old testament | From the Desk of Valson Abraham

Whenever we seek to realize God’s promises to us, we will surely face opposition because that’s what Satan always does—oppose God and all who trust Him. Often, he reacts by activating others against us.

This takes place in Joshua 10 when five kings join forces to defeat the Israelites whom they view as invaders.

In Joshua 9, the Gibeonites saw Israel’s startling victories over Jericho and Ai and realized they were next. To save their lives, they sent representatives to Israel with a white flag of surrender and vowed to become Israel’s servants. Joshua accepted their submission. Adoni-bezek, Amorite king of Jerusalem, got wind of this deal and rallied four other city-states to join him against the Israelites and punish Gibeon for their betrayal.

In reality, those kings wanted to prevent Israel from claiming what God promised them as far back as Abraham—a futile attempt by Satan-controlled enemies of all that is good. They were not just fighting Israel, they were defying the glory and justice of a holy God.

God responds to this defiance by assuring Israel He will stand with them to crush these reprobates. What follows is one of the great examples in the Bible of divine/human partnership against evil. While Israel’s army slays the enemy right and left, God hurls giant “stones” at them from the heavens, slaying even more than Israel’s army. Whether this means actual stones or hailstones makes no difference because God can do either or both at the same time.

As the afternoon wears on, Joshua makes a startling decree: he commands the sun and the moon to stand still, allowing the Israelites to complete destruction of the enemy before nightfall.

God promised this territory to the Israelites, and God dramatically delivered on His promises that day. But He also expected the Israelites to do their part, to call on Him in faith expecting Him to deliver. He even allowed Joshua to command the sun and the moon, and they obeyed the word of a man. This miracle did not happen until Joshua spoke the word.

All of this happened centuries before God permanently bestowed His Holy Spirit upon us, the spiritual descendants of Israel (Romans 9-11). Later, in Jesus’ earthly ministry, He commanded winds and storms, healed the sick, multiplied food and raised the dead.

All of this is not just history. There is a profound lesson here for us today.

Fast forward to the Upper Room just before Jesus’ crucifixion. There, He promised His disciples the Holy Spirit’s presence, even better for them than His physical presence. He told them, “Greater works than I have done you will do” (John 14:12). That evening, He prayed not only for the disciples but also for future generations who would follow Him, thereby bestowing the Holy Spirit and those “greater works” upon them. That’s us!

These astonishing words of Jesus have long intrigued me. Few if any of us, have seen or known those “greater works” of which Jesus spoke. Do they even include commanding sun, moon—and more?

What avenues of divine/human partnership have we not yet experienced that will seal victories over godless foes, take us into our own Promised Lands and ultimately crush the head of Satan forever? May God teach each of us to work those “greater works!”

The Relevant Testament

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A grave error is making its way into the church and into our culture as a whole: the belief that we don’t need the Old Testament.

Let us cast aside this relic of the past, we are told. Let us devote ourselves, instead, to preaching the gospel only. Let us follow the religion of Jesus.

Every day, our modern media reveal that in spite of superior technology, human nature has not changed in 3,000 years. We are still governed by the same passions that destroyed ancient Sodom, Ur and Babylon.

This stubborn and unchanging quality of human nature is the subject of the Old Testament. That alone makes our study of the Old Testament relevant. We must put aside our smug ways and realize that things have not changed as much as we like to think.

God is a holy God. He wants to reconcile us to Himself, to set us free through His Son, Jesus Christ. He begins to fulfill this grand purpose in the Old Testament.

The Old Testament tells us how God deals with awed human nature through the Jewish nation. It is a historical record about real people who actually lived— people whose lives and experiences can influence our own if we have eyes to see and ears to hear.

The Old Testament is a selective record of how God works through the Jews to accomplish His purposes to save men, women and children of every background for His higher purpose. The Jews are God’s chosen instrument to accomplish His salvation for all peoples (Romans 1:16). As Jesus says in John 4:22, “Salvation is from the Jews.”

We must study the Old Testament because Jesus Christ Himself insisted upon it. Jesus was born a Jew, and He studied the Jewish scriptures, that is, the Old Testament.

The New Testament portrays Jesus as God’s fulfillment of His covenant with the most prominent Jewish ruler, King David. He was speaking of the Old Testament scriptures when he said, “The scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35).

In Matthew’s gospel, the writer repeatedly refers to Old Testament prophecies to show how Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of God’s promises to the Jews.

On the road to Emmaus, Jesus went through the entire Old Testament to show His dejected followers that His death and final glory was the final plan and purpose of God.

Paul constantly refers to Old Testament scriptures. In his Book of Romans alone, he makes 100 quotations from the Old Testament coming from 16 different Old Testament books. He sees Jesus Christ as the key that opens up the door to the full meaning of Old Testament scriptures.

The writer of the Book of Hebrews speaks of Jesus Christ in relation to the fulfillment of the Old Covenant and His perfect sacrifice found in the Old Testament scriptures. The writer of Hebrews also holds up many Old Testament men and women as examples of faith that we of the New Testament covenant should emulate.

Those who reject the Old Testament for a “religion of Jesus” not only reject the Old Testament but the gospel and person of Jesus Christ proclaimed in the New Testament. Let us all resolve to become better students of the Old Testament that we may better know Jesus Christ as our Savior, Lord, Messiah and Friend.

From the Desk of Valson Abraham

Tag Archives: old testament

When Heaven Joins the Fight

The Relevant Testament