Devotional - 99-02-06 - A Few Laws and Decrees Before the Law

Taking up where I left off, I would like to point out a few things from Genesis. First off, I always found it interesting that Abraham was well aware of Gods laws, decrees, statutes, and ordinances. Some scholars believe that it is possible that Abraham had a written record of them. I too think it is a possibility that Abraham did have what is sometimes called "Abraham's Bible." One of the Scriptures that is pointed to as proof that Abraham did understand some of God's directives toward man can be found in:

Genesis 26:5 Becuase Abraham obeyed me and kept my requirements, my commands, my decrees and my laws. NIV

If in fact Abraham did hold fast to a primitive written revelation from God this record was allowed to pass out of existence. Here and there in the Bible there are references of primitive writing that contained revelation from God but He allowed them to pass from the corridors of history to oblivion.

Jude 14 -15 Enoch the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men: " See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones to judge everyone and to convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have done in the ungodly way, and of all the harsh words ungodly sinners have spoken against him."

You can search your Old Testament for the words of Enoch and the entire New Testament but you will not find the words quoted herein the book of Jude. Another reference to a book (or scroll) that spoke of the Lord Jesus can be found in

Psalm 40:7 Then said I Lo I am come in the roll of the book it is written of me 1901ASV

But once again you can see that there is no such "roll of the book" to look at today; yet the Bible chose to make a reference to it. My conclusion is that the primitive revelations that came from God either written or memorized were truthful, informative and accurate enough that the Holy Spirit chose to divinely inspire the writers of the Bible in a few places to refer to those teachings. Yet those primitive quotes and references were in total accord with God's plans and purposes. Unfortunately there are many groups today that will try and tell you that they have extra Biblical books from God and in order to be saved you need to read them and get involved with their "way" to heaven. To the average person they can seem pretty convincing but I thank the Lord that some excellent brethren have placed some of the most authoritative resources available online right at your fingertips that help to expose this type of deception. Please look at this website, you will find it tremendously useful for things just like this and chock full with facts designed so that no one takes advantage of you with clever schemes, deceptive words, and false teaching.

http://www.watchman.org/watchman.htm

Before I get into my next point which has to do with deception I would like to say that Moses also had a keen awareness of God's Laws and decrees prior to receiving them and then giving the Jewish people the 613 laws. It is purely speculative but perhaps Abraham did have a Bible and Moses just may have had a copy too. Regardless of if they did or did not have a written record, the two men had a very good primitive revelation of Gods plans and purposes of His Laws for mankind.

Exodus 18:16 Whenever they have a dispute, it is brought to me, and I decide between the parties and inform them of God's decrees and laws. NIV

Today though, we need to be careful that we are not being deceived and led down a path of "false salvation" to our own destruction. All too often I receive mail or I am informed of someone who has decided to follow a group or a new teaching without ever doing their homework. So my friends the moral of the story today is look at this website become familiar with who teaches what and if you find that you were not taught truthfully ...Thank God that He pointed you to a place where just a little reading to get to the bottom of the matter may have saved years of never knowing. Incidentally, the Bible instructs us by the example of a noble group of men to search the scriptures in just the way these men at this website did for our benefit.

Acts 17:11 Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.

Keep looking up

In His Service
liv4yeshua@cfdevotionals.org

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