Chasing the Vultures Away
This message contains a shocking ending. I’m telling you now, but I don’t think that can fully prepare you for what is ahead.
PPT 1 Series title: (Hidden Gems)
Last week we began this series and discussed how God has secrets He wants to share. I mentioned the passage in Jeremiah where God says, “Call unto Me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things you do not know.” I also mentioned how I began praying earnestly about that and the Lord dropped Colossians 2:3 into my heart: “In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” So He didn’t tell me about secrets of the universe or of end times, but pointed me to the true repository of God’s greatest secrets, the person of Jesus Christ.
Today we begin talking about the specific secret God had in mind in our series passage.
PPT 2 Series text
Psalms 25:14 The secret of the LORD is with them that fear him; and he will shew them his covenant. (KJV)
Psalms 25:14 The LORD confides in those who fear him; he makes his covenant known to them. (NIV)
So there it is, the secret God wants to reveal is His covenant. At the outset of this message I want to say to you that the thing God most wants to show us is the thing hell most wants us to prevent us from understanding.
That is why the message today is entitled:
PPT 3 Title: Chasing the Vultures Away
Covenant is a religious and a legal term that we really don’t understand, but if you can grasp it, it will bless you.
This week I want to talk about the obscurity of the covenant, that it was intended by God to be that way, and that their are demonic forces that are laboring to see to it that people never understand our covenant relationship with God.
PS 91 last week I mentioned He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Lord, the secret place of the Lord is understanding your covenant relationship with Him. It is a secret place, hidden even from many Christians, who only have a very cursory or minimal understanding of the full meaning.
Psalm 25 calls it a secret that God will reveal, which means that it is hidden until God shows it to you. If you remember last week we talked that gems are not usually found lying on the top of the ground, but they must be dug from the earth, blasted from rocks, and polished before they can fully be enjoyed. In some ways the blessing of understanding covenant is similar, it is not just lying around to be easily grasped.
I believe Psalm 25 is nothing more than a bread crumb left by God to tell us there is a secret He wants to share, and that we are to keep digging. Spoiler: At the end of the rainbow is Jesus, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. But here is the rub, just because I told you the spoiler doesn’t mean you get it. You have only seen the forest view, it is the incredible trees of individual revelation that fills that forest than many miss.
So let’s talk about three impediments to understanding the secret of the Lord. They are:
Lethargy
Humanity
Vultures
I will only speak briefly of lethargy and humanity, but will speak more on vultures, Lethargy is laziness and lack of effort. Humanity is the fact we need God to open the eyes of our understanding, the natural man receiveth not the things of God.
That leaves us with the Vultures.
So we turn now to Genesis 15:
PPT 4-9 text
Genesis 15:7 And He said to him, "I am the LORD who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess it."
Genesis 15:8 And he said, "O Lord GOD, how may I know that I shall possess it?"
Genesis 15:9 So He said to him, "Bring Me a three year old heifer, and a three year old female goat, and a three year old ram, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon."
Genesis 15:10 Then he brought all these to Him and cut them in two, and laid each half opposite the other; but he did not cut the birds.
Genesis 15:11 And the birds of prey came down upon the carcasses, and Abram drove them away.
Genesis 15:12 Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, terror and great darkness fell upon him.
Genesis 15:13 And God said to Abram, "Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years.
Genesis 15:14 "But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve; and afterward they will come out with many possessions.
Genesis 15:15 "And as for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried at a good old age.
Genesis 15:16 "Then in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete."
Genesis 15:17 And it came about when the sun had set, that it was very dark, and behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a flaming torch which passed between these pieces.
Genesis 15:18 On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, "To your descendants I have given this land, From the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates:
Our text details the covenant that God made with Abram and all that was involved with that process.
We are going to look at the part where the birds came after his sacrificial offering and he had to chase them away. First a little background.
Abram asks how can he know that He will possess the land, God’s response is - this is how you will know:
Cut some animals up and I will walk between them, and by doing that God is saying that even as the animals have been cut in two, may I be cut in two if I don’t keep my promise/covenant with you. Now that is an ancient practice of covenant making well understood to Abraham and practiced in many cultures of the world at that time.
But there is an added element that Abraham may not have understood, but we know because as the bible unfolds from Genesis to Revelation God reveals to us that it is on the basis of an acceptable blood sacrifice that He enters into covenant with us.
Said another way God is saying, “I accept the sacrifice of these animals as the basis on which I will give you and your descendants the promised land.” When we enter into covenants today in general there is almost always I will give you this and you will give me that. God said give me an animal sacrifice and I will make my covenant with you.
I will dig into this much deeper next week, but for this week just grasp this truth, God says give me what I want and here is what I will give you in return. That is a biblical understanding of the basis of being in covenant relationship with God.
Now we are going to look at the vultures in our story. But I need to put them in a biblical context for you to see what God is teaching us here. It is a literal story, but it has a very spiritual understanding and application.
The literal is birds came after dead meat. Nothing new about that in the natural world. The spiritual is that birds in scripture represent the forces of evil that try to keep us from understanding spiritual truth, or from letting that truth grow inside of us. Parable of the sower, if you don’t understand this parable you won’t understand any of Jesus’ other teachings. The parable of the sower is God’s cypher key for all the parables, it is perhaps the most important of all the parables. And what it teaches is that God wants us to understand His truths and have them grow in us, but that there are enemies that will first try to steal truth from us, and if they can’t other methods and strategies will be employed to lesson or remove its growth in us.
In the parable of the sower the seeds are truth in embryonic form. In Genesis 15 likewise the understanding of covenant is only in embryonic form.
So let’s talk about Abram chasing the vultures away and it’s spiritual significance
1. Vultures will always attack the means of securing the covenant blessings.
So here in Genesis 15 the birds, the vultures are trying to steal the sacrifice. That is the literal truth, the spiritual truth is that the devil is always trying to substitute something other than the blood sacrifice as a means to obtaining God’s favor.
The seventh day Adventists have to keep the Sabbath or God won’t accept them.
Hindu’s have to work their way to God through reincarnation. If you do well you become a cow.
The Catholics say you need to pray the rosary, go to mass, keep the sacraments, or God won’t be happy with you, and then spend and indeterminate amount of time in purgatory paying for your sins. Jesus didn’t pay the full price on Calvary. (According to them.)
Muslims say you need to keep Ramadan, go to Mecca and do good works.
But what was the basis of Abram’s covenant with God? God accepted the blood sacrifice, period.
Even many devout Christians try to add to the sacrifice of Christ as a basis of right standing. Abram did what God said to do to enter covenant, and there will always be, and there have always been buzzards trying to take the sacrifice of Christ away as the basis of securing the covenant blessings.
Abram do this, and I will do that. If Abram had done something else God would not have done what He said He would do, for it was predicated on Abram doing exactly as He was told. The buzzards are always attacking the sacrificial basis of our relationship with God.
2. The most sacred times with God are subject to attack and interruptions by vultures.
Abram had to chase the vultures away.
In worshipping and seeking after God we must be resolute in keeping distractions away.
When you pray go to your closet and shut the door. Too many try to pray and even come to church with the door of distraction wide open. (Cell phones) Shut the door, be firm about doing that. I read where Spurgeon was once having time with God, and important visitor came to his home and asked to see him. Spurgeon’s servant told Spurgeon who said, “tell him to come back another time.” The visitor non-plussed said, “tell him a servant of the King is here.” The servant came and reported that to Spurgeon, who then replied, “tell him I am speaking to the king and don’t have time for His servants.” That ended the matter. Close the door to all those voices that would take you from the King to deal with petty matters.
3. Vultures come when we are most vulnerable.
He began early? in the day, cut a 3 year old heifer, goat, and ram in two. The heifer probably weighed in at 800 pounds. He was most likely very very tired.
Then he had to wait, God didn’t show up till the sun was going down. God didn’t show up in the time frame Abraham most likely expected Him to.
The season of delay is often a very vulnerable season for many believers, it is a season vultures like to take advantage of.
There was a gap of time after Abrams obedience before God spoke.
PPT 10 text
Hebrews 10:36 For ye have need of patience, that, AFTER ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.
The season of delay is when the buzzards of doubt and unbelief come after you. Why hasn’t God shown up by now?, they will ask. The season of delay is often a time of spiritual weakness for most believers, and the temptation is to stop swatting the vultures away because of the feeling God isn’t coming.
I want to show you what for me is one of the worst pictures I have ever seen in my life, and the horrible consequences of it. I’m showing it for several reasons the first is because it graphically shows how vultures come in our weakest moments. Another is because it shows the devastating effects of not fully beating the buzzards away.
PPT 11 Kevin Carter’s Pulitzer Prize Photo
This horrific picture was taken in 1993 by a rather young (early 30's) freelance photographer from South Africa by the name of Kevin Carter. The New York Times, in which this photo first appeared (March 26, 1993), would later characterize it as "a metaphor for Africa's despair." In 1994, Carter was awarded the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for this photo!! Yet, just a few weeks later, on July 27, 1994, Kevin Carter took his own life at the age of only 33. Many things were troubling this young man, but according to his friends, and according to the note he left behind, he'd never been able to recover from what he had seen ... and what he had failed to do!!
One day, while some distance away from a relief center, he happened upon this tiny little girl/boy who was crawling toward the relief center. She was being followed patiently by a vulture, just waiting for her to die so it could feast upon what little flesh was upon her frail body. Kevin got his picture ... and his Pulitzer ... but he walked away from the scene, leaving the child to her fate.
Hundreds of people contacted the paper questioning whether the little girl had survived to which the paper responded through an unusual editor’s note saying that the girl garnered enough strength to walk away from the vulture but her ultimate fate was not known. It was a rule for the journalists in Sudan not to touch victims of the famine, to avoid the risk of transmitting diseases. Carter though came under a lot of criticism for not assisting the girl. It also became known that he watched the scene for almost 20 minutes hoping the vulture would spread its wings for a more dramatic picture. The St. Petersburg Times wrote this about him: “The man adjusting his lens to take just the right frame of her suffering might just as well be a predator, another vulture on the scene.”
A few minutes after taking the picture, Carter and Silva boarded a small UN plane and left the area.
But the area couldn’t leave him, that memory in part fueled his suicide.
I tell that story for this simple purpose there are vultures that want to steal and the only way you and I are going to defeat them is to be diligent in chasing them away, otherwise they win.
PPT 12 Text Genesis 15:11
Genesis 15:11 And when the fowls came down upon the carcasses, Abram drove them away.
Close: What is your basis or right standing with God? The blood covenant.
Keep swatting the vultures away in your own l
