land instead of the purpose and promise. Often, we wish for different lands, trying to be somewhere we’re not, instead of taking the place that God has given us and treating it like the promised land. This is the context He’s given you. How are you doing at demonstrating His purpose to the world around you?
Let’s pray. Lord, we thank You for the power of Your word. We thank You that it’s a great joy to open it up, even wrestle with it, and have questions about it. We invite You in, Lord, to our context. We want to be a part of Your greenfield project; we ultimately want to demonstrate Your character in the world and live the way You’ve called us to live. We know it starts by seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.
We acknowledge that usually in a human covenant, the vassal makes the first move. We thank You, Lord, that You, the suzerain, made the first move. We love because You loved us first; You moved to us before we moved to You. So right now, we take a moment; if there are any barriers between us, even psychologically in our minds, or maybe something we’ve been holding back, those barriers are removed.
We thank You, Lord, for Your grace and love. If that’s you right now, go ahead and bring to God whatever is between you. There’s no obstacle that He can’t go through; He wants to. Today, invite Him, Lord, as we get right with You. We find peace with ourselves, and that always spills out to the world around us.
Help us take a fresh look at our context-instead of seeing it the way we have been, may we see it as the promised land, a sign of the covenant, and a place to demonstrate Your purpose to the world around us. Help us be faithful. In Jesus' name, everybody said amen.