the Place of Sacrifice … & Hearing His Voice – Communion –
“And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Shechem…” “And Yahweh appeared unto Abram, and said: ‘To thy seed, will I give this land,’—And he built there, an altar, unto Yahweh who appeared unto him.” Genesis 12:6-7 (v6-ASV/v7-REB)
The Hebrew word for “altar” in the above verse is rooted in a word for “slaughter” for a sacrifice. Blood was shed and a sacrifice was offered … because the LORD had appeared to him; He spoke with him.
I’ve been reading the account of Abraham’s life again and again for months, because there is so much life jumping off the pages to me. Yet I had not noticed, till after months of going over these chapters, that there was a pattern to Abraham’s “hearing” from the LORD. It was something, it seems, that the Holy Spirit put into his heart from the moment He first spoke with him after he’d entered into the land promised him.
Abraham (‘Abram’ at this time) had not heard from the LORD since having departed the city of his birth, Ur, per the very first time He’d spoken to him (see Acts 7:2, Gen. 12:1-3). When he’d left Ur (present day south Iraq), a place some 80 miles SSE of Babylon, he made it west northwest, as far as Haran, in present day south-central Turkey, until his father died (Acts 7:4). Haran had been a silent of the LORD’s confirmation, of His Word as to the first promise. Abram packed up and started walking again, by faith, by his believing from of the Rhema living Voice of the only True Living God, a believing which was causing his heart to make his feet move again towards hearing again (Heb. 11:8). His journey this time went southward, into the land of Canaan. Abram, with his entire caravan, crossed down almost halfway … until he was suddenly “captured” again by the the One who had first captured his heart however many years before way back in Ur.
“And Yahweh appeared unto Abram, and said, ‘To thy seed, will I give this land,’ Genesis 12:7a (REB)
In gratefulness he offers a sacrifice “unto Yahweh who appeared unto him.” It was in this sacrifice, Beloved, that something was ignited in Abram, something that he would initiate at most every place thereafter to which he would journey within this promised land, believing, it seems, to hear yet again from YHVH.
And he would inevitably always see his believing answered!
There was a living faith in Abram’s heart, an active believing, in his sacrificing together with his calling upon the Name of the LORD, that brought about YHVH speaking to him at each of those places of sacrifice. And each time, Dear One, that he would hear from his LORD, there was being spoken to him an augmenting, an “adding to”, the very first revelation of the LORD from Genesis 12:1-3, an ongoing unveiling, if you will, of the initial promise from of YHVH back in UR of the Chaldees.
Abram would come to learn, in this altar building/sacrificing, that YHVH would respond. You don’t always see the response initially, so the pattern is not easily seen; yet you can trace virtually every encounter between YHVH and Abram back to an altar, to a sacrifice, where he would, in the sacrificing, call upon His Name, believing He would speak with him.
What you come to see, Beloved, in each succeeding Face to face encounter between YHVH and Abram, in this augmenting revelation of the promise, in this Living Word of the LORD to the man who kept pursuing His Voice, is the message of the cross, a speaking of God’s plan of Salvation for the world – the Gospel of Jesus Christ – “And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham…” (Galatians 3:8a – NASB). In the ongoing pursuing of the Voice of the LORD, Abram was finding himself being transformed by Grace … unto an Abraham. The eternal covenant planned from eternity was being revealed by the sacrificing pursuit of the LORD’s Voice, even unto the offering up of his own son on one of the hills of Mount Moriah … which would emphatically point forwards, though in a mystery to the powers of this age, to an actual sacrifice to be accomplished of another Son on the very same mountain range centuries later.
We who have believed into the LORD, like Abraham, are transformed through the sacrifice, Beloved … but how do we “sacrifice” in the pursuit of the LORD’s voice?
In the LORD’s sacrifice for us, even in Communion, the LORD’s table!
“And it came to be as they reclined, He, with them, having taken the bread He blessed it, and having broken it, He was giving it to them. AND THE EYES OF-THEM WERE-COMPLETELY-OPENED AND THEY RECOGNIZED HIM (lit- INTIMATELY, ACCURATELY, PERSONALLY – KNEW HIM!) . And they related … how He was known to them in the breaking of the bread.” Luke 24:30-31a, 35 (Frm Grk txt, Thomas Newberry Englishman’s Greek Interlinear)
There is no greater sacrifice which we can offer to God the Father other than the One He gave to us in Sacrifice… and it is The Father’s sacrifice, the blood of His Son upon the true Mercy Seat, the broken body of His ripped flesh, that has given us an abiding access to hear His Voice (Heb. 10:19-20; 12:24b. Ref. also Ex. 25:21-22; Num. 7:89).
Paul the apostle writes, in I Corinthians 11:26, of “often” in the taking of communion. Don’t be afraid of “often” taking the LORD’s table, Beloved. It is not a place of remembrance of sin because the New Covenant in Jesus’ blood is not at all about sin consciousness. The Holy Spirit will not bear witness to your short-coming (Heb. 10:15 & 17), rather to the victory that is already yours ongoingly as a free gift, your inheritance in Christ (John 14:21b, 26; 16:13-15). If you would take communion with the consciousness that you are already clean by the blood of Jesus (Eph. 1:7-9 et al), realizing also in “discerning the LORD’s body” that His broken body was for your body to be whole AND that His flesh was the veil torn apart, giving you unmerited access to hear from the God of the universe whom Jesus made also to be both OUR God AND our Abba Father, what you will find increasingly, Dear One, is the Voice of the Holy Spirit of Abba Father God and Christ Jesus our LORD breaking open to you the life of the scriptures. The Word of God will come to be so alive to you as He unveils the resurrection Glory of your Savior, which you will find ministering life to you throughout your day, around your home, in your secular job, wherever it is that you need Him, and just because He wants to speak to you and share with you His heart. (I Cor. 2:9-16).
You are so greatly loved, Beloved. Mark Dingemans
kairos – (Kahee-ros’) – Strong’s concordance defines this word: “an occasion, I.e. set or proper time.” The Hebrew-Greek Key Study Bible (NASB) defines this word; “season, time, but not merely as a succession of moments, which is chronos,” [from which we derive the English word ‘chronology’]. “Kairos, however, implies not the convenience of the season, but the necessity of the task at hand, whether the time provides a good, convenient opportunity or not.” This must be understood. Strategic times of the Lord do not necessarily imply good or convenient times. We are in Kairos times. Maybe not good or convenient times, but definitely strategic, opportune times because of the season we are in. We must have “ears to hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches,” (Rev. 2:29), so as to respond correctly to the Kairos time.
* Some Scripture for this letter is taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE, (c) 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. Other references translated from Grk. Txt as presented in T. Newberry’s Englishman’s Greek New Testament, Zondervan Publishing – 1982- originally published in London, Eng. 1877