A Ram In A Bush And Hindrances To God's Inheritance

I hope all my readers and listeners are doing well. This article will be an overview of roadblocks that attempt to stop Israel from receiving their inheritance from the Lord and why the Old Testament inheritance set the stage for the New Testament Gospel. I will show external and internal roadblocks to the inheritance. Then finally, we will see what the Gospel brings to those who place faith in Christ and principles for everyday life.  

Firstly, God promises the inheritance. Whenever God makes a promise, you can guarantee it will happen, and it will happen according to His timeline. Here is His word to Israel and all believers.

And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.” Genesis 17:8

External Hindrances

Notice this significant statement by God, “an everlasting possession.” This land is a possession that belongs to God’s people; it is an everlasting possession. This has implications for the New Testament church. With this in mind, I want to start talking about the external hindrance to the inheritance of Israel in the Old Testament. The life of king Abimelech intersects with Abraham when he travels to Egypt with his wife, Sarai. It is from her womb that Abraham's bloodline would continue receiving the inheritance promised to them.

Abraham feared Abimelech would have him killed and would take Sarai as his wife because of Sarai’s beauty. This fear causes him to tell Sarai to lie about being married to Abraham, and Abimelech takes Sarai as his wife. This slip-up would have ended the whole inheritance for God’s people. God told Abraham in Genesis 18:10 that Sarai would be with child when he returned the following year. From Sarai’s womb, Abraham’s offspring would grow as numerous as the stars.

God intervenes and compensates for Abraham’s fear and gives Abimelech a dream not to touch Sarai, protecting the marriage covenant between Sarai and Abraham. The text that comes to mind here is:

 If we are faithless, he remains faithful— for he cannot deny himself. (2 Tim 2:13)

This is a principle that we should try to understand daily. God is faithful to His promises even when our faith wavers. He will keep His promises to His people. He will never fail you or the promises that He makes. We can trust and lean on the promises of God. We can see ourselves in Abraham if we are honest about our fear of man.

God steps in, however, and takes control of the situation by showing he is the sovereign ruler of all human history. He takes down the roadblock that Abrahams’s faithlessness had put up and continues Israel on their path to their inheritance of Canaan.

Abraham and Lot’s livestock had become so abundant that the land was no longer able to sustain them. Abraham had a decision to make. How is he going to handle this situation? He could have strong-armed Lot and demanded he leave to the poorest part of the land. Lot could’ve rose and warred with Abraham and his people. This would have ended Abraham’s people and the growth of God’s chosen people, who needed to grow to be ready to receive the size of the inheritance that would be given. 

That did not happen. Abraham handled it humbly, allowing Lot to choose where to take his people and possessions. With this faith, Abraham set out in the opposite direction to be blessed by the one true living God. If Lot decided to battle with Abraham culturally, you could understand it. He was not Abraham’s child. He was not in line to receive anything from Abraham. This is why Abraham deals with this in faith and humility; this is another picture of God guiding and leading Abraham. In the following story, we will look at God intervening to bring the people into their inheritance and the relationship between Israel and Egypt.

This story shows Moses as Israel's leader and Pharaoh as Egypt's leader. They would've never left Egypt if God did not intervene for His people. It took ten plagues to bring Pharoah to the point where he was humbled by the power of God, not enough to worship God but, to respect His sufficient power to allow Israel to leave Egypt. God gave the Israelite spoils of gold, food, and clothing.

This joy of the historical story could’ve come to an unfortunate end when the army of Pharoah was bearing down on the people of Israel with their backs against the Red Sea with nowhere to go. However, God tells Moses to raise his hands, and the waters part, and an entire nation of people walk through on the dry ground. Pharaoh and his army pressured them; God destroyed their military equipment as they pursued the Israelites. They all died as the water collapsed upon them.

This story could’ve gone completely different, with Pharaoh destroying the Israelites along the coast of the Red Sea; nevertheless, it did not. The external hindrance there—Pharaoh and his army—were moved out of the way by the mighty hand of God. This played out several times with all the different nations and kings in the land of Israel’s inheritance.

In review, we have three external hindrances that could’ve prevented God from giving his people the inheritance He said He would give them. Abraham and Abimelech, Abraham and Lot, and Israel and Egypt. God proved faithful to bring His people into the promised inheritance. These were external hindrances

Internal Hindrance

We start the internal battle of faith of Abraham. Sarai Abraham’s wife is barren. She cannot have a child; however, she is the one that Abraham’s descendants will come through. In a lapse of trust, that the Lord is in faithful to fulfill His promise. Sarai brings her maidservant Hagar to Abraham to conceive a child so that they would have a bloodline. Instead of Abraham stepping up and saying, “no, Sarai, we need to trust God.” He gives in and conceives a child with Hagar.   

A few chapters later, the angel of the Lord appears to Abraham and says that his wife Sarai will conceive a child within the following year. She does, and after the child grows, there is tension between Ishmael—Abraham’s child through Hagar—and Isaac—Abraham’s child through Sarai.

The child of the inheritance was Isaac, but Ishmael was there, and he was mocking and teasing Isaac. However, this lack of faith on Abraham’s part separates nations. One will be blessed, but the other is whom the inheritance goes to. Even with Abraham’s lack of faith internally, God keeps his plan moving forward for his chosen people. However, Abraham’s biggest trial of faith was still ahead of him, and it was another internal battle he succeeded in this time.

The internal battle was the initial sacrifice of his only son, Isaac. He had received the blessing of his son, and now God is asking Abraham to sacrifice his only son that the promised inheritance will come through. But God is setting the stage for a better and deeper inheritance.

Abraham, in faith that he had in Gen 15:6, goes on a journey with his son and some of his servants. They get to the mountain where the sacrifice is to take place, and Abraham and Isaac go on a little further to sacrifice on their own. The altar is set up, and Abraham is getting ready to stab his son with the knife when the angel of the Lord stops Abraham. He turns around, and there is a Ram in the bush that he sacrifices instead of his son.

Israel had to go through more ups and downs before they got into the promised land of their inheritance. The list would be too long here to be exhaustive. It includes; idolatry, slavery, and corrupted rulers leading them into more idolatry. However, they would eventually enter the inheritance, but anyone reading the historical narrative leaves asking when true peace is coming to Israel. When will their inheritance not be threatened again, externally or internally?

The answer is found in the ram in the bush and the picture it represented of what was to come. I will have to take you back to the verse we started with at the beginning of the article. (Gen 17:8)

Here are a few principles that we can take away before I go into the champion-only content. There will be internal sins that will prevent you from trusting in what God wants you to have, through faith in His Son. External hindrances will come at you like waves crashing on the shore that will try to prevent you from receiving what God wants you to have, through faith in His son. You must see your need for help with your sin problem, and the solution for your problem is found in the Lamb of God, who took away the sins of the world. Place saving faith in Him today.

Thanks for reading or listening to this article. If you want the whole piece where I finish talking about the better inheritance to come, become a monthly champion with our ministry. Here is how you benefit: You will get extended articles, first access to training videos, and extended podcast content.