Promise and Blessing

<p>    PROMISE AND BLESSING   The Blessings of Abraham. Genesis 12:1 ‘The LORD had said to Abram, Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you. 2I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing… and all people on the earth will be blessed through you.” These blessings were spoken to a man who came from what is now Iraq. He was a man with a heart that wanted to find the one true God. The blessings he received were personal for him but they were corporate for both the Jewish Nation of Israel that was to come through him, and later to the whole world through Jesus.    The Blessings to Israel Israel first became a nation in Egypt, where they had been in captivity to Pharaoh for four hundred years. God then miraculously delivered them out of Egypt by the hand of Moses who led them through the wilderness on their journey to the Promised Land. God gave Israel the Covenant of the Promises and blessings of the Old Testament and the Commandments of the Law through Moses when they began their wilderness journey. God said to Moses “I am going to give you the land that I promised to Abraham” (Exodus 6:6-8). However, there were conditions that applied for Israel to receive the blessings (Deuteronomy 30:15-20). Moses was told to tell the people that if they loved God and obeyed all the Commandments he gave them, and worshipped God correctly they would receive the blessings of the land and its crops and have good rains in their seasons, but if they disobeyed God and worshipped other gods they would receive no rain, the enemy would take their land, and their crops would fail. In fact, the Bible records a whole page of curses for disobedience.   There was a command with a conditional blessing that God gave to them concerning the land which was that they had to give the land a rest for one year in every seven years. This was called the Sabbath Year. There was to be no work, just a happy life together as fami