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For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.Eph 2:9 |
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| Archived Manna: | |
Dear
Friend,
If you do not already have a habit of gathering daily manna the first thing in the morning (we can look at the example given to us in Exodus 16 and find the pattern for make it a habit. Establish your life and your schedule to allow you the necessary time to do your daily collection first thing every morning to give you the strength to make it through the day. And remember that today’s manna will not be sufficient for tomorrow; tomorrow’s manna must be collected tomorrow morning. Saturday, June 25, 2022
Today's Passage : Today's Passage :The Story of Abraham [8] Bible Verse:Genesis 14:13-16 (ESV) "Then one who had escaped came and told Abram the Hebrew, who was living by the oaks of Mamre the Amorite, brother of Eshcol and of Aner. These were allies of Abram. When Abram heard that his kinsman had been taken captive, he led forth his trained men, born in his house, 318 of them, and went in pursuit as far as Dan. And he divided his forces against them by night, he and his servants, and defeated them and pursued them to Hobah, north of Damascus. Then he brought back all the possessions, and also brought back his kinsman Lot with his possessions, and the women and the people." Message:
(If you have forgotten the first verses of Genesis 14, you will want to review them quickly, so that today’s Scripture makes sense. Briefly, an army from Elam has conquered the Jordan Valley, including Sodom; and Lot, Abram’s nephew, has been captured and all of his possessions taken.)
We have discussed several times how old the events of Genesis are and how small, in modern terms, the numbers of people were. Here, the Bible gives us a vivid demonstration, for Abram pursues and defeats the mighty army of Elam and its confederates with an “army” of 318 men. We can infer that the campaign took some time — at least several weeks — for they pursued their enemies on foot to a place north of Damascus, perhaps 100 miles through difficult terrain, and returned with the captives and loot.
Abram called|Genesis
Young Abram is called.
We learn enough to be able to fill in some of the sketchy details about Abram’s early life. He had become a rich and powerful leader: The verse tells us the army was his trained men, “born in his house,” which means not only that he had a great number of followers, but also that they were sufficiently independent and well-organized to train men as soldiers.
Moreover, Abram is apparently acting as a general and devises a tactic to win back his nephew Lot. The army led by Elam took Lot’s entire people as slaves — men, women, children and all their possessions. Abram personally leads the campaign to free them.
Unlike many of the tribes involved, archaeologists know quite a bit about the Amorites. There were a lot of them, a nomadic Semitic people who came from unknown regions (most likely Syria) and played havoc with the politics of Mesopotamia. They never organized into a truly great empire, for they were independent-minded.
They eventually formed a number of small kingdoms but they were gradually picked off and absorbed by greater empires, including the Hebrews. Many centuries later, Joshua would conquer and absorb a number of Amorite cities in the creation of Israel.
Abram did well to make peace with them, for Mamre must have been fairly powerful; remember, when Abram first left Ur, he stopped at the “oaks of Mamre” and built his first altar to the Lord, and dwelt nearby for many years until driven to Egypt by famine; so Mamre must have already been prominent when Abram and his family were no more than a small tribe wandering in search of a home.
Meditation : Prayer : I pray to you, dearest Jesus, for all the graces I need to know you, to love you and serve you faithfully unto death, and to save my soul. Give me a tender and fervent devotion to your sacred passion by which I was redeemed, venerating you each day in prayer, and teach me how to unite sorrows and sufferings of my life with your own.......Amen |
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