There is a clear ‘prophetic address’ laid out in Scripture which, if followed, leads only to Jesus Christ. Messiah was to come from the Seed of Abraham (Genesis 12:2,3; 22:18) He was to be a son of Isaac (Genesis 21:12) and most importantly he would be a son of Jacob (Numbers 24:17). The Promise extended beyond Jacob to the tribe of his son Judah (Genesis 49:10). Finally to the family of Jesse, (Isaiah 11:1), the House of David (II Samuel 7:12-16; Jeremiah 23:5), Ending in an arrival at Bethlehem (Micah 5:2) sometime before the destruction of Herod’s Temple in 70 A.D. (Malachi 3:1; Psalm 118:26; Daniel 9:26; Zechariah 11:13; Haggai 2:7-9).
One would assume that such a ‘heritage of promise’ would have evoked a deep sense of hope and security in Jacob. It did not. From the womb, his life was marked by constant ‘unrest.’
“Rebekah his wife conceived and the children struggled together within her.” (Genesis 25:22).
“He took his brother by the heel in the womb…” (Hosea 12:3)
From wrestling to walking, to running, then wrestling again Jacob’s was a see-saw existence.
Enter A Tardemah Of Utter Grace:
Jacob At Bethel/Perceiving The House Of God
We should notice that God waits until Jacob is utterly unworthy of grace before he grants it! Jacob by now had lost any sense of his own personal integrity and credibility. In contemporary ministry terms, Jacob was a ‘fallen leader,’ certainly disqualified from pastoral or patriarchal leadership! He had broken faith with his father and brother through repeated acts of deception. Morally he was a life long and unrepentant adulterer, having adopted the pagan, yet biblically forbidden practice of multiple marriages! (A situation the Bible describes, but never prescribes.)
His deceit brought with it a stigma of mistrust that hung like a mist, poisoning every aspect of his life and ministry. For all intents and purposes, Jacob was worthy of only an across the board condemnation! Yet it is here, while desperately trying to outrun his past, that Jacob will ‘happen upon the holy.’
Abraham held a unique place in the redemptive economy of God. Do you ever feel that you are destined to fulfill a great task for God’s kingdom? If so, what is it?
Abraham experienced a prolonged ‘season of barrenness’ even on the heels of promise! Have you ever endured a ‘season of fruitlessness’ that seemed the polar opposite of what God had promised you?
Abraham was a humble man at every point in his life. Are you humble in your calling, or do you secretly believe yourself to be ‘superior to’ or more ‘anointed than’ others?
Abraham created Ishmael in a fleshly attempt to ‘help God’ fulfill his purpose. Are you currently using some ‘fleshly means’ in order to manipulate or hasten the performance of your promise?
A Prayer For A Tardemah Of Divine Destiny
Let’s lay our ‘destinies’ upon God’s altar and pray again that His will would be done in our lives.
“Heavenly Father, I lay before you all my expectations concerning the future. Cleanse me from all fantasies of my own making. Burn away the wood, hay, and stubble of my own projections Purify the gold and silver of my true prophetic promise. Heal any remaining wounds of disappointment and disillusionment due to hopes that have been deferred. I acknowledge that I cannot control your sovereign will. I simply surrender to it. Forgive my transgressions and pour your favor upon me. Please reconfirm the destiny you have designed for me.”
In Jesus’ name.
There were essentially two types of covenant: the conditional and the unconditional. In a conditional covenant, as long as one met his or her side of the bargain, their covenant obligation was complete. If it were violated, horrible consequences would ensue. In an unconditional covenant, however, one party and one party alone, swore covenant allegiance, protection, and perpetual provision, regardless of the imperfection of the other party. The portrait of “deep sleep” falling upon Abraham is significant in that it equals a tardemah visitation wherein God personally lays His covenant partner down, puts him to sleep, then takes the “covenant walk” through the pieces of the sacrifice alone, unilaterally promising complete faithfulness in maintaining, and fulfilling Abraham’s destiny!
Abraham received absolute assurance of his future as he slept! The reconfirmation he had been longing for finally came. It was a one-sided, unconditional guarantee of promise and destiny!
Are you:
Walking with God as faithfully as you can?
Doing much to further His work and, in the process, naming so many things for others around you?
Free from flagrant overt sin, yet a sense of incompleteness keeps gnawing at the core of your being?
Unable to fully identify or properly meet your need?
Is even Eden becoming a distasteful place?
If so, then you need to sleep! You need a divine tardemah. You need the type of surgery God will soon pour out in abundance. It equals an operation wherein God reaches in and turns your deepest longings into reality.
Adam’s Way Of Negation
To get to what it is that you do need, you must often first identify what you don’t need. This is called the way of negation. The way of negation is simply stating what something is not. For instance, teenagers often say, ‘I’m not my dad;’ ‘I’m not my mom;’ ‘I don’t like this;’ ‘I don’t like that;’ but they are not quite sure what they ‘like,’ or ‘who’ they are. So it was with Adam.
In naming creation, Adam was confronted with a steady stream of realities that were wonderful and good in and of themselves, but they in no way met his deepest need. All Adam knew was that everything he had seen and experienced wasn’t it! I believe like Adam, you too will ‘know it when you see it,’ but God Himself must bring the answer to your need, an answer that comes only after He first puts you ‘to sleep’ for surgery
“And the Lord God caused the deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof:” (Genesis 2:21)
Notice that Adam’s need was met only after a divine sleep anesthetized him in order for God to open him up for surgery. God took part of Adam, and, with that part, He created Eve. Adam went to sleep helpless, yet he woke up prepared to receive the greatest blessing of his life!
“Now while he was talking with me, I sank into a deep sleep with my face to the ground; but he touched me and made me stand upright.” (Dan. 8:18)
There is a Hebrew word that appears frequently in the Holy Scriptures. It is pronounced tar-day-ma. It is a word used on occasion to describe simple sleep, but most frequently, it speaks of instances of sovereign intervention, redemptive acts so significant that a life can sometimes only be understood in terms of BT (before tardemah) and AT (after tardemah).
Tardemah: What The Scholars Say
The following are a few quotations that might help us to better understand what tardemah truly means:
“A deep sleep produced by God,” (Keil and Delitzsche).
“A coma like state often caused by God, making an individual insensible to things around him.” (Expository Dictionary of Bible Words)
“A God-given trance which opens the mind to revelation and ecstasy.” (Interpreters Commentary on the Bible)
“The profundity of divine intervention, it is God who casts such sleep … upon his chosen servant.” (Theological Workbook of the Old Testament)
“Not a common sleep through weariness or carelessness, but a divine ecstasy, the doors of the body are locked up, that the soul might be private and retired, and might act more freely.” (Matthew Henry)
We will discover that God both speaks and acts in strategic ways through ‘seasons’ of divine sleep. The tardemahs of which we speak are not mere physical sleep, but rather ‘sleep-like’ visitations which leave in their wake a transformed life!
“A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump”. Gal 5:9
Do you know what leaven is? The Latin Levamen meant simply “That which rises”. We call it yeast today. Yeast is a small plant in the fungus family. (Ascomycetous fungi of the genus Saccharomyces for all the botanists!) One gram of this stuff can contain ten billion living yeast cells.
One culture bottle holding 200 grams can in five days grow to about 150 tons of yeast! That is about ten million loaves of bread! powerful stuff. Whatever Leaven is, it needs to be treated with respect!
Leaven in the bible is an almost universal symbol of Evil, Disintegration And Sin.
(Gen 19:3;Ex 12:8, 15-20,34,39). Just a pinch of leaven equaled an undeniable influence which would forever alter its host. Imagine putting a Tarred hand on a Rembrandt! It would be changed forever! So it is with us. We are either positively or negatively “Leavening” the lives of everyone around us. All the time!
The three most popular leadership groups in Jesus’ day were the Pharisees the Sadducees and the Herodians. Each had just a pinch of false belief or “Leaven” which Jesus said defiled all who listened to them. The yeast of the Pharisees was their mistaken belief that external religious acts could earn brownie points with God .Ritualism without force! (Matt.23: 14, 16, 28) The leaven of the Sadducees equaled a pinch of absolute skepticism towards the supernatural. (Matt. 22:23, 29).And finally the leaven of the Herodians was simply a compromising worldliness which tainted all true seekers after God. (Matt.22: 16-21; Mark 3:6). Ritualism without force, Skepticism and Worldliness. Not much has changed has it?
For just a moment let’s focus only on the “power principle of Leaven.” (Leaven can also represent a positive influence for righteousness!)
Our words are like leaven. They influence everyone in our lives for good or for evil 24/7! Our moral choices are equally like leaven, sending daily ripples of influence signifying what is right or what is wrong. Every “Little word” and every “Little act” contains a concentrated power for life or death. For blessing or cursing! That is why the apostle Paul reminded the early church
“A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump”. Gal 5:9. I’ll conclude by mentioning the title of our blog “Is your life worth Leaven? Now you know the answer “Of course it is!” the only questions are am I “leaven for good?”or am I “Leaven for evil.”
“But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they break not his legs: But one of the solders with a spear pierced his side and forthwith came there out blood and water”. [John 19:33,34]
Blood and water were signs that our Lord literally “died of a broken heart.” Roman executioners used to break the bones of their crucifixion victims in order to hasten their death. The text says that when they saw that He was ” already dead”, they “break not his legs”; if you’re dead already the executioner won’t break your legs he won’t need to! While many things are worse for the breaking the human heart is not one of them. Just as an unbroken horse is valueless to its owner, just so an unbroken heart is of no use to God. Too often we respond only to the bone cracking experiences of life. Wouldn’t it be simpler if we submitted willingly to God in love and trust? As Dr Craig Johnson says,” Whom God will use greatly, he will first hurt deeply.”
Let’s start asking God for permission rather than forgiveness. In short let’s grow up! A broken heart is no guarantee we won’t break a bone or two along the way, we may. But there’s a big difference between having a bone broken and needing one broken. And always remember God specializes in using broken things! He alone “Can strike a straight blow with a crooked stick.”
About Dr. Craig Johnson