I wrote this in the last part of the series –

There are many areas of ‘Basic Training’ that God has for His people, but I’ve chosen five as examples. This spiritual training, just like military training, is not a ‘cafeteria’ where you can pick-and-choose what you want to learn. They are all necessary for the spiritual warfare that awaits everyone who follows God seriously.

  1. Believe in the Only True God (Monotheism)
  2. Fear God and Obey Him
  3. Worship God and Serve Him
  4. Listen to God and Trust Him
  5. Love God and Devote Your Life to Him

What I’d like to do next is share a couple of early examples from the Bible that might help us see how God ‘trains’ His people to ‘reign.’

Noah

God called Noah for a specific ‘mission’ – to build an Ark that would protect his family and many of the animal, reptile, and bird species from the Flood that God would use to destroy most life on earth. Genesis 6 tells us that ‘Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations’ and that he ‘walked with God.’ Noah ‘found grace in the eyes of the Lord’ and received his assignment from God.

Why would God destroy most of the people on earth?

Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Genesis 6:5

The ‘wickedness of man’ being great in the earth, and ‘every intent of the thoughts of his heart’ being evil ‘continually,’ didn’t happen overnight. Read back through the end of Genesis 4 and into Genesis 5 and you’ll meet the descendants of Adam and Eve through their sons Cain and Seth. Cain was wicked and so were his descendants. Seth was apparently not wicked because when his son Enosh was born men began to call (קָרָא – qara – proclaim) ‘on the name of the Lord’ (Genesis 4:26).

Even five generations from Seth we find that Enoch ‘walked with God’ (Genesis 5:24) and that God ‘took him away’ so that Enoch ‘did not see death’ (Hebrews 11:5). Five generations from Cain we find that Enoch’s cousin Lamech killed a man and mocked God for how He had treated Cain. However, fast-forward just a few generations from Enoch and we find that the earth was filled with violence and ‘corrupt before God’ (Genesis 6:11).

How did that happen so fast? It’s important to remember that God made a promise to Eve that the ‘Seed’ of the woman would destroy the ‘seed’ of the serpent. The ‘Seed’ is Jesus Christ, who ‘was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil’ (1 John 3:8). I think the devil was involved in bringing about the somewhat rapid decline of the human civilization to the point that the promised ‘Seed’ of the woman might be compromised or corrupted. That led to God making His next move. He would destroy the human race except for one man and his family. God would bring the ‘Seed’ through the lineage of Noah and his son Shem.

God said that His Spirit would ‘not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years’ (Genesis 6:3). At some point during that time God called Noah and assigned him to build the Ark. God told Noah exactly how to build the Ark. Noah believed, listened and obeyed. Noah may have gone through a period of ‘basic training’ before. his mission, though we’re not given specifics. What we know is this –

By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith. Hebrews 11:7

Notice that Noah was ‘divinely warned’ and ‘moved with godly fear.’ Those are important aspects of being trained for any mission God gives to us.

Based on the number of years mentioned in Noah’s life in Genesis 5 and 7, building the Ark may have taken about a hundred years. Noah was five hundred years old and became the father of three sons. He was six hundred years old ‘when the floodwaters were on the earth.’

The bottom line with Noah is that he was thrown into the primary ‘battle’ for which God had called him soon after choosing him. He may have had a period of 20 years to prepare before building the Ark (120-20=100), but we’re not told specifically.

Here’s one other example.

Abram

Abram’s father was named Terah. Terah was 70 years old when he became a father. He had three sons: Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Abram married Sarai, but they had no children because she was barren. Haran had a son named Lot, but ‘Haran died before his father Terah in his native land, in Ur of the Chaldeans’ (Genesis 11:28).

Noah had three sons prior to the Flood: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Sons were born to them after the Flood (Genesis 10:1). Genesis 10 gives quite a bit of detail about each of the sons of Noah and their descendants. However, because the ‘Seed’ would come through Shem’s lineage (Luke 3:23-38), we’ll focus our attention on Shem’s descendants.

Shem had a son named Arphaxad, who had a son named Salah, who had a son named Eber, who had a son named Peleg, who had a son named Reu, who had a son named Serug, who had a son named Nahor, who had a son named Terah, who had a son named Abram – (from Genesis 11:10-26). That means that Abram was ten generations from Noah (nine from Shem).

Terah went out from ‘Ur of the Chaldeans go to the land of Canaan’ with his family, including Noah, Sarai and Lot. It may have been at some point after Haran died because Terah settled in a place called ‘Haran,’ located in the northern part of Mesopotamia. That was about 400 miles north of where God planned to send Abram. Terah died in Haran. Many members of his family remained there, but God called Abram to leave his father’s house and travel to ‘a land that I will show you.’

Abram was 75 years old when he ‘departed as the Lord had spoken to him’ (Genesis 12:4). That’s important to note because Abram had spent his entire life worshiping ‘other gods’ (idol worship). However, ‘gods of wood and stone’ don’t talk because people make them with their hands. Abram heard the voice of God, believed Him, feared Him, and obeyed Him. That was the beginning of Abram’s ‘basic training.’

Completing the Mission

Noah and Abram completed the mission that God trained them to do. Noah built the Ark and saved his son who would carry forward the future ‘Seed.’ Abram obeyed God even in the face of being asked to kill his son Isaac (Genesis 22). God provided a sacrifice in Isaac’s place and the lineage of the ‘Seed’ continued moving to the day when the Son of God would ‘become flesh.’

Interestingly, the Son of God (called the Angel of the Lord in Genesis 22) provided the sacrifice in Isaac’s place, even as He would do one day on the Cross –

But the Angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, ‘Abraham, Abraham!’ So he said, ‘Here I am.’ And He said, ‘Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.’ Then Abraham lifted his eyes and looked, and there behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by its horns. So Abraham went and took the ram, and offered it up for a burnt offering instead of his son. And Abraham called the name of the place, The-Lord-Will-Provide; as it is said to this day, ‘In the Mount of the Lord it shall be provided.’ Then the Angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time out of heaven, and said: ‘By Myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son— blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies. In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice. Genesis 22:11-18

We know that Abraham made many mistakes during his earthly journey, but he followed his training and successfully completed the work God had given him to do. Both Abraham and Noah believed in the only true God, they feared and obeyed Him, they worshiped and served Him, they listened and trusted Him, and loved and devoted their lives to Him. They completed their training and ‘reigned.’

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Next Time

Isaac went on to become the father of Jacob, who God renamed ‘Israel.’ We will look at how God trained Israel to reign in the next part of our series – Train to Reign.

“Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.”

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