The Anchor of the Soul

INTRODUCTION

This is the secret to faith, and is therefore absolutely critical to understand. Please read carefully:

Four hundred thirty (430) years to the exact day before the first Passover in Egypt, as Abraham watched from behind a rock close by, the Father Himself (the smoking fire pot below) entered into the everlasting Covenant with His Son (the flaming torch below) as Abraham’s (and our) representative, the sole purpose of which was to ensure the Father’s promises to each one of us today:

When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these [slaughtered animal sacrifice] pieces. On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates…” (Gen. 15:17-18)

And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you (Gen. 17:7)

Its significance is explained in Hebrews, Chapter 6: And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises… For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself saying, “Surely I will bless you and multiply you.” And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise. For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation. So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things (i.e.., the Promise and the covenant oath), in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul…(Heb. 6:11-19)

Consider:

1.God’s broader promises to Abraham could be summarized as follows: “I will bless you and be God forever to you and your seed.” (Gen. 17:7)

• The life and death of Christ which inaugurated the “new” or “renewed” covenant is simply the fulfilment or renewal of the Everlasting Covenant to Abraham (Gal. 3:19).
• The Old Covenant, which has terminated, was the giving of the law to Moses and did not invalidate or change the Everlasting Covenant (Gal. 3:17)

2. Scripture later fleshes out this promise and sets forth a number of other very great and precious promises (2 Pe. 1:4) God through the Holy Spirit later made to Abraham’s seed (i.e., to Christ and through Him, to us):o

• To Save – e.g., Jhn 3:16
• To Rescue –e.g., Ps. 50:15; Ps. 91
• To Heal – e.g., Ps. 103:2
• To Provide – e.g., Phl. 4:19
• To Protect – e.g., Ps. 121:7
• To fulfil the desires of our heart – e.g., Ps. 145:193.

3. God secured the Promise to Abraham with a blood covenant (and thus a Maledictory Oath)

• God realized that humans would view His Promises as a man’s promise which is often broken, and so in His grace, He secured His Promises by a death oath. Why? Because He knows that doubt is deadly to faith and the promises are only realized through faith (and patience). Therefore, the Father did this in His great mercy for our minds, which is always the battleground.
• Please understand: If God failed to comply with any promise to us, he vowed to be as the dead animals over which He walked.
• Therefore, God bet the Universe/Everything(!), even His own continued existence, on His willingness and ability to comply with His promises to you and me (Abraham and His Seed)! This assurance of His Promises is called in Hebrews 6: “the ANCHOR OF THE SOUL.”
• The result of our having the ANCHOR OF THE SOUL is that we no longer view our senses or our natural reason as a reliable compass for living or as indicators of Truth; we choose not to live by what our senses or what the World or the Enemy tell us; we reject the mind of the World and all the anxiety and worry that goes with it. Instead we realize that, because of the oath God has made to ensure His Promises, we should choose to live solely on the much more reliable basis of what God has said and promised! In doing so, we see the promises realized in our lives, as with Abraham, who “is the Father of all who believe” (Rom. 4:11)

4. Why are the promises not realized by all believers?

• The Promises are realized through faith and patience.
• Faith means that we don’t stand in place on one side of the Jordan River as the Wilderness Jews and plead to God for the land that He has already promised. Instead, we believe what God has already given to or provided for us on the basis of his secured Promises, and we are therefore willing to risk what is dearest to us, usually our reputation (in the case of the Wilderness Jews their wives and children) to go in the Land to face the Enemy/Giants and take what God has promised.
• Patience means we persevere until the Promise is realized, since we know it is ours and we will have it.5.
• We are promised in Rom. 5:17 that we will reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. Moreover, as set forth above, we are promised that the Lord “will deliver us out of all our afflictions”, “protect us from all evil”, save us from all our fears” etc., etc., etc. These promises and similar ones are repeated over and over to where Peter calls them very great and precious. (2 Pe. 1:4) Unfortunately, our experience as believers is that we are not reigning – in fact, the promises do not seem true for us as we are constantly brutalized by circumstances (the World) and the Devil.
• What’s the problem? Well, the promises are all true in Christ (2 Cr. 1:20) as they were promised to Abraham and His seed, that is, Christ (Gal. 3: 16), and of course if we belong to Christ we are heirs with Him of the promises and they are all secured by the Genesis Everlasting Covenant (Gal. 3:29). But the promises are inherited or realized by us only through faith and patience. (Heb.6:12)
• The problem is that we doubt God and doubt is absolutely deadly to faith…for a double-minded man will get “nothing” according to James1:7-8. For a double-minded man is not sure whether God is lying or not, and will in any event, because of his doubt, not persevere.oWhen we are afflicted we should locate the promise from God that covers our affliction or trouble. The fulfillment by God of that promise has been secured by a death oath – that’s how serious God is about wanting to make sure we know that we can have faith and rely upon that promise.
• The Lord entered into that covenant with His Son as representing the line of Abraham, which according to covenant law means that all that He is becomes ours in Christ/Abraham, and all that we are becomes His, to assure us that all that He has is available to us, and all that He has is wrapped up in His Son who is now ours.
• One translation of the Hebrews 6 excerpt states that God entered into the covenant to put an end to all dispute, doubt, or quibbling. In other words, He did so in order that our minds would not waver, doubt, or falter as wecome to realize the somber nature of the absolute, and I mean absolute, commitment God has made. So that the promise will assuredly be ours.
• But we are opposed, not only by our own unbelief, but by an active Enemy. Here is where we persevere. Knowing that God is committed to fulfilling the promise we are holding onto, we refuse to let interference by the Enemy take or deny to us what God has assured us. The Enemy, we know, is “a thief.” But being assured that God has given us what He has promised, we press through the Enemy’s opposition by rebuking the Enemy, praising our God, and refusing to be dispossessed of our most precious possession – the fulfilment of the Lord’s promise to us.
• In that is victory, and in victory we reign over the Devil and the World through the one man, Jesus Christ, party as our representative to the Everlasting Covenant. Thus, the revelation of God’s assurance of His Promise through the Everlasting Covenant gives our mind the extra ammunition to enable us to enter into the fullness of the Life God has for us in Christ – to go far beyond the normal Christian experience, and grow up into Christ, into the full measure of His stature (Eph. 4:13), to do the greater works of God (Jhn. 14:12).

6. The Enemy’s tactics have never changed.

• Just as in Genesis 3, it is always Has God said? The Lord says His people perish for lack of knowledge, and that is so true. We do not know what He has said; therefore, we are easy prey for the Enemy. m
• Even when He has delivered powerfully, or given us specific direction in life, we question: “Was it really God?” and the birds of prey come in (See Parable of the Sower) and carry off what He has done or told us. We are to receive and tenaciously hold on to what the Lord has told us or done for us (Greek word “lambano” for “receive” means to hold on as to a life preserver.) If we do not, we are prey for The Thief.
• The Lord’s death oath made in the Everlasting Covenant is precisely to assure us in our minds of the immutability of His commitment – that what He has promised to give us, He has given us, if we only receive it and hold on, whether that be Healing, Protection, Rescue, Provision, or whatever. But we need to know that all these are what He has promised. If one Promise is good they are all good; if one is not, all are questionable.
• Patience/perseverance is essential, of course, but the patience preached by the modern church is too often this: “It will all be true in Heaven.” That view, where all such promises are spiritualized, can rightly be labeled unbelief. When one is headed to the Lion’s den, he needs rescue right then, if what God has promised is truly a rescue. Daniel was delivered precisely because “he trusted in His God.” (Dan. 6:23)
• If one trusts in a promise from this God of ours, one will be rescued at precisely the right time, in real time, and not have to wait until never-never land. The Lord intends for His Word to be believed as we would the Word of any other honest man. Certainly, we will be able to look back on every affliction and announce to heaven: “Surely, this was a real rescue, and the word of the Lord has proven precisely true.”
• I have had painful lessons on this in the past on this. I have resolved that I will never again let the Enemy steal the Lord’s word, or what He has promised to me, out of my heart. The Lord has thrown me a touchdown pass on matters in the past, and I did not protect the ball in the end zone and let the cornerback strip it. I will not let the Thief do that again.

7.Why should any of us ever let go of the Healing promise, or any other? It belongs to us, just as the Promised Land!

• That is what the Thief does, which is why the death oath of the Everlasting Covenant is so necessary for us to have the confidence that what has been promised to us He really has given. Of course, in a covenant, the Parties give everything, which is why union with God is not just a neat theological concept. It is a legal reality for which the entire Universe has been put up as collateral to secure every promise that reflects it.

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