Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
Is it a sin to live under the Old Covenant? Whether we can say yes or no to that question, we know the Old Covenant led the ancient people of Israel to crucify their Lord and Savior, and for sure that was a sin!
The Lord gave His New Covenant promises to Abraham, and he "believed" (cf. Gen. 12:2, 3; 15:4-7). He walked in the light for a time, at least until his wife Sarah persuaded him to abandon the Lord's promise to give him an heir through her getting pregnant and bearing him a son. Sarah was down on herself and on God; she was Old Covenant in her unbelief. She blamed God: "The Lord has kept me from having children" (16:2, Good News Bible).
We can all recall our multitudinous variations of Old Covenant thinking and experience. It was when we walked in "bondage," for it produces "bondage" (Gal. 4:24). We make mistakes in unbelief and then we blame God for the resultant unhappiness, just as Sarah did.
It's not fair to say that Abraham would have lived happily had it not been for Sarah dragging him back into unbelief, because when she suggested that he take a second wife, Hagar, he readily agreed. He choseto go back into Old Covenant unbelief!
Yet God had promised that he should be "the father" of "many nations," and forever be known as "the father of the faithful" (Rom. 4:17, 16). By taking Hagar who bore him Ishmael, Abraham had taken upon himself dark unbelief that he must overcome before he can be worthy to have that glorious title, "father of the faithful."
Now, unless you are ready for translation, you and I have the same unbelief to overcome before we can acquire that glorious title of being "the faithful" in these last days.
Welcome to our universal battle with unbelief! Not one of us was born with a sinless nature, naturally believing; even the Virgin Mary inherited from our common fallen father Adam the DNA of our fallen, sinful nature; but she chose to believe God's promise (Luke 1:45), and so can we choose.
All around the world there are people just now choosing to "overcome, even as [Christ] overcame" (Rev. 3:21), and thus to become part of the 144,000 who will glorify Christ by following "the Lamb wherever He goes" (14:4, 5). Let's make those choices today!
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: August 12, 2007.
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