Kootenai Church Morning Worship

Well, when we talk about certain subjects or certain themes, it's very often that there is usually one name or one place or one part of that subject that sort of rises to the surface as being an exceptional example of whatever you're talking about. For instance, you cannot really discuss the subject of basketball, the history of basketball, or the game of basketball without the name Michael Jordan sort of bubbling to the surface at some point in that conversation. Michael Jordan, though he's not the only basketball player who has ever been great, he certainly stands as a star amongst all the rest and shines brighter. His pure athleticism, his skill, his character, his talent, his leadership ability, all of those make him stand out among all the rest of them.
When you talk about preachers and preaching and the history of preaching, there's one name that is right in the middle of that room, one name that shines above and beyond all of them, and that's Charles Haddon Spurgeon. He's called the Prince of Preachers for a reason. And though there are other great preachers like Whitfield and Calvin and Luther and Jonathan Edwards and, in our own day, John MacArthur—those are other great men—when you talk about influence and when you talk about that subject, Charles Spurgeon is right there. He's the elephant in the room. He is the most shining example of what you mean, an example in that area, the most shining one that you could possibly name.
And in the area of faith, when we start listing the heroes of faith and going through Hebrews 11, there's one name that bubbles to the top. There's one example who outshines them all, one example that is most stunning, most stellar, whose name has to be mentioned in that discussion, and that is Abraham. We've talked about Abel and Enoch and Noah now, but I would daresay that Abraham outshines all of them. And he is our subject here today and for the next—I'm not even going to try and guess how many weeks here in Hebrews 11 because there is a lot in Abraham that we have to unpack and unfold.
Now to say that Abraham is the example of what we mean by faith is not to say that Abraham is flawless or that he is without fault or that he is without sin. There are times when Abraham did not live up to his faith. There are times when he was in fear, where he doubted, where he did things that he should not have done. Abraham left and fled to Egypt in fear. In fear he said that Sarah was not his wife. Because he feared that God wasn't going to fulfill His promise, he eventually took Sarah's handmaid and made her his wife and bore a son through her, trying to fulfill God's promise in his own way and in his own time. And there have been four thousand years of horrific ramifications because of that one fault. So we know that Abraham's faults are plain as day, they're visible for us to see, we know what they are, and so is his faith.
And I'm certain that if we had as much material given to us about Enoch and Abel as we have about Abraham, we would probably know a lot more of Enoch and Abel's faults. Because we read through Hebrews 11 and we see Abel and we see Enoch. I mean, OK, these are men of whom nothing in Scripture sinful-wise or their failings are recorded, nothing at all. Well, it's because there's almost nothing in Scripture recorded of them compared to Abraham. I mean, we have Abraham in Genesis 12–25, into Genesis 25. That's thirteen chapters of Abraham's life, covering basically a little more than a century of time. And if we had that much material written about Abel and Enoch and Noah, we would know a lot more about those men's faults, wouldn't we? So there's plenty to look at in Abraham's life where he failed to measure up, but there's also plenty to see in his life where he was a perfect example of the kind of faith that the author of Hebrews 11 is talking about.
The centrality of Abraham in biblical history is difficult to overstate. It's difficult to overstate. Without Abraham, you have no Moses, you have no David, you have no covenant, you have no Israel, you have no nation, you have none of the rest of the Old Testament. If there is no Abraham, then our Bible ends with Genesis 11. I know that that's not possible, but you know what I mean? He's just a central figure for all of the Old Testament. Everything in the Old Testament revolves around him. You cannot explain the existence of the nation of Israel either back then or today without referring to Abraham and the promises that God made to Abraham. You cannot understand the redemptive flow of God's plan and the covenant that He made with David and a kingdom and a land and a nation and the Exodus and Moses and all of the feasts and all of the covenant of Moses without reference to Abraham. He's central in all of that.
And you can't understand how it is that God has fulfilled His promise to bring salvation to the Gentiles without coming back to Jesus Christ, who guess what, is a descendant of Abraham and a fulfillment of the promises, some of the promises, that God gave to Abraham. So the centrality of him in our Bible is difficult to overstate. And so it is going to be necessary for us to have a good understanding of who Abraham was, why his faith was such an example and what we can learn from the life of Abraham.
Now if you're a Christian who thinks that because Jesus has come and He has secured these spiritual blessings for us and therefore we can focus on our New Testament and our spiritual realities in Jesus Christ and that we can just unhitch our faith from Abraham and we don't have to pay attention to him or anything that went on back then, I'm here to tell you that that is a woefully mistaken idea because things that are going to happen to you in the future are going to happen to you in the future because of what God said to Abraham almost four thousand years ago. So whether you are a premillennialist, a postmillennialist, or an amillennialist is going to be in large part determined by how you understand the promises that God gave to Abraham. Your eschatology, your view of the end-times is going to be determined by how it is that you interpret the promises given to Abraham. And that's not the only thing that is going to determine your eschatology, but it's going to play a very large role in how you view what is going to happen in the future.
Now, just because you might be a postmillennialist does not mean that you're going to have a postmillennial future, right, and that amillennialists are going to have an amillennial future and that premillennialists are going to have a premillennial future. Whatever is going to happen, however that's going to unfold, it's going to unfold and all of us—pre-, post-, and a-; all of those prefixes—we're all going to be carried along with whatever happens. In other words, if my premillennial eschatology is correct, it doesn't matter if you're a postmillennialist or an amillennialist; you're going to experience the same things that I am.
But guess what. We're all going to experience that because of something that God said to Abraham back in the book of Genesis. So his centrality in this cannot be overstated. Really, this comes down to these questions: What is the covenant that God made with Abraham? Was it conditional or was it unconditional? Will it be fulfilled literally or spiritually? Who are the recipients of the promises that God gave to Abraham? To whom were those promises made and whom are those promises for? Those are some of the key questions that we have to answer when we're talking about what is going to happen to us in the future. So we can't avoid these subjects. We're not trying to avoid these subjects. Actually, we don't even want to avoid these subjects because I love these subjects.
So that's what we're going to dive into because that issue of the land and the promises made to Abraham, that comes in here in Hebrews 11. So of all of the people that we have been looking at here in Hebrews 11, Abraham takes center stage. More time, more text, is given to Abraham than any of the other examples. There's mention of Abel, there's mention of Enoch, a verse on Noah, but then as the author fast-forwards through two thousand years of history to the time of Abraham, then he just hits the brakes. And we are with Abraham from chapter 12 of Genesis all the way through chapter 24 of Genesis. And here in Hebrews 11, we have Abraham from verse 8 all the way through the end of verse 19. This is all about Abraham. The author of Hebrews 11 devotes more time and attention to Abraham than any of the other examples.
The second one is Moses. And we don't get to Moses until down in—I don't know what it is. You'll see it. We get to Moses down later on in the text. But it’s as if the author, even after Abraham—well, verse 19. Look at it, verse 19. That's speaking of Abraham. Verse 20: “Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau.” Verse 21: “By faith Jacob, as he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, and worshiped, leaning on the top of his staff.” Then verse 22, then Joseph. So he goes from Abraham to Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and his twelve sons, and then he parks on Moses again in verse 23. And then we get a long discussion of Moses from verses 23–29. So the bulk of this chapter is taken up with Abraham. Second on the list in terms of amount of text and explanation is Moses.
Why these two men? I think these two men are significant. These two men are significant because they are the two predominant figures of the Old Testament. The two most well-known, the two, I would say, most significant figures of the Old Testament are Abraham and Moses. Abraham, being the founder of the nation, the forefather of all the Jews, every Jew could trace his lineage back to Abraham and they rightly honored Abraham. He is the central figure of the Old Testament, without which there is no Old Testament. But then second to him you have Moses. Moses was the giver of the law. He was the redeemer of Israel. He brought them out of Egypt in fulfillment to God's promise. He was a law giver. He was a prophet. And his role in Israel is also difficult to overstate just in terms of the covenant that God made with the nation in the presence of Moses, Moses being one of the mediators of that covenant.
So we have really between these two men, Abraham and Moses, we have two covenants, the Abrahamic covenant and the Mosaic covenant. These are two different covenants. They're two different terms to the covenant. They're made with different emphasis and for different purposes. But these two figures, Abraham with the Abrahamic covenant, Moses with the Mosaic covenant, these two men stand almost singularly above the rest in all of the Old Testament.
And it's interesting to me, and I don't know what to make of this, but the author of Hebrews 11 doesn't mention David. I don't think there's any significance to that other than he just gets done with Moses and he's like, “Time's going to prohibit me from telling of all the other people.” There's obviously a list of other people that he could name. But the two most significant and founding forefathers of the Jewish nation were Abraham and Moses.
So we're going to read now beginning at verse 8. We're going to read through verse 19. I want you to look for two subjects that the author handles and he deals with. As he highlights the episodes from Abraham's life, he's going to talk about two specific promises, the promises of land and the promise of a son or a descendant. Those are the two promises, land and son. These are the two things that the author focuses on in verses 8–19.
First of all, beginning at verse 8, notice that verses 8–10 have to do with the land. Verse 8:
8 By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going.
9 By faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise;
10 for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. (Heb. 11:8–10 NASB)
So this is the promise of land. Abraham is told to go out. God would take him out of one land and put him in another land. That's the promise of land.
Verse 11—this is the promise of a son:
11 By faith even Sarah herself received ability to conceive, even beyond the proper time of life, since she considered Him faithful who had promised.
12 Therefore there was born even of one man, and him as good as dead at that, as many descendants as the stars of heaven in number, and innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore. (Heb. 11:11–12 NASB)
This is the promise of a son. By faith Sarah conceived and a son was born.
But now the author in verse 13 returns to the promise of land.
13 All these [that is, Abraham and Sarah and the ones he's mentioned thus far] died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.
14 For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own.
15 And indeed if they had been thinking of that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return.
16 But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them. (Heb. 11:13–16 NASB)
Notice that that whole section there has to do with the promise of land and Abraham dwelling in the land still as an alien and a stranger. Then in verse 17, the author returns back to the promise of the son.
17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son;
18 it was he to whom it was said, “In Isaac your descendants shall be called.”
19 He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type. (Heb. 11:17–19 NASB)
Now do you notice the pattern? The promise of the land, the promise of a son, back to the promise of the land, and then the promise of the son. There's a pattern there. Land, son, land, son. But there's something that happens as the author works his way through that progression. There is an escalation that takes place. Now maybe you'll notice it when I say it this way. In the first section, verses 8–10, the author is talking about the promise of land, but he's simply referencing the fact that God said to Abraham, “I'm going to take you out of this land. Go to that land,” and Abraham went. So he went into the land, he obeyed God, and God put him into that land. But then he talks about the promise of a son, and it's just the conception of the son. But then when he returns back to the promise of the land in verses 13–16, he is describing the fact that Abraham dwelt in that land as a stranger and an alien, even knowing that he would never possess that land in his own lifetime. Then he moves on to the promise of a son, and there it is not the promise of conception, the bearing of the son, that is mentioned, but Abraham offering Isaac up on an altar.
Now do you see the escalation that takes place? I'll give you a land. It’s one thing to believe that God will take you from one place and put you in another place. That's faith. I can believe God for that. That's easy. But then to turn around and come to the next level and say, “You're going to dwell in that land as an alien and a stranger, and you will never actually possess it in your lifetime. Do not go back to the previous land. You stay here because I'm giving it to your descendants after you,” that's next-level faith, right? To just say, “Go from A to B,” OK, I can believe God for that. But then to say, “Once you get to B, you're never actually going to possess B in your lifetime. I’m giving it to your descendants,” then you're believing God for something beyond just moving from A to B, aren't you?
Same thing with the son. I'm going to give you a descendant. By faith, Sarah conceived and she bore a son. I can believe God for a conception. That's relatively easy. That happens all the time, right? Happens all the time. But then to take that promised seed, that promised son, and put him up on an altar, to tie him down and to raise the sacrificial knife over his chest and be willing to sacrifice him, that's next-level faith, is it not?
There's an escalation that takes place. It's one thing to believe God for a conception. It's another thing to believe God for a resurrection. And that's the point that the author is making. Abraham believed God, he got the promised seed, but then he was willing to sacrifice that son on an altar. That's next-level faith. That's user achievement unlocked. You get characters, you get extra things in the video game for that. I don't know. I don't play video games. But that's a whole other level of faith when you're willing to believe God for that. So there's an escalation that takes place and a progression here even in how the author develops it.
And that just shows us that Abraham's faith was one that progressed over the course of his life. And you're going to see here in a moment that Abraham was not told everything right at the beginning. He was given more and more information, and Abraham believed God and progressed in his faith more and more as time went on over the course of his life.
Now, in keeping with the way that we're surveying these heroes of the faith in Hebrews 11, we're going to go back and we're going to get the context of Abraham's life. So jump back now with me to Genesis 12, please. Today we're going to look at Genesis 12, Genesis 13, Genesis 15, and Genesis 17. And I smell the same food that you do, and I am as anxious for this sermon to be over, more so than you are. So don't be panicked by that. We are going to go through these three chapters. We're just going to be looking at these promises that God gave to Abraham and how they were fulfilled. Back to Genesis 12.
Now remember the story of Noah ends with Genesis 9. That's the flood. You get into Genesis 10 and that gives us the descendants of Noah, it traces the lineage of Noah. You get the feeling that the purpose of Moses in writing Genesis was not just to give us quirky things about the history of the world. The purpose of Moses in writing Genesis was really to give us the history of Abraham because he’s just fast-forwarding through history, and he gets to Abraham, hits the breaks, and stops. Then the rest of the book, chapter 12 through the end of the book, is Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and his twelve sons, and they land in Egypt. That is what the author wants us to see. It is the unfolding of these promises. That's not to say that nothing else before Genesis 11 was actual history or that it was allegory or anything like that. It's all literal truth and happened just as it was explained to us. But it is to say that the point of Moses is to get us up to Abraham, to give us the background, and that's what the genealogies do.
So you read in Genesis 11:10—you have in the beginning of chapter 11 the dispersion of the peoples at the tower of Babel. Then you have the descendants of Shem in Genesis 11. Look at Genesis 11:10: “These are the records of the generations of Shem. Shem was one hundred years old, and became the father of Arpachshad two years after the flood.” And so like Genesis 5, in Genesis 11 you can take the lifespans of these patriarchs and you can overlap them according to how old they were when they had a son and then how long they lived after they had that son and how long that son lived before he had a son, etc. You can overlap the lifespans there and you can see who was a contemporary with whom.
And you'll notice if you were to compare, and we're not going to do this this morning, Genesis 11 with Genesis 5, you would notice that you get into Genesis 11 and the lifespans of those patriarchs drop off precipitously. You go from Noah living 350 years after the flood to Abraham a few generations later only living 175 years old permanently. Now that is not because the environmental factors of the world had changed after the flood. They had, and that may have had some impact on lifespans, but it's my belief and my contestation that those decreased lifespans have to do more with the genetic bottleneck that took place at the flood.
So before the flood happened, you had people being able to intermingle and intermarry all over the place. And the genetic mutations that were happening with reproduction before the flood, all of a sudden that was bottlenecked down so that after the flood you had basically first cousins marrying first cousins again, and there was a concentration of mutations—genetically harmful mutations because there are no genetically beneficial mutations—genetically harmful mutations that have warped and corrupted us and made us all mutants. We're all intellectual and physical mutants compared to people who lived before the flood. And not the good kind of mutants that put wings out their back and have laser vision and all that nonsense that you see. We are genetic mutants. And so this is a decrease in the lifespans that just immediately drops off in the seven or eight generations right after the flood.
So you can see how some of these lifespans overlap, and all of this is just to set up Abraham again. Noah lived 350 years after the flood. Noah was alive during the lifespan of everyone in Genesis 11 except Abraham. Noah died three years before Abraham was born. Noah's lifespan overlapped Abraham's father, Tarah, by 136 years. Now whether they knew each other or spoke to each other or ever met, that is an entirely different issue. Scripture doesn't give us any indication as to yes or no, either direction. But the lifespan of Noah and the lifespan of Abraham's father, Terah, they overlapped by 136 years. Noah died, as I said, three years before Abraham was born. And Abraham's life and Shem, Noah's son, their lives overlapped by 150 years. Noah's son Shem died 25 years before Abraham died. And you would have had this massive explosion of population right after the flood, so by the time we get to the point of Abraham, we again have hundreds of thousands, probably millions, of people alive on the face of the planet.
Now, where was Abraham located? He was in Ur of the Chaldeans. So let's pick up the story in chapter 11. I lied to you, we're not starting in chapter 12, we're starting in chapter 11. I forgot that. I should have reread through this before I got up here to preach it. Genesis 11, beginning of verse 27.
27 Now these are the records of the generations of Terah. Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran [for those of you who may not know, Abram and Abraham are the same person. Later on, God changes his name to Abraham]; and Haran became the father of Lot [so Lot was Abraham's nephew].
28 Haran died in the presence of his father Terah in the land of his birth, in Ur of the Chaldeans.
29 Abram and Nahor took wives for themselves. The name of Abram's wife was Sarai; and the name of Nahor's wife was Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah and Iscah.
30 Sarai was barren; she had no child.
31 Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram's wife; and they went out together from Ur of the Chaldeans in order to enter the land of Canaan; and they went as far as Haran, and settled there.
32 The days of Terah were two hundred and five years; and Terah died in Haran. (Gen 11:27–32 NASB)
They would have traveled northwest along the Euphrates River. Ur of the Chaldeans is north of the Persian Gulf, northwest of the Persian Gulf, along the Euphrates River. So basically north of Kuwait. And they've settled there in Haran. That's where Terah died. And that is where God revealed Himself to Abraham, when he was settled in Haran.
Now when God revealed Himself to Abraham, Abraham was not a Yahweh worshipper. He was not a worshipper of the one true God. He was not familiar with God. There's no reason to believe that. In fact, there's reason to believe that Abraham came from an idolatrous family because in Joshua 24:2, “Joshua said to all the people, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel. “From ancient times your fathers lived beyond the River, namely, Terah, the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor, and they served other gods.”’” So when God revealed Himself and made Himself known to Abraham, Abraham was an idol worshipper in Ur of the Chaldeans.
Now, turning from idols to serve the living and true God, that is what salvation is. All of us are idol worshippers before we are saved. So it shouldn't surprise us if Abraham was also an idol worshipper. And this just demonstrates to us a couple of things. Number one, God's grace to Abraham was no more deserved than His grace to you and I is. God made Himself known to Abraham while Abraham was an idol worshipper. And Abraham obeyed God or obeyed Yahweh when Yahweh made Himself known to him.
And this makes the faith of Abraham even more significant and stands out even more when we realize that when God revealed Himself to Abraham and Abraham obeyed Him, Abraham did not have a history of worshipping this God. He didn't have years of obeying to get used to worshipping this God. When God made Himself known to Abraham, He turned him from his idols, turned him to know and understand who the true and living God is, and Abraham obeyed. And Abraham believed that God.
Now look at the call in Genesis 12:1:
1 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go forth from your country, and from your relatives and from your father's house, to the land which I will show you;
2 and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and so you shall be a blessing;
3 and I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.” (Gen. 12:1–3 NASB)
Now that is the beginnings of the Abrahamic covenant. There is the rough outline of what God promised to Abraham. Later on in chapter 13, God's going to add some more details to it. Then again in chapter 15, He's going to add even more details to it, and then in chapter 17, even more details to it. But the basic outline of what God promised to Abraham is contained in verses 1–3.
There are three promises. There is the promise of a land. In verse 1, he was to go to the land which God would show him. There's a promise that Abraham would become a great nation. That's verse 2: “I will make you a great nation.” And then there is the promise, which is enigmatic at this point, that in him all the families of the earth would be blessed. Now I would say that that is the promise that eventually the Messiah would come through Abraham, and because of that descendant, the greater Son of David, the Lord Jesus Christ, he has brought salvation to all the nations, and in him, furthermore, in an even greater scale in the future, all the nations will be blessed as well. So there's the promise of physical land, physical seed, and then blessings of some unspecified sort to all of the nations of the earth. Those are the three promises of the Abrahamic covenant.
Now all of this was given to Abraham before he had ever entered into the land. It was given to Abraham before he had ever seen the land. In fact from Haran he would have to travel another seven hundred miles before he would be in the land which today we call Israel. And I want you to notice there is scant detail; more is coming. And I also want you to notice that there is no promise here explicitly stated of spiritual salvation for Abraham's descendants. In other words, what Abraham was promised was not that God would save all of his physical descendants but rather that God would give certain physical blessings to those physical descendants. And though the Abrahamic covenant anticipates the gospel—in other words, without that covenant the gospel is not possible. That covenant obviously lays the groundwork for the gospel. That gospel proclamation and the salvation promised in that gospel is not explicitly laid out in the Abrahamic covenant because we are not talking about strictly spiritual blessings. We're talking about physical blessings that were promised to Abraham—physical land, physical nations, and then some sort of a blessing, maybe physical, maybe spiritual (we’re undetermined at this point), to all the nations of the earth.
Now, verse 4:
4 So [in obedience] Abram went forth as the Lord had spoken to him; and Lot went with him. Now Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.
5 Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his nephew, and all their possessions which they had accumulated, and the persons which they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan; thus they came to the land of Canaan.
6 Abram passed through the land as far as the site of Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. Now the Canaanite was then in the land.
7 The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” (Gen. 12:4–7 NASB)
I just want you to notice the Lord is reiterating what He had said to Abraham, but it's just a simple statement that includes two promises. And what are they? The promise of a land and the promise of a son. “To your descendants I will give this land.” Land promise, descendant promise.
Verses 7–9: “So he built an altar there to the Lord who had appeared to him. Then he proceeded from there to the mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; and there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord. Abram journeyed on, continuing toward the Negev.” Now God had reiterated the promise there to Abraham when he was seventy-five years old.
Now look at chapter 13. Here are the promises reiterated. At the end of chapter 12 and into chapter 13, Abraham went into Egypt. He feared because of a famine so he went down to Egypt, and that was the whole thing where he said Sarah was his sister so that the king wouldn't kill Abraham because Sarah was apparently not hard on the eyes and he didn't want to lose her. So he lied about that, and then he left and went back up into the land. He got back up into the land. That's where he split with Lot. They had plenty of livestock. Abraham was a wealthy man; so was Lot. Both were more wealthy, and the land in one location could not sustain all of their tribe and the herds that they had, servants and animals, etc. So they split up. Lot went down to Sodom and Gomorrah. That's another story for another time. It's a good one. Lot went down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and lived in the land there, and Abraham stayed up where he was at.
Genesis 13:14:
14 The Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, “Now lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward;
15 for all the land which you see, I will give it to you and to your descendants forever.
16 I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth, so that if anyone can number the dust of the earth, then your descendants can also be numbered.
17 Arise, walk about the land through its length and breadth; for I will give it to you.”
18 Then Abram moved his tent and came and dwelt by the oaks of Mamre, which are in Hebron, and there he built an altar to the Lord. (Gen. 13:14–18 NASB)
Notice in verse 15 there's the promise of land and there's a promise of descendants. “For,” verse 15 says, “all the land which you see, I will give it to you and to your descendants forever.” Now I ask you, Does forever include today? I think it does. I mean I've done the math. It works out on the initial run-through. Forever does include today. Does forever include tomorrow? Does forever include ten years from now? Does forever include forever? Or is forever too much to include in forever? Forever is what? It's forever. This is forever.
There are people who get all upset when you suggest that Israel has a right to the land today. Well, they weren't there for nineteen hundred years. It wouldn't matter to me if they weren't there for nineteen thousand years. That is irrelevant. God said, “To you and to your descendants I am giving this land forever,” right? Not “until you disobey Me,” not “until you reject the Messiah,” but how long? Forever. That is Israel's land. It's Israel's land today. It is Israel's land from the beginning of Genesis 12, and it always will be. How do I know? Because God said He would give it to them forever. Some of you are catching on. That's right.
Flip over to chapter 15. Now we get to Genesis 15 and he still has no son. Still no son. Genesis 15:1: “After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, ‘Do not fear, Abram, I am a shield to you; your reward shall be very great.’” Some translations have that because it can also be translated, “I am a shield to you and your very great reward.” In other words, what God was offering to Abram was not just land, but it is God Himself. He is giving Himself to Abram. Verse 2: “Abram said, ‘O Lord God, what will You give me, since I am childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?’” He was a servant that was born in Abram's house. “And Abram said, ‘Since You have given no offspring to me, one born in my house is my heir’” (v. 3). Legally, that was true. Abram didn't have a son to give all of his wealth to. So he is asking the Lord, “Who am I going to give this to? You have promised me a son. I have no son. Here I am, still an old man and still without a son. Who do I give this to? Eliezer, the firstborn servant in my house?”
“Then behold,” verse 4, “the word of the Lord came to him, saying, ‘This man will not be your heir; but one who will come forth from your own body.’” Is he talking about physical descendants or spiritual descendants in verse 4? Physical descendants. Don't worry, Abram, as old as you are, you still will have a physical descendant who will come forth from your own body. He shall be the one who will inherit all of this and all of the blessings that I am promising you.
“And He took him outside and said, ‘Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.’ And He said to him, ‘So shall your descendants [we could say physical descendants] be’” (v. 5). Now still, Abram had no heir. And God promised him a physical descendant. Abram went out, and of course he saw the stars in heaven. God promised him, “So shall your descendants be.”
Verse 6: “Then he believed in the Lord; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.” That’s what we have quoted in Romans 4 and Galatians 3 and James 2. Abraham believed God, and God said, “You’re righteous,” not because Abraham had done anything. We’re still two chapters away from circumcision. This is the point that Paul made in Romans 4. Did Abraham believe and become righteous because he was circumcised? No, it was without circumcision. It was before circumcision. One’s righteousness has no bearing at all upon the obedience of one to the law or being circumcised. Being circumcised doesn't make you righteous. Even if you become a physical Jew outwardly, that doesn't make you righteous. Abraham believed God, and God credited it to him as righteousness. And again, we've seen earlier in Hebrews 11 that the righteousness with which these Old Testament saints were credited is the righteousness of Jesus Christ. He's the only one who has that righteousness.
Verses 7–8: “And He said to him, ‘I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess it.’ He said, ‘O Lord God, how may I know that I will possess it?’” He's asking for the Lord to assure this, to guarantee this. Though Abraham is believing God and it is credited to his righteousness, Abraham is still questioning, “How am I going to know this? A son?” He wants some sort of assurance.
Verse 9: “So He said to him, ‘Bring Me a three year old heifer, and a three year old female goat.’” Now what is about to follow is going to seem very odd to you until I explain it. But just bear with me through the end of verse 12.
9 “A three year old female goat, and a three year old ram, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon.”
10 Then he brought all these to Him and cut them in two, and laid each half opposite the other; but he did not cut the birds.
11 The birds of prey came down upon the carcasses, and Abram drove them away.
12 Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, terror and great darkness fell upon him. (Gen. 15:9–12 NASB)
Now what's going on? This is the ancient practice of cutting a covenant. They would take a number of animals, they would cut the animals in two, lay them opposite one another, and then the two parties who were entering into an agreement with one another, they would walk amongst the midst of these slain animals on each side. They would walk between the parts of the animals while they recited the terms of the covenant that they were making. So as they would walk with each other between these slaughtered animals, they would say, “I will promise to do X, Y, and Z.” And the other person would say, “I will promise to do X, Y, and Z.” This was the cutting of a covenant that they made. So this was the point of this: They put the animals opposite one another, and in ancient times they would walk between those because it was a way of saying and affirming to one another in the presence of anybody who was watching, “If I fail to meet the terms of this covenant, this is what should happen to me. I should be slaughtered and killed. This is what I deserve. I deserve this death.” This was the cutting of a covenant.
Now we call marriage the cutting of a covenant, and it's true, but we don't slaughter animals. So if you've ever wondered how we do marriages here, that's not how we do them here. We don’t slaughter animals for this. But this is where the idea of a covenant comes. You're pledging to one another something until death do us part. That's the point of that covenant. Right? It's the cutting of a covenant.
Now, here is what is significant: a deep sleep fell upon Abraham. Don't miss this. This is not just incidental, you know, like he got tired and so, since he was tired, God kind of whispered, so as not to wake Abraham up, “Look, here's what this covenant is going to look like.” That's not what's going on at all. This is an unconditional covenant. Abraham was asleep and great fear fell upon him. Abraham was not aware of what was going on. Abraham is not pledging anything. Abraham is not walking up and down amongst the carcasses, pledging to do anything. You know why? Because Abraham was asleep. There were no terms for Abraham to meet. It is an unconditional covenant.
This is not Abraham saying he's going to do something in order to receive these blessings. This is Abraham falling asleep, God put him to sleep, and then God walked amongst the animals and said, “This is what I am pledging to do for you and to your descendants.” Abraham makes no pledges. Abraham has no side of this covenant. It is an unconditional covenant. This is God Himself sovereignly saying alone to Abraham, “Here is what I am going to do.” Abraham doesn't have to pledge his obedience. Abraham doesn't have terms to meet. It's an unconditional covenant. Abraham didn't pledge anything because Abraham was asleep. This is God's promise of His intentions.
Verse 13: “God said to Abram, ‘Know for certain.’” There's a little bit more details added to the covenant, right? We're in the talk of this covenant, the Abrahamic covenant. We started back in chapter 12. We saw it in chapter 13. Here in chapter 15, here's some more detail. Verse 13:
13 God said to Abram, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years.
14 “But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions.
15 “As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you will be buried at a good old age.
16 “Then in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.” (Gen. 15:13–16 NASB)
Now there's a lot of terms there, right? Your descendants are going to be strangers in a land that is not theirs. What land was that? It was Egypt. Then they will be enslaved and oppressed. Did that happen literally or spiritually? Literal oppression. For four hundred years—is that four hundred years just a symbol of a long period of time or was it a literal four hundred years? It was a literal four hundred years. “But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions” (v. 14). Was that fulfilled spiritually or literally? Literally. Ten plagues, God brought them out, Israel plundered the Egyptians because they asked gold and silver of them and the Egyptians gave them a bunch of gold and silver, and Israel plundered the Egyptians on their way out of that. Verse 15: “As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace.” That means you're going to die and you're going to be buried at a good old age. Was that fulfilled literally or spiritually? Literally. Verse 16: “Then in the fourth generation”—does that just mean a long period of time, or is that four literal generations? That's four literal generations. “They will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete” (v. 16).
Verses 17–18: “It came about when the sun had set, that it was very dark, and behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a flaming torch which passed between these pieces. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying”—now this is God Himself. The torch, the oven, these are the physical manifestations of God's presence. He and He alone is passing between these pieces of the animal. Verse 18:
18 Saying, “To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates:
19 the Kenite and the Kenizzite and the Kadmonite
20 and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Rephaim
21 and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Girgashite and the Jebusite.” (Gen. 15:18–21 NASB)
You always say those names quickly so that if you mispronounce them nobody can catch it cause they're always trying to keep up with you when you're reading them. Now I sense a theme here in all of these promises—God promised to Abraham that He was going to give a land and a son. God has reiterated that promise of a physical land and a physical son to Abraham so many times up to this point that it is almost nauseating in its repetition. It is difficult for us to avoid the conclusion that what God has in mind is not spiritual descendants, He has in mind physical descendants. And He doesn't have in mind the land as an allegory or some metaphor for Heaven or whatever it is, but a physical land. In fact, you'll notice that God gives the parameters of the land from the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river of Euphrates.
Now I was asked this last week because I was talking about the promised land to somebody, “Are you going to show slides, pictures, so we can all see?” Now remember back when we were in chapter 7 or 8 of Hebrews, whatever it was, and we went through the temple and I put the big slideshow up here, I said this is the first time I've done that in twenty-five years of preaching where I put slides on the slide picture. This is the second time that I'm going to do this in twenty-five years of preaching. And I want you to know this is not an indication of a deterioration in how we do things around here. OK, so it's not like next week we have a movie clip and after that we're just watching movies instead of my sermons.
I'm going to show you a little bit of the physical land and the boundaries. This is Ur of the Chaldeans right here. This is the Persian Gulf. This is Ur of the Chaldeans. This is the River Euphrates that goes up here, comes out of Turkey, basically, the mountains that are just south of Turkey. Here's Haran where Abram first settled with Terah before Terah died. And then that's where Genesis 12 picks up. Now you'll see that the map here has—you probably can't see that even from the front row, but it says Ur of the Chaldeans right here with a question mark. There's an Ur down here, and it's also suggested that this is Ur of the Chaldeans. Maybe it's this whole Mesopotamian crescent valley that was Ur of the Chaldeans at the time. But there's two different locations that are indicated as Ur here. Right down here is Kuwait basically, and this is modern-day Iran right here.
When Abram got this call, he went from Haran up here all the way down into what we today call Israel. There's Jerusalem right here. Here's the Dead Sea right here next to Jerusalem. And this is the Sea of Galilee up here. The northern end of Israel is right up in here today, and it goes down this Jordan River. And then they fight over everything along the Jordan River and pieces inside Israel today. So Abram went from Ur of the Chaldeans over here all the way up here, settled there, and then came down here. You say, “Why doesn't Abram just go across here?” This is a thousand miles from where he started here over to the land of Israel. That would have been a thousand-mile journey. You don't do that across the Arabian Desert with your servants and your people and everything. It takes months, and there's no way you can carry enough water. So he would have gone up the Euphrates River where it's lush and green and followed that up to Haran, settled there, and then God said, “Go.” Abram went down into the land of Israel.
So here's a modern-day map. Here's Ur of the Chaldeans right here. Here's the Persian Gulf just to the south of that. Here's the Ur where Abraham would have started out. So you're talking about Kuwait, Iran, Syria, Jordan. Lebanon is up here. This is Egypt. The Saudi Arabian Peninsula is down here. This is Turkey up here, modern-day Turkey. Abraham went from here all the way up to here and then down into Israel. Israel, the borders of that, are basically right here today. It's this little sliver of land. If you're wondering how big Israel is, to put that into perspective, the State of Israel is about the size of the Idaho panhandle, from the south end of Lake Coeur d'Alene all the way up to the Canadian border, and about as wide. That's basically the State of Israel, almost the same geographic area.
OK, so don't miss this. Here's the river Euphrates. And over here, here's the river Egypt. God promised to Abraham this piece of land. Did you know that? I didn't know that. When I read that, I thought I should probably explain where this is at to everybody. And I started looking for the River Euphrates, and I had to start scrolling to the east on my screen to find the River Euphrates. Israel, the Jews, have never occupied anything but a sliver of what was promised to them. Never. Not yet to this day. Barely occupied a sliver.
Now, in the days of David and Solomon, what is modern-day Israel, they occupied most of that, and a little stuff beyond the Jordan because there was a tribe that settled east of the Jordan River, you remember. The half-tribe of Manasseh settled over there. During the days of Solomon, Solomon was paid tribute by a lot of these nations that were around there, probably for his military protection. But Solomon was paid tribute by those lands, but the Jews never possessed it. Though it says that Solomon reigned over it, he reigned over it in the sense that he was paid tribute by nations around there, but the Jews have never possessed that. What God gave Abraham in bringing Moses in there was just the sliver that's basically everything to the west of the Jordan River out to the Mediterranean. The Jews to this day have never occupied anything but a sliver of what God promised.
So now, before we move on to chapter 17, the question I have for you is, Did God fail to give to Abraham what He promised? Or you think it's possible that there is still more to be fulfilled than that promise? The promised land is enormous. It includes most of Iraq, part of Saudi Arabia, part of Egypt, Kuwait, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the Sinai Peninsula, and part of Turkey. And Israel has never possessed it all.
In Genesis 16, Abraham took Hagar and he begat Ishmael. That was basically the father of the Arabs and the Arab nations, and a lot of nations that were around Israel caused them problems for all of their existence all the way up until today. The children of Ishmael are still at war with the children of Isaac.
Turn to Genesis 17. Here the covenant is affirmed again. Still Abraham is without a son by Sarah. He is now ninety-nine years old. Genesis 17:1:
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.
2 “I will establish My covenant between Me and you, and I will multiply you exceedingly.”
3 Abram 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. 17:1–8 NASB)
So this is an everlasting covenant, which means it's still in existence today. God is still honoring this covenant today, and He is promising them an everlasting possession. Now I ask you, does everlasting include today? It does, right? And next week and next year, and a long time from now. In fact, everlasting includes everlasting. Because it's an eternal and everlasting covenant, they have been given a land that they will enjoy as an everlasting possession.
Now the fulfillment of these promises—and there have been a number of them. Abraham had a son by Sarah, nations came from him. Isaac had the nation of Israel, and from Isaac came Jacob and Esau. Esau had his own nation. So even from Abraham's grandsons, there are multiple nations coming there. And then also Abraham had nations or kings that came from him from Ishmael. And then after Sarah died, Abraham took Keturah as a wife, and he had more sons and daughters. Many of those also became entire nations. So nations did come from Abraham literally. Kings have come from Abraham. God financially blessed Abraham.
Those who have blessed Abraham have been blessed, and those who have cursed Abraham have been cursed. That's still going on today. And listen, the nation that abandons Israel will be punished. It is no coincidence that as our nation gets further and further away from a Christian worldview and a Christian morality, the more and more we turn against the nation of Israel. It's happening in our own day right before our very eyes. And the nation that curses Israel will be cursed. Why? Because this is an everlasting covenant. That's what God promised Abraham. This is going to go on as long as there are people. This is going to be the reality. Those who bless you will be blessed and those who curse you will be cursed, literally.
His name has been made great amongst the Arabs and the Christians and the Jews. He has had innumerable descendants, innumerable. Abraham was a prolific begetter of children in his own day. And then his children have become prolific begetters of children. Multitudes have come from Abraham. His descendants were strangers in Egypt. They were slaves for four hundred years. God judged Egypt. He brought them out, gave them possessions. They plundered the Egyptians.
Abraham died before any of these things happened. And Abraham died actually before all of the terms of the covenant were fulfilled. In fact, Abraham saw a son, but you know which of those two promises, the son and the land, Abraham never saw the fulfillment of in his own day? The land. In fact, his son never possessed the land. His grandson never possessed land. His great-grandchildren never possessed the land. It was four hundred years before they ever walked into that land and possessed even a sliver of it.
Now I ask you, if what has already come to pass has been fulfilled exactly, literally as it was promised, then I would submit to you that what is yet to be fulfilled in the Abrahamic covenant will be fulfilled exactly, literally as it was promised. You say, “Everything from Egypt to the Euphrates?” Everything from Egypt to the Euphrates. They will possess it. All the land that was promised will eventually belong to the Jews from the river of Egypt to the river Euphrates, and Abraham himself will possess it, and he will dwell in it, he will walk in it, and he will call it his own. I'll explain to you in a moment how that is possible.
Now, if everything so far that has been predicted in terms of the Abrahamic covenant has been fulfilled literally, why should I—this is a serious question. And I understand that there are amillennialists and postmillennialists in this body—I love you, some of you are church members—I'm fine with that. We have a difference on eschatology, but listen to me carefully. As much as I love you, this is my serious question to those who would disagree with me on eschatology as an amillennialist or a postmillennialist. My question to you is this: why should I switch my hermeneutic, my interpretation of Scripture, in the middle of the Abrahamic covenant? As I'm reading a sentence, why should I say this was fulfilled literally, literally, literally, literally, literally, literally, all these things all the way until I get to the very last, and then say, “But the promise of land and the promise of a kingdom and the promise of that seed, that's spiritual fulfillment.” I don't think that that's legitimate. That is why I am a premillennialist. It's a consistent hermeneutic. I can't get from A to B. I can't get from literal fulfillment to spiritual fulfillment. I can't walk down that road. And so I must be, then, a premillennialist.
If Abraham had the faith—listen carefully—if Abraham had the faith to believe that the death of Isaac would not be a hurdle to God fulfilling the promise to give him descendants as of the sands of the seashore, then why should Abraham believe that his death would be a hurdle for God to give him the land? Do you follow that? If Abraham did not believe that the death of Isaac—he put him up on an altar to sacrifice him—if Abraham did not believe that his death would be a hurdle to God fulfilling His promises, why would Abraham believe that his own death would be a hurdle to God fulfilling His promises? Abraham didn't believe this, and this is the point of Hebrews 11.
God said, “Go from A to B. I'll take you out of this land and put you into this land. Now I want you to live in this land and guess what. You're going to die in this land, never seeing the fulfillment of the promises.” And Abraham said, “I will obey, I will go, and I will die there even though me, my child, my grandchild, my great-grandchildren, even down to the fourth generation, are not going to see the fulfillment of the promises.” Why? Because Abraham believed in the God of resurrection.
And here's how the Abrahamic covenant is going to be fulfilled: At the end of time when Christ comes back, He is going to resurrect Old Testament saints—Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David. He's going to resurrect the New Testament church, and all of us will enter into the land of Israel, and everything that I showed you up on the map there will be the land of Israel. All of that possession will be given to Abraham, and Abraham will walk in that land, he will live in that land, he will call that land his because God promised it to him as an everlasting possession forever. And his children will dwell in that. And for a thousand years Jesus Christ will reign in Jerusalem, and He will reign and rule over all of the nations so that through the seed of Abraham, the Lord Jesus Christ, all of the nations will be blessed. All of the nations are being blessed right now as we preach the gospel and gather in God's elect into His church. But listen, there is going to be physical and spiritual and national blessings that will be poured out eschatologically on Israel in the end-times and through Jesus Christ through His rule of perfect justice, perfect peace, and perfect prosperity. For a thousand years, all of the nations of the earth will be blessed because Jesus Christ will be their King. That is how all of it is going to unfold.
You see, all of these blessings that we've been reading through in Genesis, these things will yet be fulfilled to Abraham. And I don't mean to suggest that amillennialists or that postmillennialists are calling God a liar, but this is a black-and-white thing for me personally. Either God fulfills those promises to Abraham or I do not believe that God has kept His word to Abraham. And I do not think that you can make the claim that God fulfilled the promise of physical land and physical descendants to Abraham by giving spiritual blessings to people who were not his descendants. That is not a fulfillment. If I promise one of my children something and then I say, “Well, I fulfilled that when I gave that person something entirely different,” that's not fulfilling those promises.
These blessings will be fulfilled to Abraham. He will dwell and walk in this land because Abraham did not believe that his death was going to be the hurdle of him possessing that land. He trusted God, and he was willing to die not seeing the fulfillment of the promises because he believed that he would rise again. That is the hope of Old Testament saints, and that is our hope as well.
Now, all of that just lays the foundation of a promise and a land and a seed to Abraham. And now next week we'll go back in and look at how the author of Hebrews deals with those issues. Let's pray together.