Kootenai Church Morning Worship

Turn now, if you will please, back to Genesis 17. You may have been expecting me to say turn to Hebrews 11. There's a reason we're going back to Genesis 17, and that is that as I was going through Hebrews 11 this week, I realized that we started to pull a little bit of a thread in Genesis last week, and we didn't quite pull all of the thread in Genesis last week. So while I only said about 1 percent of what could be said about Abraham and his significance, I really said about half of what needed to be said about Abraham and his significance.
So we're going back to pick up where we left off last week. And I sort of hit the brakes and changed gears midstream in the middle of this week, which is a little bit of an odd thing for me to do, but I just realized that we have a lot of unvisited stuff yet in the book of Genesis that we needed to follow all the way through to the end so that we can understand that the promises that God gave to Abraham then went on through Isaac and Jacob and Joseph, and so we just want to follow that, keep pulling that thread until we get at least to the end of the book of Genesis. And I have more material this week that I need to cover than I did last week. Last week's sermon was longer than normal, which means that we have to hit the 1.5 button today on the sermon so that we can get through everything that I have prepared here for this morning.
So back in Genesis 17—we looked last week at the call of Abraham in Genesis 12 and 13 and 15 and 17. In Genesis 12 there is the skeletal outline of the Abrahamic covenant that is given as God promises to Abraham physical descendants which would outnumber the sand of the seashore and that nations would come from him, and then God promised him a land that he had not yet seen and not yet been to, and then God promised him that through him in some way all the nations of the earth would be blessed. And that's the basic outline, the skeleton of the Abrahamic covenant.
But then as we go into chapter 13 and 15 and then 17, the Lord adds more and more details to that covenant as Abraham moves into the land and begins to see it for himself, and God gives him more and more revelation. And we saw that there were details that were added to that like the boundaries of the land, from the river Euphrates all the way through to the great river in Egypt. Abraham was told that nations would come to him, that kings would come to him, that the heirs of the promise would be in slavery in another nation, and that they would then spend four hundred years there and then come out plundering that nation, and that Abraham himself would never see this, but he would die before he ever actually possessed the land, but then his descendants would possess it and possess it forever, and that everything that Abraham was being told was part of an everlasting covenant.
And all of the promises that God gave to Abraham in Genesis 12, 13, 15, and 17, in those four chapters, every promise that has been fulfilled to this day has been fulfilled literally just as the promise was given. And if you want to know how future prophecy is going to be fulfilled, you need to look at how past prophecy has been fulfilled, and I think that that is an indication as to what lies ahead. That tells us how it is that God fulfills the prophetic word.
But then we come to an interpretive question. Up to this point—that is, Genesis 17—the promises seem a little bit broad. Because we might ask, “OK, descendants of Abraham—Abraham had more than one son. He had Isaac and he had Ishmael, and then later on after Sarah died, he had other sons after that (and we're going to look at some of that before we're done). And so to which of those descendants was this promise given? Do all of the descendants of Abraham inherit that land?” And if it is to all of the descendants of Abraham, then we might look at modern-day Jordan and Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and Turkey and we might say, “OK, so it looks to me as if that promise has been fulfilled.” But if in fact it is only a narrow portion, some of Abraham's descendants and not all of them, then we would have to say up till today that that promise has not been fulfilled because the descendants of Isaac have not inhabited that land and possessed everything that Abraham was promised.
And then we also have to recognize that there is in Scripture a spiritual seed of Abraham. There are the spiritual children. Now, if you are of Jewish descent here this morning and you are a believer in Christ, then you are both a physical descendant of Abraham as well as a spiritual descendant of Abraham. But if you are like me and there's probably not a Jew anywhere in your history and you are as Gentile as Gentile can possibly be but you have faith in Jesus Christ, then you are a spiritual descendant of Abraham. And this is what Paul's talking about in Romans 4 when he says in verse 11, “And he [that is, Abraham] received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while uncircumcised, so that he might be the father of all who believe without being circumcised.” That is to say, he is the spiritual ancestor and the spiritual forefather of all who, apart from circumcision and trying to keep the law and being part of the physical descendants of Abraham—those who believe, they are the spiritual children of Abraham.
We look to Abraham, and he is the father of all the faithful. In the physical sense, he is the father of all of the Jewish nation. And so every Jew can trace their lineage back to Abraham. He is their physical father. Of those who are outside of that lineage, me for instance, by virtue of faith in Jesus Christ, Abraham is my spiritual father. I look to him and say, “He was a man who was made righteous in the sight of God apart from circumcision, apart from being a descendant of anybody else. He was justified by faith and faith alone, so he is my spiritual father.”
So Paul says in Romans 4, “For this reason it [that is, salvation] is by faith, in order that it may be in accordance with grace, so that the promise will be guaranteed to all the descendants, not only to those who are of the Law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham” (v. 16). You might say, “Well, all the descendants, wouldn't that be spiritual and physical?” Paul in Romans 4 is not talking about the land promise or the covenant promise there. He's talking about salvation. Romans 4 is talking about salvation. So this promise of being justified by faith is for all those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is a father of us all. “(As it is written, ‘A father of many nations have I made you’) in the presence of Him whom he believed, even God, who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist” (Rom. 4:17).
So Abraham is the spiritual father of all who believe in Christ. And if you are a Jew who believes in Christ, then he is your spiritual father as well as your physical father. If you are a Jew who does not believe in Christ, he is not your spiritual father, he is your physical father, and you are outside of Christ and therefore outside of the blessings of salvation even though you might be a descendant of Abraham. Right? So we are spiritual descendants of Abraham.
Do you remember the song “Father Abraham had many sons/ Many sons had Father Abraham/ And I am one of them and so are you” (“Father Abraham”)? OK, Josh wanted to sing that for worship today and I said, “No, we're not going to do that.” Because we do the right arm, left arm, right foot, left foot, spin around, fall down—people will think we're a charismatic church. We're not going to sing that song. It might be true as far as it goes, but we're not going to sing that song.
So, is the land promise then to all of Abraham's seed, his physical as well as his spiritual descendants, or was that land promised to the physical seed of Abraham? What part then do the spiritual seed have in that promise? That's an issue that we have to address before we get out of Hebrews 11.
Genesis 17—let's pick it up where we left off in verse 1. Now this is going to be a bit of a reiteration. I'm just getting this for context to kind of remind you of where we landed last week. We're going to take off from the same landing strip, as it were. Genesis 17:1: “Now when Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, ‘I am God Almighty; walk before Me, and be blameless.’” That's not a condition of the covenant. That is simply a command. Other people were commanded to be blameless as well. This is not saying, “If you walk before Me and if you are blameless, I will do this.” Remember that God had already sworn to Abraham, put Abraham to sleep, and made the covenant with Abraham. He had no part in any conditions to that. It was an unconditional covenant.
So verse 2:
2 “I will establish My covenant between Me and you, and I will multiply you exceedingly.”
3 Abraham fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying,
4 “As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you, and you will be the father of a multitude of nations.
5 “No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations.
6 “I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations of you, and kings will come forth from you.
7 “I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you.
8 “I will give to you and to your descendants after you, the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.” (Gen 17:2–8 NASB)
Now this is not a promise that is given to anybody but Abraham's physical seed. In Genesis 17:9 we're going to find out that it is not all of his physical seed that are included in this promise, but only some. Verse 9:
9 God said further to Abraham, “Now as for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations.
10 “This is My covenant, which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: every male among you shall be circumcised.
11 “And you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be the sign of the covenant between Me and you.
12 “And every male among you who is eight days old shall be circumcised throughout your generations, a servant who is born in the house or who is bought with money from any foreigner, who is not of your descendants.
13 “A servant who is born in your house or who is bought with your money shall surely be circumcised; thus shall My covenant be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.
14 “But an uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant.” (Gen. 17:9–14 NASB)
So the circumcision was given as the sign of the covenant to Abraham, the covenant that was unconditional, the same covenant from Genesis 15. And circumcision had a wider application than just merely the sign of the covenant because not everybody who was circumcised was included in that promise because later on Abraham circumcised Ishmael, and Ishmael is excluded from the land promise. So while everybody who was included in the promised seed is circumcised, not everybody who was circumcised is included in the promise of the land and the descendants. That promise, that covenant, is going to pass down through a specific lineage, but Abraham was to observe the terms of that and the sign of that as a reminder of what God had promised to him throughout his generations. This becomes obvious in the next section.
Verses 15–16: “Then God said to Abraham, ‘As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her, and indeed I will give you a son by her. Then I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her.’” Now here's the key, Ishmael by this point had already been born because Abraham had taken Hagar, Sarah's handmaid, and had a child by her in an attempt to fulfill the word which God had given to him and to gain a descendant. So Abraham by this point already had a descendant, and now the Lord is reiterating the promise back to him that Sarah, not Hagar, will be the mother of this promised seed.
Look at Abraham's response in Genesis 17:17: “Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said in his heart, ‘Will a child be born to a man one hundred years old? And will Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?’” So a hundred years old and ninety years old. Now I need to say something at this point about biblical time frames and ages of the patriarchs. And I should have said this probably back in Genesis regarding Noah when we were talking about people living to be nine hundred years old. We should not think when we read about the age of the patriarchs and somebody aged to be ninety years old that they were the same ninety that you and I would be at ninety. Because then if you think, OK, so they lived to be ninety years old and then lived another nine hundred years after that, that rate of decay really makes for a bad, long old age. That's not the way that that worked out.
The age—what would you call it? The age curve was about the same. It was just stretched out over a longer period of time. So in Adam's day, a nine-hundred-year-old man would be like a ninety-year-old man today because we die around ninety or one hundred. And I know that there's some wiggle room there, but bear with me. And a nine-hundred-year-old person would be like a ninety-year-old. I would be like a five-hundred-year-old person in Adam's day. So the age curve is the same. It's just stretched out over a longer period of time. The aging process was slowed down, or was slower, we should say, in the early years.
So when it says that Sarah is 90 years old and Abraham is 100 years old, Abraham lived to be 175. So if we take 175 and you mark it out to about 100 or 90, when we would die today, that means that when Abraham was 100 years old, it would be like a 60-year-old man today. When Sarah was 90 years old, it would be like somebody in their 50s today. So possibly past the point of time where she would be able to conceive a child, but not past the point of time where she would be able to give birth to a child. So it says that Sarah is 90 years old—don't think of your grandmother giving birth to a child and carrying a child like that. It would be different. It would be as if a lady in her mid-50s or late-50s would bear a child. Physically, she would be able to do that. I’m not saying it would be easy, just that physically she would be able to do that. I looked it up and there are people today who have children in their 50s and even past the age of 60. Google it. It's scary.
Genesis 17:18: “Abraham said to God, ‘Oh that Ishmael might live before You!’” He already had a son. So it's almost as if Abraham is saying, “We can make this really easy. I've got Ishmael. He could be the one to whom You give all of these promised blessings. Oh that Ishmael may live before You!”
19 But God said, “No, but Sarah your wife will bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; and I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.
20 As for Ishmael, I have heard you; behold, I will bless him, and will make him fruitful and will multiply him exceedingly. He shall become the father of twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation.” (Gen. 17:19–20 NASB)
All of that unfolded exactly as it happened.
Verses 21–22: “‘But My covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you at this season next year.’ When He finished talking with him, God went up from Abraham.” So now the Lord has narrowed down who it is that's going to receive this. “Let Ishmael live before You. He could be the one.” Nope. “Sarah's going to bear a son. You'll call his name Isaac. I will establish My covenant, this eternal covenant, that I have told you about back in chapter 12 and 13 and 15 and 17. That covenant is going to be established with Isaac, not with Ishmael.” So it is the physical descendants—the Lord is being very specific—it's the physical descendants of Abraham through Isaac that will receive the promise of this land and the promise of the blessings. Not all the descendants of Abraham, only Isaac. So that rules out Ishmael and all of the nations, all of the kings, all of the countries that had come from Ishmael, they're ruled out of this. They're not included in this promise.
Genesis 22, this happens after—oh, let me point out Aabraham had three wives or women with whom he had children during his life. Sarah bore him Isaac. Hagar bore him Ishmael. Keturah, who he married or took as a wife after Sarah died—he had six sons from her. And we see that in Genesis 25. So out of all of this lineage, this promise is traced through one line of Abraham. Out of the eight sons that he had, there's one who is the son of promise, and that's Isaac.
Now, after Abraham offers up Isaac and gets ready to sacrifice him on the altar—turn over to Genesis 22:15. Abraham was faithful and obeyed the word of the Lord. So verse 15 says,
15 Then the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven,
16 and said, “By Myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this thing and have not withheld your son, your only son,
17 “indeed [look at the reconformation now of this blessing and promise] I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies.
18 In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.” (Gen. 22:15–18 NASB)
Sarah died in Genesis 23. Look at 23, verse 1: “Now Sarah lived one hundred and twenty-seven years; these were the years of the life of Sarah.” And then Abraham, after Sarah died, sought a wife for Isaac. Turn to chapter 24, verse 1:
1 Now Abraham was old, advanced in age; and the Lord had blessed Abraham in every way.
2 Abraham said to his servant, the oldest of his household, who had charge of all that he owned, “Please place your hand under my thigh,
3 “and I will make you swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of earth, that you shall not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I live,
4 “but you will go to my country and to my relatives, and take a wife for my son Isaac.”
5 The servant said to him, “Suppose the woman is not willing to follow me to this land [remember, they're in the land of promise. “Suppose she's not willing to come back from where you came from. Suppose she's not willing to come back to this land.”]; should I take your son back to the land from where you came?”
6 Then Abraham said to him, “Beware that you do not take my son back there!
7 “The Lord, the God of heaven, who took me from my father's house and from the land of my birth, and who spoke to me and who swore to me, saying, ‘To your descendants I will give this land,’ He will send His angel before you, and you will take a wife for my son from there.
8 “But if the woman is not willing to follow you, then you will be free from this my oath; only do not take my son back there.”
9 So the servant placed his hand under the thigh of Abraham his master, and swore to him concerning this matter. (Gen 24:1–9 NASB)
See, Abraham would not let his son leave the land. Why? Because Abraham was convinced that Isaac was going to inherit that land and that blessing.
Then after the death of Abraham, Isaac becomes the central figure. Look at Genesis 25:1–4: “Now Abraham took another wife, whose name was Keturah [this is after the death of Sarah]. She bore to him Zimran and Jokshan and Medan and Midian and Ishbak and Shuah. Jokshan became the father of Sheba and Dedan. And the sons of Dedan were Asshurim and Letushim and Leummim. The sons of Midian”—hey, don't laugh. You're not up here. You just be thankful you're not the one up here reading these names. “The sons of Midian were”—I think I already read that, didn't we? Verses 5–6: “Now Abraham gave all that he had to Isaac; but to the sons of his concubines, Abraham gave gifts while he was still living, and sent them away from his son Isaac eastward, to the land of the east.”
Now why did Abraham give all that he had to Isaac? He gave gifts to his other sons, sent them away from Isaac, and gave everything, the entire estate, to Isaac even though Isaac was not the firstborn. Who was the firstborn? Ishmael was the first one born. But Isaac was the son of promise. Therefore, everything Abraham gave, he gave it to Isaac.
Verse 19:
19 Now these are the records of the generations of Isaac, Abraham's son: Abraham became the father of Isaac;
20 and Isaac was forty years old when he took Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel the Aramean of Paddan-aram, the sister of Laban the Aramean, to be his wife.
21 Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife, because she was barren; and the Lord answered him and Rebekah his wife conceived.
22 But the children struggled together within her; and she said, “If it is so, why then am I this way?” So she went to inquire of the Lord.
23 The Lord said to her, “Two nations are in your womb; and two peoples will be separated from your body; and one people shall be stronger than the other; and the older shall serve the younger.” (Gen. 25:19–23 NASB)
She had two nations in her womb. Notice the language of the Abrahamic covenant that comes to bear. There are two nations in your womb. Remember God had said to Abraham, “I will bring nations from you.” This is the first record that we have. We have two nations that are being described, Esau and Jacob. And Esau became the father of the Edomites. So this is the language of the Abrahamic covenant that is used here.
And one of them would be preeminent. And this was to establish God's choice by sovereign election that Esau, the firstborn, was not the one who inherited the promises. Again, this is not going to go to the firstborn child. This would go to the secondborn. It would be Jacob. Jacob was the son of promise. So this was to establish God's sovereign election. It's not the firstborn. Jacob is the chosen one.
Genesis 26—this is Isaac then settling in the land.
1 Now there was a famine in the land, besides the previous famine that had occurred in the days of Abraham. So Isaac went to Gerar, to Abimelech king of the Philistines.
2 The Lord appeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt; stay in the land of which I shall tell you.
3 “Sojourn in this land and I will be with you and bless you, for to you and to your descendants I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath which I swore to your father Abraham.
4 “I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven, and will give your descendants all these lands; and by your descendants all the nations of the earth shall be blessed;
5 “because Abraham obeyed Me and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes and My laws.” (Gen. 26:1–5 NASB)
Now notice that all the terms of the Abrahamic covenant are now reiterated to Isaac. Isaac now receives all of these promises.
Verses 23–24: “Then he went up from there to Beersheba. The Lord appeared to him the same night and said, ‘I am the God of your father Abraham; do not fear, for I am with you. I will bless you, and multiply your descendants, for the sake of My servant Abraham.’” So it's obvious now that all of these promises have been bestowed upon Isaac. Isaac, not Ishmael, is the chosen seed. Isaac's blessings are confirmed again.
Then Isaac has the two sons, Jacob and Esau. Esau is the first one born, Jacob is the second one born. And yet, you say, how is it that the second one born would end up taking preeminence and that the older would serve the younger and that the younger would be greater than the older? How can that possibly happen? Well, it was through Jacob's trickery, and you know how the story unfolds. Esau was a fleshly oriented man who ended up selling his birthright to his brother for a bowl of soup. So by Jacob's coercion, Jacob ended up receiving that promised birthright.
Then through his trickery, he ended up receiving the blessing that belonged to the firstborn as well. Remember how that unfolded? Right, remember that Rebekah and Jacob ended up conspiring together to trick Isaac into bestowing the blessing. Isaac was getting old, his eyesight was failing, and so Jacob dressed up in sheepskin or goatskin or whatever it was and came in. He smelled like an animal, he felt like an animal, he looked like an animal, and Isaac couldn't tell the difference between any of that. And so he felt him and said, “That smells like my son.”
Beginning in Genesis 27:27: “So he came close and kissed him; and when he smelled the smell of his garments, he blessed him and said, ‘See, the smell of my son [he thought it was Esau] is like the smell of a field which the Lord has blessed.’” So then he gives him the blessing. Verse 28:
28 Now may God give you of the dew of heaven, and of the fatness of the earth, and an abundance of grain and new wine.
29 May peoples serve you, and nations bow down to you; be master of your brothers, and may your mother's sons bow down to you. [Notice the language of the Abrahamic covenant] Cursed be those who curse you, and blessed be those who bless you. (Gen. 27:28–29 NASB)
That's the language of the covenant. Jacob's deception ended up accomplishing the purpose of God because God uses sin sinlessly to accomplish His purposes, and that's what's happening with Jacob.
Isaac later on realizes that he had been tricked, and then rather than fighting against the purposes of God, he confirms the purposes of God in Genesis 28:1.
1 So Isaac called Jacob and blessed him and charged him, and said to him, “You shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan.
2 “Arise, go to Paddan-aram, to the house of Bethuel your mother's father; and from there take to yourself a wife from the daughters of Laban your mother's brother.
3 “May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may become a company of peoples.
4 “May He also give you the blessing of Abraham, to you and to your descendants with you, that you may possess the land of your sojournings, which God gave to Abraham.” (Gen. 28: 1–4 NASB)
So now this would belong to Jacob. Isaac recognizes that, and he gives these blessings to Jacob.
Verse 10: “Then Jacob departed from Beersheba and went toward Haran.” Does the name Haran sound familiar? It should because last week we saw that that is the place where God called Abraham back in chapter 12. So now Jacob is leaving the land of promise to go back and fetch a wife for himself, and God interrupts that plan. He doesn't distract him from going out of the land, but in verse 11 of 28,
11 he came to a certain place and spent the night there, because the sun had set; and he took one of the stones of the place and put it under his head, and lay down in that place.
12 He had a dream, and behold, a ladder was set on the earth with its top reaching to heaven; and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.
13 And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie, I will give it to you and to your descendants.
14 “Your descendants will also be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and in you and in your descendants shall all the families of the earth be blessed.
15 “Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” (Gen. 28: 11–15 NASB)
So Jacob was on his way out of the land. So now the question is, if Jacob leaves the land, does he forfeit the promise? Right? Abraham was there, he stayed in the land, and Isaac was there and he stayed in the land. So now the question is, if Jacob leaves the land, does he give up the promise blessing? Does God then say, “OK, that's it, you disobeyed Me. He's going somewhere else”? No, on his way out, God stops him and says, “Don't worry about it. I'm going to be with you. Everything I promised to Abraham and Isaac, I'm giving to you.” He hands it all to him, gives and reiterates all the promises of the covenant, and says, “I will be with you and I will bring you back into this land.”
So now we have to fast-forward many years. Jacob finally returns to the land. Genesis 35:1: “Then God said to Jacob, ‘Arise, go up to Bethel and live there, and make an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau.’” Now remember Esau was—he was upset, just to put it mildly. And he hatched his own plan: “If I kill the one who's supposed to receive all the promises, then that makes me not just the firstborn but the ‘only-born’ able to receive the promises.” That was his plan. So then Jacob had to flee.
And then after many years had passed, Jacob had received not one and not two and not three but four wives and all kinds of children. He's on his way back. He meets Esau. Verse 9:
9 Then God appeared to Jacob again when he came from Paddan-aram, and He blessed him.
10 God said to him, “Your name is Jacob; you shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel shall be your name.” Thus He called him Israel.
11 God also said to him, “I am God Almighty; be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall come from you, and kings shall come forth from you.
12 “The land which I gave to Abraham and Isaac, I will give it to you, and I will give the land to your descendants after you.” (Gen. 35:9–12 NASB)
Again, this is all physical descendants that are being described.
Now we have to fast-forward. Jacob has had a number of sons. He's had twelve of them. Joseph ends up getting sold into slavery and taken down there. He's made a servant in Potiphar's house and he's falsely accused there and thrown into prison. He rises to preeminence in prison, and then Pharaoh brings him out because Pharaoh had some dreams. Joseph interpreted the dreams and, through a series of events, Joseph is made prime minister over all of Egypt, second only to Pharaoh himself. He ends up saving the land of Egypt through the drought and the famine. The famine becomes so severe that Jacob's other eleven sons end up traveling back down to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph. They didn't know Joseph was there. They didn't know that that was Joseph. And through that beautiful series of events, Joseph ends up revealing his identity to his brothers and then he says, “Go back and fetch Dad and fetch all the servants and all the animals and everything and bring them back down here. I will care for you because there are still a number of years left in this famine, and if you don't come down here, you will all die.”
So the sons went back and they got Jacob. They got Jacob and they brought Jacob back down into the land of Egypt, and all of the sons and all of the descendants of Abraham, now that we've traced this promise through it, all the descendants are there in Egypt. Now look at chapter 48:
1 Now it came about after these things that Joseph was told, “Behold, your father is sick.” So he took his two sons Manasseh and Ephraim with him [so Joseph's going to visit his father].
2 When it was told to Jacob, “Behold, your son Joseph has come to you,” Israel [that is, Jacob] collected his strength and sat up in the bed.
3 Then Jacob said to Joseph, “God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan and blessed me,
4 “and He said to me, ‘Behold, I will make you fruitful and numerous, and I will make you a company of peoples, and will give this land to your descendants after you for an everlasting possession.’” (Gen. 48:1–4 NASB)
Now Jacob is in Egypt. He's not in the land. He's in Egypt. And he knows that that land belongs to him even though he was not living in it at the time. But look at his faith. He is still reiterating the promise. God has said this, we know it will be true, and he's on his deathbed dying, and he is still citing the promises of God concerning that land that God had promised him.
Now he eventually died. Turn to Genesis 50:22. Look at Joseph. Joseph grew old and got ready to die. Genesis 50:22:
22 Now Joseph stayed in Egypt, he and his father's household, and Joseph lived one hundred and ten years.
23 Joseph saw the third generation of Ephraim's sons [that's one of Joseph's sons]; also the sons of Machir, the son of Manasseh [that's Joseph's other son], were born on Joseph's knees.
24 Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die, but [look at this] God will surely take care of you and bring you up from this land to the land which He promised on oath to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob.”
25 Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, “God will surely take care of you, and you shall carry my bones up from here.”
26 So Joseph died at the age of one hundred and ten years; and he was embalmed and placed in a coffin in Egypt. (Gen. 50:22–26 NASB)
That's how the book of Genesis ends. Now we have traced this promise from Genesis 12 all the way through to the end of the book of Genesis. I think I have captured every citation of this promise or hint of this promise all the way through. There's numerous accounts of it, right? From Abraham, not Ishmael but Isaac. And from Isaac, not Esau but Jacob. And from Jacob down to Joseph. And now we get to the end of the book of Genesis, and we have seen this promise reiterated and passed down over and over, generation after generation.
And you get to the end of the book of Genesis and guess what we find. That none of the promised seed are in the land at the end of Genesis. They've all been promised this land. And you get to the last verse of Genesis and none of them are living there. Abraham has all kinds of other descendants who are living in the land at the time—the sons of Ishmael and his descendants, the other sons of Keturah and their descendants. There's all kinds of Abraham's children that are in the land of promise, but not the promised seed. All the promised descendants, the physical seed of Abraham to whom these promises have been given, they're all in Egypt.
Now we have only traced this promise through the book of Genesis. It's taken us two weeks to do that. There are thirty-eight other books of the Old Testament that we could look at. Now not all of them have promised land blessings, etc. You read the Song of Solomon in vain looking for some promise of the promised land to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Right? Not every book of the Old Testament has that. But this promise is reiterated throughout the Old Testament, over and over again, in the Psalms, in the rest of the Law, in the book of Joshua, in the Prophets.
Let me sum all of this up. And when I say sum it up, I mean that I'm going to use the rest of our remaining time here, however much it is. This is a long summary, so be prepared for that. Here's the summation of it. The promise of the land was given, first of all, to Abraham's physical seed. The promise of the land was given to Abraham's physical seed. This is obvious. It is not to all of his descendants that are intended by this blessing. It's not. It's Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and then Jacob's sons. That's it. I understand that excludes, today, billions of people from that promise. But it's only one set of descendants, and it's only the physical descendants of Abraham. It was Isaac and not Ishmael, it was Jacob and not Esau. God promised to Abraham's physical descendants a physical inheritance in a physical land with physical blessings in a physical world. That was what was promised to him. To them was promised the land.
Now there are spiritual children of Abraham, those who have faith. We are saved. We have salvation in Christ. Eventually, we will enjoy the blessings of the kingdom. The spiritual blessings are promised to the spiritual seed of Abraham, and the physical blessings are promised to the physical seed of Abraham. The promise of land, prosperity, and dwelling in the land forever are part of an everlasting covenant, and that is given to none but the physical descendants of Abraham. At no point ever in the book of Genesis or anywhere in the Old Testament are those promises transferred to anybody else. It is only the physical descendants of Abraham that are promised those blessings, and only his physical offspring.
Second, the promise of land to this day has never been fulfilled. It has been partially fulfilled, but it has never been fully fulfilled. I showed you the map last week. That outline of what was promised to Abraham, the Jews have never occupied anything but a sliver of that land even to this day.
Now some say that in the time of Joshua and Moses, when Joshua brought the children of Israel with Moses out of Egypt and then Joshua eventually brought them into the promised land, that that was the fulfillment of that land promise. But the boundaries of the promised land are given in Scripture, and the boundaries of what Joshua occupied are also given in Scripture, and those two things do not overlap. So to say that the blessings were fulfilled when Joshua entered into the land is like saying that the blessings were fulfilled or the promises were fulfilled when Abraham bought a parcel of land to bury Sarah. Abraham did possess part of the land, right? It was an acre, two acres, whatever it was. But it's a chunk of land where he buried his family, where the patriarchs were buried. But that did not constitute a fulfillment of that promise. Neither did Joshua's occupation in coming into the land because they possessed the land, yes, they dwelt in the land, but they dwelt in a corner of it, and they never actually possessed any of those boundaries.
Some say also that Solomon's reign ended up fulfilling the blessings of land promises to Abraham because Solomon ruled over all these regions and those kings brought tribute to Solomon. So though he ruled over them and they brought tribute to him, them bringing tribute to him for military protection or trade or whatever that involved does not mean that they possessed that land, because they didn't possess it. Solomon ruled it. They were vassals of his, just like Israel was a vassal of Egypt and Assyria and Babylon at different times.
So if that promise was fulfilled in the days of Solomon, and here I think is a key question, then why is it that all the prophets who lived after Solomon foretold of a time when Israel would be gathered back into the land in fulfillment of the promise given to Abraham? If the promise was fulfilled in the days of Joshua or fulfilled in the days of Solomon, then why do the minor and the major prophets foretell of a time when Israel would be gathered back into the land and those blessings that were promised to Abraham would finally become theirs. And in those prophets even more details are promised. I'm going to give you a number of references and I'm going to read a number of passages from the prophets. Buckle your seatbelts, here we go.
Isaiah 11:1–11 and verse 12; Isaiah 27:12–13; Isaiah 43:1–18; Isaiah 49:8–16; Isaiah 66:20–22. I know you can't write that down. That's not the point of having you take notes at this point. Those are all passages that describe—this is after Solomon, long after Solomon—that describe God gathering together Israel back into the land. When was that fulfilled then? If that was fulfilled in Solomon's day, why is it a thousand years later that those promises are reiterated again? So that wouldn't make any sense, would it? You say, “Well maybe that's already been fulfilled.” OK, we'll deal with that in just a second.
Jeremiah 23:3 says this:
3 “Then I Myself will gather the remnant of My flock out of all the countries where I have driven them and bring them back to their pasture, and they will be fruitful and multiply.
4 “I will also raise up shepherds over them and they will tend them; and they will not be afraid any longer, nor be terrified, nor will any be missing,” declares the Lord.
5 “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch [that's the Lord Jesus Christ]; and He will reign as king and act wisely and do justice and righteousness in the land.” (Jer. 23:3–5 NASB)
Now I ask you, every Jew who heard that prophetic promise by Jeremiah, what did he understand the land to mean? That land. He will reign and do justice in that land.
6 “In His days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely; and this is His name by which He will be called, ‘The Lord our righteousness.’
7 “Therefore behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when they will no longer say, ‘As the Lord lives, who brought up the sons of Israel from the land of Egypt,’
8 “but, ‘As the Lord lives, who brought up and led back the descendants of the household of Israel from the north land and from all the countries where I had driven them.’ Then they will live on their own soil.” (Jer. 23:6–8 NASB)
There is the promise of regathering and the promise that they will live and they will dwell in that land. That is what is promised to them.
Jeremiah 31:35:
35 Thus says the Lord, who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar; the Lord of hosts is His name:
36 “If this fixed order [that is, the sun and the moon and the stars and the sea and all that that involves] departs from before Me,” declares the Lord, “then the offspring of Israel also will cease from being a nation before Me forever.”
37 Thus says the Lord, “If the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth searched out below, then I will also cast off all the offspring of Israel for all that they have done,” declares the Lord. (Jer. 31:35–37 NASB)
That's God saying, “It doesn't matter what they've done. All their idolatry is irrelevant to the promises that I have made. If you can plumb the depths of the earth and measure the expanse of the heavens, if you can keep the sun from rising and the moon from rising, then Israel will cease to be a nation from before Me.” Can you keep any of those things from happening? That's why Israel will never cease to be a nation with those distinct promises before the Lord forever. You know why there are no Girgashites and Jebusites and Hittites and Perizzites and all of the other “-ites” of the Old Testament but you’ve got Israelites today? You know why that is? Because God has said, “This nation will exist before Me forever.”
The United States will come and go. It will pass off the face of this planet. If the Lord tarries, there will be a day when the name American is no longer ever said, and it will not even be coming to anybody's mind eventually. But Israel will always be a nation before the Lord because God has promised something to those people.
Ezekiel 11:17: “Thus says the Lord God, ‘I will gather you from the peoples and assemble you out of the countries among which you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel.’” This is happening at the time of and after the exile, the Babylonian exile. Ezekiel 20:30–38; Ezekiel 34:11–16.
Ezekiel 39:25:
25 Therefore thus says the Lord God, “Now I will restore the fortunes of Jacob and have mercy on the whole house of Israel; and I will be jealous for My holy name.
26 “They will forget their disgrace and all their treachery which they have perpetrated against Me, when they live securely on their own land with no one to make them afraid.” (Ezek. 39:25–26 NASB)
That has never happened. It’s never happened in the history of Israel that they've dwelt in their own land with nobody to make them afraid. They've been in fear, under its subjugation, for as long as they've been a nation. Since the time of Solomon, after the time of Solomon, there was never a time when they lived unafraid, secure in their own land. But that time is coming because Ezekiel promised that it's going to come.
27 “When I bring them back from the peoples and gather them from the lands of their enemies, then I shall be sanctified through them in the sight of the many nations.
28 “Then they will know that I am the Lord their God because I made them go into exile among the nations, and then gathered them again to their own land; and I will leave none of them there any longer.
29 “I will not hide My face from them any longer, for I will have poured out My spirit on the house of Israel,” declares the Lord. (Ezek. 39:27–29 NASB)
And that's in the context of the blessings of the new covenant.
Hosea 1:10–11 and Joel 3:17–21—these are all the ones that I could be reading. I'm not going to. One more. Amos 9:11:
11 “In that day I will raise up the fallen booth of David, and wall up its breaches; I will also raise up its ruins and rebuild it as in the days of old;
12 “That they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations who are called by My name,” declares the Lord who does this.
13 “Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when the plowmen will overtake the reaper and the treader of grapes him who sow seeds; when the mountains will drip sweet wine and all the hills will be dissolved.
14 “Also I will restore the captivity of My people Israel, and they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them; they will also plant vineyards and drink their wine, and make gardens and eat their fruit.
15 “I will also plant them on their land, and they will not again be rooted out from their land, which I have given them,” says the Lord your God. (Amos 9:11–15 NASB)
That was not fulfilled when they returned from the Babylonian captivity. How do I know that? Because after the Babylonian captivity, they were driven out of the land again in AD 70. And they were out of the land until 1948 when suddenly Israel became a nation again. So if the land promises were fulfilled in the days of Solomon or fulfilled in the days of Joshua, then why is it that the Lord, with the Prophets who were written long after the days of Solomon and Joshua, reiterate the terms of the Abrahamic covenant and say, “To your descendants, your physical seed, I will give this land, and I will plant them there. They will be secure, they will be safe, they will dwell in safety and security, and one King whom I will raise up will rule and reign over them in that land”? Why did God make those promises to that nation?
In 1948, they became a nation again. When Diedre and I were in Israel a few years ago, we were in the city of Nazareth at this tourist event where they kind of reconstructed what Nazareth would have looked like in the days of Jesus. You walk back in time, people walking around in dress and playacting and all this stuff. Our tour guide was a fantastic young man. He spoke just impeccable English, had something like a Midwestern accent that he couldn't hide. He was a believer because he was talking about Jesus rising from the dead, etc. He was very evangelistic in what he was talking about as he was giving us a tour of this ancient city of Nazareth.
So I went up to him kind of before he was done and I said to him, “What's your name?” I forget what his name was, but I said, “You speak impeccable English. You sound like you come from America.” He said, “I do.” I said, “Where do you come from?” He said he was born in—I think it was Colorado or Indiana or something like that. I forget what it was. But I said, “What brings you to Israel? How are you here in Israel?” And he said, however many years ago it was, back when he was in his late teens, early twenties, whatever it was, he said, “My dad and my mom and my siblings and me, we all moved back to the land of Israel. We were in Colorado, my dad was in the military there, and we're all Jewish, and we decided to move back here from the States.”
I said, “Why did you come back to the land of Israel?” And here's what he said to me. As a believing Jew in Christ, he said, “This land was given to our fathers. This is going to be center stage in end-times events. And whatever God is going to do here to prepare for the return of Christ, me and my family want to be part of it.” That's amazing.
Do you know that there are between twenty thousand and thirty thousand Jewish people who go back to the land of Israel every year to move back there? They immigrate there from all the nations of the world. You say, “Twenty to thirty thousand, that doesn't sound like a lot.” Not till I remind you that Israel is the size of the Idaho Panhandle. Then you're like, well, that looks like the last couple of years here in Bonner County, doesn't it? People moving from all these exiled places—“California-stan” and “Oregon-stan” and “Washington-stan”—and coming back here to free America. It's a lot of people coming, isn't it?
Twenty to thirty thousand people a year go back to Israel. Why? It's almost as if the Lord is getting ready to fulfill a promise to Abraham. That's how I read it. The nation exists, they're there, they've never possessed that land. And God, in believing Israelites as well as unbelieving Israelites, He is gathering them back into the land in fulfillment of all the Old Testament promises.
God did not fulfill that promise in the days of Joshua or in the days of Solomon. You say, well, then did He fulfill it spiritually? This is really the issue between the different eschatological positions—postmillennialism, amillennialism and premillennialism. You know I do not believe that amillennialism and postmillennialism are heresies. If I believed that, we would be driving out certain people who are here. We don't do that. We welcome you. You’re brothers and we love you. You understand that? We have a different perspective. And to be clear, postmillennialists and amillennialists believe that there is a future for Israel. We just disagree on what that future is going to look like for Israel and how that is going to be fulfilled and unfolded. That's it. We both agree that there is a future for Israel.
So are these promises fulfilled in a spiritual way? And to that I would just simply say I do not understand the perspective at all that says that God fulfills the promise of physical things through spiritual realities. I don't believe that God fulfills His promises by changing the terms of the promises. I see it as a changing of the terms of the promises. My postmillennialist and amillennialist brethren do not see it as a changing of the terms of the promises. And I do, and that's why I'm not an amillennialist or a postmillennialist.
God did promise spiritual things to those outside of Abraham's line, but that does not mean that the physical promises to his physical seed can be spiritualized. God will find a way to fulfill the physical promises to Abraham's physical seed while also giving immense spiritual blessings to the spiritual seed. God can do both of those things. And I believe that in the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ that is described in Revelation 20—and that's not the only place because I see all of these passages that I have described from the Prophets also describe this kingdom. But I see that Millennial Kingdom, that one-thousand-year reign of Christ, as being the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant, as well as the Davidic covenant, as well as the new covenant. All of them come together in that kingdom, all of them. And God fulfills His Word just as He has said.
Now why is it that I believe there is a physical promise to physical Israel still to come, that Israel as a nation will receive certain blessings that are not promised to Abraham's spiritual seed, but they're promised to his physical seed? Why do I believe that? Because I believe that the gifts and callings of God are irrevocable (Rom. 11). When God promises something, He doesn't change the terms of it, He doesn't redefine it, He just fulfills it as it is. The gifts and the callings of God are irrevocable. Israel is Israel, they exist as a nation, they will receive those blessings because God has promised, and God is an immutable God who keeps His promises exactly as He has promised to keep His promises, and not by redefining the terms.
And again, I understand. I'm sympathetic to my amillennialist and postmillennialist brethren, whom I love. I understand that you don't view it as a redefining of the terms. But giving to one group of people a promise of physical things and then fulfilling or giving spiritual things to a different group of people does not fulfill this promise. That promise still stands.
Abraham believed that. Joseph believed that, which is why Joseph said, “Don't leave my bones in Israel. Take me back to the land.” Why? Because Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph all believed that they would be resurrected and that they would walk on that land. They didn't believe that death, their death, was in any way a prohibition of God fulfilling those promises to them. Abraham believed that he would be raised from the dead and he would walk in that land. I believe the exact same thing. That's what we have to hope for. That is our blessed hope.
Now, as Gentiles, those who are spiritual heirs of Abraham's promises, as those who've received spiritual things because we're the spiritual seed of Abraham by faith, we're also going to enjoy that kingdom because we will be raised as well and we will get to live and dwell and walk in that land along with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, David, and all the righteous saints of old. That's what the blessing of the kingdom is. And that is our blessed hope.
Now I think I've said everything that I need to say—that I need to say, not everything I'm going to say, but everything I need to say about Abraham. And so, I'm grateful that I don't have to do that for a third week in a row, and I understand that my postmillennialist and amillennialist brethren who listen to this, you're also grateful that I'm not going to do that a third week in a row. Now we can go on and see what the author of Hebrews does with the promises that God gave and how the patriarchs responded to those promises. And we'll start that next week. Let's pray.