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speaker this morning is brother john martin of the enfield south australia ecclesia

the theme for brother martin's classes this week is abraham father of the faithful today's class is entitled get the out of thy country from genesis 12.

thank you brother rod and good morning my daily beloved brothers and sisters and our lord jesus christ

well what a remarkable character we have to consider brothers and sisters in abraham you know that abraham is given three specific titles in the record

three times in this record he's called the friend of god

the canaanites called him the hebrew

and the apostle paul called him the father of the faithful

and i want to show you brothers and sisters that some of them just obi expand the meaning of those titles as we begin to consider the life of this man now in the second of chronicles chapter 20 isaiah 41 and james chapter two don't turn them up because we're gonna save time but in those three places in the second chronicles 20 isaiah 41 verse 8

and james chapter 2 he's called the friend of god

and you know what the lord jesus christ picked that up

he picked it up from the life of abraham when he said this he said to his disciples you are my friends if you do whatsoever i command you and then he went on to say this he said i don't call you servants anymore because he said the servant doesn't know what his lord is going to do but i've called you my friends for all things that the father has told me i'm going to tell you you know that's taken from the life of abraham

you may remember the occasion brothers and sisters when the angels were on their way to destroy sodom and gomorrah

and they turned aside to speak to abraham and by the commandment of god they were told to do that because they said god said i know him i know him

that he will command his children to do the things that i say

so abraham was was a man that god knew to do the things that he would command him and he said why would i hide things from abraham and he sent those angels to tell abraham what he was going to do now there is the friend of god and jesus picked that up and said you're my friends if you do whatever i command you i don't call you servants because i don't tell you things to a servant i tell you as friends what i intend to do and that's taken straight out of the life of abraham isn't that incredible the lord should pick that up from the life of this wonderful man because god knew him and therefore he was going to tell him future things

now the canaanites called him the hebrew

and they called him that because that word means across her over now this is why he was called the hebrew

you see joshua had said

he said to all the people thus saith the lord god of israel your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood

in old time even terah the father of abraham and the father of the father of nakor and they served other gods

and i took your father abraham from the other side of the flood

and led him throughout the land of canaan and multiplied his seed and gave him isaac

and so god brought him brothers and sisters from the other side of the flood i have seen that

it's unbelievable when you see where abraham came from

now this is the journey that he made

they dwelt on the other side of the flood

he came from uh the caldees here and you'll notice that he didn't make his way across here did he straight across the land but he followed up this course here because he had to get across at the river euphrates which is that blue line on that map

now brothers and sisters the euphrates is known in the bible as the flood

and when we were in iraq

in 1969

we had to go down and have a look at er the coldis we wanted to go down and see the excavations that they'd done and there are the caldees and we had to go down from baghdad

and the only way we could get there was by train

we were supposed to go by bus but we had to go by the train because the only thing above the water was the railway line

and believe it or not when we got halfway down to where the caldis coming down from baghdad here on their way down that area there brothers and sisters when we were on our way down there we got to a point on that railway line when you could not see land east north south or west

you could have been in the middle of the atlantic for all you knew and the only thing about that water what was the railway line they'd build it built it up high so the train could go through that area and you could look everywhere and from horizon to horizon in every direction was water your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood and that man made that journey not even knowing where he was going

that's what you call faith

that's why he's called the father of the faithful and he had to make his way way up here to haran and then hayward by the way means cross roads and it certainly was the crossroads for abraham and he had to come down here to shechem

and we know brothers and sisters that when he was told he was told to get thee out of thy country that was the first thing he was told so he left er of the coldest

and the work of

professor wooly who hunt who excavated er of the caldees has revealed brothers and sisters that abraham came from a very sophisticated society a very sophisticated society

he wasn't just one of these nomads wandering around with a few sheep in a tent he came from a very upgraded society in er of the caldees

and that man showed incredible faith to uproot his his home and house and move towards heyrin not knowing whether he went and he came to the crossroads with his father his brothers and his nephew

and they stayed there brothers and sisters we'll see later on that abraham had to move away from here again he stayed there for a while and what happened there

well tyra his father

his name means to delay

and that's what he did

he delayed there didn't he

until the message of god came to abraham get out of your father's house

that's not only a question now of leaving country

it's leaving family

brothers and sisters

i know what that means

when we came into the truth

there were 10 children in our family my mother and father and 10 children

and by the time i had accepted the truth i was about the third one to accept that in the family we were we were told to get out of our house it was either this religion or he lived here and we were away from home for six weeks and had to leave a semi-invalid father

and i had to get my mother sedated every day by the doctor to endure that period we knew what it meant to get out of family but the truth is the truth brothers and sisters and abraham was told not only get out of your country now you've got to leave your dad because he's delaying

and there wasn't going to be any delay with god

and abraham went didn't he his brothers didn't go

nahor his brother his name means a snorer

i know what that means too

i've had to sleep in the same room with jim luke

and he of course true to his name he sort of slept there type of thing you know and he established his home there and that's why the truth was half understood at hayward that's why isaac was to go up there to find a wife and so forth and so forth and jacob a little bit later on and he stayed there hyrun another brother he died before his father left her of the caldees actually

and then there was lot his nephew

his name means veiled

and although peter says that lot was a just and a righteous man he was veiled brother said he couldn't see clearly could he and when the day came to make a dramatic decision he was blinded to the realities of sodom and gomorrah wasn't he and made a tragic decision

and then there was milka who was the who was who's wife and she her name means a queen and you know brothers and sisters it's interesting in the record

that when you read why abraham sent isaac back there to find a wife and isaac sent jacob back there to find a wife you get great hints in the record that milka was the strength of that household

she was evidently the a very strong woman and who probably was the real reason why the truth hung on there in that particular place that they could find wives for their sons who had some affinity with the religion of abraham and it would it would indicate in the record that milka was largely responsible for that

and then there was sarah or sarai as she was then known a princess

she was the daughter of tira by another wife then of course an abraham was born so she was abraham's

half-sister

and she became his partner in life

look under abraham

the rock from whence you are here

and look under sarah the quarry out of which you've been dug

and there was a rock-like

companionship

between abraham and saraya that survived brethren sisters some very very very dramatic circumstances

and would to god that our people today husband and wife could learn to overcome their difficulties when you consider how this woman endured incredible things and yet clung to her husband and the two of them went down in the record as being an incredible partnership of faith look under the rock from whence you're hewn and the quarry from whence you were digged the foundations were in that family brothers and sisters because these people were people of faith

and the children and the sisters in christ who follow at the example of saraya peter says whose daughters you are and we're going to have a look at the record a little bit later on in the context of how why he said that

and i tell you what it wouldn't be too many faithful daughters of sarah when you look at that context of what she did

to gain that title that god gave her as a daughter

and all those associated with her are daughters of sarah or sarah

now abraham was called the father of the faithful

brethren says have you ever wondered why in the record of the scripture

that god calls himself the god of abraham

the god of isaac and the god of jacob why don't you say the god of joshua the god of moses the god of isaiah the god of david and so on and so on why would he want to stop at those three men

well the reason is this

that in hebrews 11

it says therefore he is not ashamed be called and the greek means surnamed their god now you look at this just have a look how this encapsulates the whole purpose of god in these three men so god surnamed himself upon them now that greek word they're called is better understood as surnamed and and it's rendered several times by that term surname so he put his name upon those three men just the same as a woman takes a brother for her husband and she she's quite proud and privileged to take his name

werner is my wife is verna martin and she's proud to wear my name because she wants to be associated with me and that's what that word means

now god's name

is a prophecy it's a name of god's purpose he who will be god will be people people will be taken into god's own nature into his own character his own name and we will be incorporated into that now he said he's not ashamed to have these three men associated with that name and when you look at them you realize why it's restricted to those three because you see abraham is called the father of us all

isaac is called in hebrews 11 17 his only begotten son when he was literally not his only begotten son

abraham had other children but he was called his only begotten son and here's the incredible thing i want you to turn this reference up with me genesis chapter 28 just have a look at this

and when you come to jacob

look what it says

in the 28th chapter of genesis

we read this in verse 3

and god almighty bless thee and make thee fruitful and multiply thee that thou mayest be a multitude of people now brothers and sisters that's not the first time that the word multitude is used in the promises it's used copiously in the promises but that's the first time that that particular hebrew word is used for multitude in the promises now that's incredible and if you've got a bible like mine with a marginal rendition here as some alternative you will see that alongside the word multitude my margin says hebrew an assembly of people

and so god waited until jacob's promise came to use a specific hebrew word which is the equivalent of the greek ecclesia

now look at that the father and the son and his ecclesia that's why god restricted it to those three men because encapsulated in those three men was that fact that god is the father of us all through his only begotten son through whom he's developing the ecclesia and that's god's name

and so he surnamed himself upon that man and those men rather in that remarkable fashion

now before they left tyron

we are told in the record

that surai was barren

and that sets the drama brothers and sisters for this story

because you see as we develop in this story of abraham and sarah we're going to find

that as the time drew near for the manifestation of the birth of the seed

the spotlight's going to fall right on sarah

because whilst it was of course improbable that abraham at his old age could have children he actually did have children in his old age it might have been improbable with him it was impossible with sarah

and as the story develops the drama of that will be developed with it so rai was barren

and so brothers and sisters he moved into the land

and god made wonderful promises to him now what we will do as we will pass through this story we will highlight the main features of these promises

and there are just seven elements of the promise

there are just seven elements

you'll notice that first of all

all families of the earth were to be blessed in abraham the gospel is announced you know paul says the god foreseeing that he would justify the heathen through faith preached before the gospel under abraham saying in thee shall all nations all families of the earth be blessed and many christians think that that verse says that the gospel was first preached to abraham well it wasn't

and it wasn't first preached to adam and eve

the gospel was first preached to the serpent

there's a reason for that we won't go to that now but that's a fact

what paul is saying the gospel was preached to abraham before the law that's the point he's making before the law was ever given the gospel was preached to abraham and paul does not mean brothers and sisters that when all families of the earth be blessed that every man woman and child upon the earth will be alt will be blessed because they weren't

what he means is this

that people of all nationalities would be blessed

that abraham's promises had an international flavor and it's ironical that the jews pride themselves from their descent from abraham when the very first thing he was told that all families families of the earth would be blessed

and that was the idea of that

and as we move through the promises we will see that the promise was first made of the land to his seed before abraham was ever promised an inch of it before he ever was promised it god promised it to his seed

and therefore if christ had not lived

and died and rose again to inherit the kingdom brothers and sisters nobody would would because as to him it was first promised and paul says in romans chapter 8 and verse 17 that we are joint heirs with christ

and then finally of course he came to when the land was promised to him

to thee will i give it and to thy seed and we will see that in genesis chapter 13.

then we'll have a look at the day when god made a covenant with him and he confirmed that promise and that's an intriguing story in genesis 15

and then in genesis 17 brothers and sisters we will learn about the spiritual fatherhood of abraham and how that god

god was to make him a father says god like me and we're going to see the significance of that and then finally we're going to see how that the spotlight of activity fell upon sarah i will return says yahweh i will come and sarah will have a son

wow i'll come says god into your house and sarah will have a son and you know paul in romans chapter 9

says that's the quintessence of the promise this is the word of promise afterwards i will return and sarah will have a son and the drama brothers and sisters was to heighten us to god was enter into that relationship and the seed of the promise was to be born the wonderful story

and then we have the last section when that that lad when he had grown to virtual maturity abraham was to take him and offer him up as a burnt offering and faith was made perfect

you know when those promises were made

abraham was moving through the land

all nations were to be blessed god called him into the land by that promise

and to thy seed which is christ which was made at shechem

and then later on brothers and sisters he came to bethel where the promise of the land was made to him

and then in hebron three sections of the promise were made there it was to be confirmed by sacrifice

abraham was to be a spiritual father and the boy that was to be born was god's own son

and the drama culminated when he moved to jerusalem on mount moriah there to offer isaac upon the altar

and so that's the other promise developed

now in genesis chapter 12 we pick up the record

and they came into the land and verse 5

says

and abram took sarah his wife and lot his brother's son and all their substances they had gathered and all the souls that they had gotten in haran

and they went forth to go into the land of canaan and into the land of canaan they came

they came to the land of canaan and abraham passed through the land under the place of sikkim which is shechem under the plain of moray and the canaanite was then in the land now note that the canaanite was there so the god specifically records the fact that the canaanite was there and you know brothers and sisters abraham came to shetland you know what chicken is it's the physical center of the land

it's the physical center of the land

and here in the physical center of the land god was to say unto thy seed will i give this land

it was promised to christ before it was ever promised to abraham and the fact that it was made there brothers and sisters between those two mountains evil and gerizim which are only about 500 yards apart and shechem sits in the little saddle that's between those two mountains with evil a little bit higher than gerizim evil being a mountain with no virgin on it and gerizim being a mountain with with of course the trees and the grass and they stood in contrast the cursing and the bless blessing and in between that little valley and it was there that god said look abraham to your seat i'm going to give this land now the canaanites here abraham

and the question was brothers and sisters whether abraham would separate or assimilate

now this is intriguing

because you know that ever after that place became a place where people make decisions

look at that

it was a question with abraham

on whether he would separate

or assimilate choose you this day whom you will serve

and we find brothers and sisters that when you come to genesis 35 when jacob made his way back from peyton aram there was idolatry in his house his own wife was carrying idols

and there were strangers with him and he stopped to check them

and he asked them to make a decision whether they were prepared to come into pilgrimage with him into the land as strangers or to carry the gods of the heather with them and they buried the gods

at shechem and made that decision

in the book of judges

the joke of the the the the surviving son of gideon when abimelech the bramble king had killed the 69 sons of of gideon and left annie jotham left he ran over top of gerizim

and called to the men of shechem to make up their mind whether they wanted to follow in the ways of his faithful father or to follow that vain king the bramble king abimelech did they want him or did they want his father make up your mind to check them

in january 27

uh when the la people were taking you to the land moses told joshua when you go into the land he said you put six tribes on evil and you put six tribes on gerizim and put the priests in the middle and chant the blessings and the cursing make up your mind do you want a cursing or you want a blessing and that brothers and sisters was where they had to make up their mind

and in joshua 24

before joshua died

he took israel to that very place again between those two mountains and he says choose you this day whom you will serve as for me and my house we will serve god but make up your mind what you want to do

and that's where jesus met the woman of samaria

and she said our fathers said in that mountain we ought to worship what do you say

he said salvation to the jews make up your mind

isn't that incredible and you know brothers and sisters

joshua told the people right there that they had to serve god in sincerity and in truth

and when jotham the son of gideon ran up on top of that mountain the gerizim and spoke to the men in that valley he said twice twice he said it if you have done truly and sincerely

and right there jesus said to the woman of samaria they that worship the father must worship him in spirit and in truth and so there was a monumental principle established in the life of abraham when he came there brothers and sisters that it was either separation or assimilation and we've got to separate sincerely and truly

nothing's work less is worth it you've got to do it sincerely and truly and so abraham made up his mind didn't he became a stranger in a pilgrim and dwelt in that land even though the canaanite was then in that land we know that zechariah the prophet says when the lord jesus christ establishes the kingdom there shall be no more the canaanite there no more they'll be gone because it'll be all abraham's land and his seed and so that's what shechem stood for

and that place the the promise of the seed the to the seed was given

when the tribes brothers and sisters were assembled

thereby joshua according to the commandment of moses

there were six of them on the bold hill of evil here and six of them upon the green hill here of shechem of gerizim rather

it's very interesting to note that the tribes who were on gerizim the tribe of blessing this one here simeon of course had his inheritance within judah levi didn't have an inheritance and when you draw a line around the borders of those tribes they are all concentering around the center of the land

all those borders are the center of the land and all these tribes brothers and sisters are outside of that center and you will notice in that list

we have all the children of the bond women

not the children of the free

the children of zul power and bilhar are in that list that's outside at the borders of that center but all those on gerizim their borders make up the center of the land and when joshua took them there and they spelled out the blessings and the cursings it was not the blessings and the cursings of the law only brothers says oh no because 12

times in the book of deuteronomy they were told just 12 times once for every tribe that the inheritance would be on the basis of the promises made of the father and it was there that god said i will bless him that blesses me and i'll curse him that curseth thee israel make up your mind

and if you want the land if you want the center of the land then choose blessing and all those borders ring the center of the land isn't that incredible brothers and sisters and all of that based upon the promises made to the fathers

now abraham came to the place of moray

to the oak of moray in shechem now the oak brothers and sisters is a solitary tree in israel it doesn't grow in groves it was a solitary tree and it stood there as a monument

and when you look at the word moray in the hebrew you'll find that it's rendered in three different ways and there's been a little bit of confusion about that

we have it rendered as a teacher

we have it rendered as an archer firing arrows

and we have it rendered as the early rain rain that comes during the the the the season of the spring and the so forth to bring forth the crops the early rain

remember they've all got something in common you see

a teacher points to the lesson

an archer fires in that direction and the early rain signaled the coming of the season they all pointed the way

so whatever rendition we have of those of that term moray it all has the same connotation it's pointing that this is the way walking in it and abraham came to that place where that oak tree was that pointed the way for him brothers and sisters into that land

now verse 7 says he built an altar there

he built an altar there

and of course he commemorated as it were that great promise that was made to him now he left shechem we read in verse 8

and he removed him from this unto a mountain on the east of bethel and pitched his tent having bethel on the west and high eye on the east

now here's a remarkable thing

do you know that when he came to bethel which is a bit lower of course than shechem took down towards jerusalem when he came to bethel brothers and sisters you know bethel means the house of god

and i want you to turn to hebrews 11 and have a look what the apostle says because you know the thing about this is that this is the first time that we have reference to abraham dwelling in a tent now of course he dwelt in tents before

but this is the first time we're told that

and because the record is inspired god i believe deemed to tell us at this point that he dwelt in this tent

and so in hebrews chapter 11

verses 9 and 10

it says by faith he so joined in the land of promise as an estranged country dwelling in tents with isaac and jacob the heirs with him with the same promise

for he look for a city

which has foundations whose builder and maker is god isn't that interesting

that he felt intense because he looked for a city and it's not until he came to beth isle the house of god that we have first mentioned of his tent

now that's not just done coincidentally brothers and sisters that's to tell us that this was the spirit of that man so having made his decision up there in shechem he decided that he'd live as a pilgrim and the first mention of that is in the house of god and that's really interesting

but he went on journey we read in verse nine and abraham journeyed going on towards the south

so he had departed out of virgo called these he'd gone up to hyrum he'd gone out of his father's house he'd come into the land and he's journeying ever southward until he comes towards the south and the hebrew word for south is negev and it means the dry land

and there's trials ahead brothers and sisters everybody's faith gets strived

we read in verse 10 and it came to pass or rather yes that's right verse 10 and there was a famine in the land

do you think about it

here you're told to get out of your country so you do that and you march up along this great river because you've got to get around it somewhere it's a flood you can't get across here you've got to go up and up and up more or less in a different direction than what you really want to go to get around this flood and so you trudge up there for hundreds of miles 300 odd mile up there he trudges with his family 318 servants he's got with him incredible journey he takes a left-hand turn and comes down into the land he stands to check him and god said this is it abraham to thy seed will i give this land but there's canaanites everywhere a swarming over the place

and abraham's got to assimilate all that and and separate from them he's got to take this in and think about it there's canaanites everywhere and then he finds brothers and sisters that the land is in under the threat of famine there's a famine in the land there's a drought it's his land now what would you do

what on earth would you and i do under those circumstances having come all that way hundreds of miles through difficult terrain into a an unknown world

and then be told that this is the world we're coming to called by god almighty the controller of heaven and earth and our country is swarming with canaanites and it's under the stricken with drought what an earth would you do

you'd wonder what earth was going on you'd be absolutely disillusioned

and temporarily

abraham became disillusioned

and he went down into egypt

and you know it's it's interesting that abraham's life is a pattern of his seed's life as the nation developed from him so all these characteristics came through the nation and isaiah the prophet in his 30th chapter and i'm not turning this up because we want to save a bit of time this is a big story but in isaiah and his 30th chapter talks about egypt they went down into egypt for help and egypt was a broken reed and isaiah depicts them going down into egypt through the waste and howling desert wherein were scorpions and serpents and all manner of beasts and they were riding on their camels and their donkeys and they'd make their journey in the blinding sandstorms at isaiah and they'd come to egypt under extreme difficulties to find what a broken reed

and all their trust in egypt and all the trouble they took across the sinai desert brothers and sisters meant nothing in the end because egypt couldn't do nothing for them

well abraham went down there

and he went down there and says to sojourn

which means he didn't go down there to live he didn't intend to go down and stop their brothers and sisters he went down there to be a stranger in a pilgrim he could have returned to the land says paul in hebrews 11.

they might have had opportunity to return he said if they wanted to but he didn't

he went down there to saddum

now we read in verse 11 and it came to pass when he was come near to entry to egypt he said unto his wife

now from verse 11 to verse 20

saraya is called just seven times his wife

just seven and that's the number of the covenant we know that from leviticus 26

when god kept telling israel

if you break my covenant i will punish you seven times kept saying that in leviticus 26 and that's not the only place where seven is associated with the covenant and here is a woman that's called his wife seven times because as malachi says she was the wife of his covenant

but he had made another covenant with her

and before they ever left heyron he'd made another covenant brothers and sisters and over in chapter 20 you read about that covenant

it was a tragic covenant really

it says in chapter 20 and verse 13 and it came to pass that abraham when god caused me to wander from my father's house but i said unto her sarah this is thy kindness which thou shalt show unto me at every place whether we shall come say of me he is your brother

that was a covenant they made before he came into the land imagine a husband coming to his wife and saying look dear you're a beautiful woman i i love you dearly but look you're you are a beautiful woman and i'm frightened i'm frightened i'm going to get killed for you

so everywhere we come you just tell everybody you're my sister

and that was a half-life

because she was a half-sister

but it was a total denial of his covenant that he should have made with that woman that she should have been the wife of his covenant and he put terror sarah into terrifying circumstances now you come with to me with first to peter chapter three and see what peter says about this

speaking as the example that was set here the apostle peter tells the sisters he says in verse 4 but let it be the hidden man of the heart in that which is not corruptable even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit which is in the sight of god of great price

or after this manner in old time the holy women also who trusted in god adorned themselves being in subjection under their own husbands even as sarah obeyed abraham calling him lord

whose daughters you are

as you're not

terrified as the as the idea is it you're sarah's daughter's

sisters you're going to be her daughters if you're not terrified by circumstances in your married life to break with your husband and there wouldn't have been a woman who would have more justification for that than this one did but paul says she had a hidden man of the heart abraham was hidden in her heart how did that happen

well she called him lord

do you know brothers and sisters you listen to this there's only one occasion where it's ever recorded that she called him lord she would have called him lord regularly there is only one occasion that it's recorded and it's recorded in genesis 18

when the angel came with the message that she was going to have a child by abraham and she laughed within herself she laughed within herself and said

shall i have pleasure my lord

being old also she said that in here

that's the only time it's ever said that she called him lord

and abraham was the hidden man of her heart

and on two occasions he was prepared

for her to go into a harem

experiences

whose daughters you are

if you're not terrified

and how tragic is it brothers and sisters that we have in these in these last days in these days of noah we have such a plague of marriage problems

and all the justification of why that should happen we're incompatible for this reason or that reason or he's done this or she's done that well look what this woman had to go through and she kept that man in her heart

and here

she didn't go around mouthing platitudes and she loved her husband with her mouth and she had spite in her heart that wasn't the case at all he was hidden in here

unbelievable

and she survived two terrifying experiences which he put her into and they'd made an agreement before they left his father's house that don't do that

now that's the sort of partner that he had

brethren and sisters and what a wonderful woman she is

what a wonderful woman she is and no wonder that god of course chose abraham and sarah to be not only the father of the faithful but the mother sarah the mother of all those who have that attitude and who can withstand the storms of life and come out on the other end on top now we haven't got much time but a couple of minutes to finish this session when i do when i do abraham back home i do 10 sessions in an hour and a half so you just imagine what we're going to do here so so here we go and we come to the end of this story in egypt and what happens pharaoh of course according to abraham's fears he sees this woman his servants point her out and he thinks this will be a nice woman i can take into my harem and he takes sarah under his roof

and you know what happened brothers and sisters that god plagued his house

he plagued his house

and the egyptian king

the egyptian king came to abraham and said you've done the wrong thing

she's your wife and i was in danger of taking another man's wife that egyptian king in this circumstances had more integrity in that way than abraham did did you know that and it happened twice

abraham was not born a faithful man he was not by nature faith this had to be developed brothers and sisters circumstances had to develop it

and and pharaoh gave him sheep and oxen and asses and men simply he'd already given him that uh because of taking sarah and when benny when he sent him away brothers and sisters he sent him away with all those possessions with all those possessions

and the expedient which they had adopted

set the scene for a disaster because it was those possessions that when he got back into the land and he he got back with his nephew lot they found that they couldn't dwell together because of their possessions most of which abraham got out of egypt and including included in those possessions

was hand maidens

he got haggar there

and by that expedient that woman came into his house

and later on when saraya herself adopted her expedient

so that woman should be the one through whom the seed was come that almost again tore that marriage apart

but it survived

and so brothers and sisters we see the scene set for the a wonderful life of a wonderful man and of a wonderful woman

abraham if we follow him is the father of us all and sisters if we manifest the characteristics of sarah then you are her daughters

Transcript

theme for brother martin's classes this week is abraham father of the faithful and today's classic entitled walk through the land based upon genetic 13.

well good morning my dear brothers and sisters and our lord jesus christ

thank you

is it a good morning

okay right now we're going to come back with abraham now from egypt you remember he went down into egypt driven there by the fact that there was a famine in the land and of course the canaanite was in the land also and we noted brethren sisters that here was the land of promise and yet it would appear to abraham now there was anything but the lander promised and so he was forced by circumstances into egypt and that's always a dangerous practice when you go down into egypt you really go down and we know what happened there the circumstances with his wife sarah and of course what happened out of that that god delivered him from that circumstance and he made his way back now look when we read the early verses of genesis 13

they are full of meaning they really are almost every phrase here is pregnant with meaning because abraham is coming back determined not to make that mistake again although later on he did

but now he's coming back with a new attitude and when we pick up the record in genesis 13 brethren and sisters which i understand you read this morning it is absolutely full of significance and just see the determination of abraham here as he came back to make amends for that mistake

and we read that abraham went up out of egypt and when you go towards egypt you go down and when you come out of egypt you go up it's always the case and it says he and his wife

and all that he had and locked with him into the south that is in the negev into the south of the land of israel he came up out of egypt and he's got sarah his wife

and he's got luck with him and they're still together

but it reads brother and sisters that abraham was very rich in cattle in silver and in gold and it was those riches

along with the possessions of lot that were going later on to separate them in this chapter a tragedy brothers and sisters

blessings from god in one sense but the accumulation of wealth was going to be the means of separating abraham from his nephew lot and it was going to prove a disaster for that matthew

and a great decision was going to be made when he went back to bethel

and look what it says

it says abraham went on his journey the hebrew has it according to his stations

and what we're being told brothers and sisters is this that abraham is deliberately retracing his steps

so station by station he retraces his steps and he knows where he wants to go and he knows why he wants to get there

and he went on his journey from the south even to battle

and that's where the tragic decision had been made to leave the land and he's hurrying back to that spot to battle which means of course the house of god that's 180 miles from egypt

and he hurries back there and it says there

under the place where his tent had been at the beginning now note that

now abraham came out of earth called these he would have brought in a tent all the way on to the land he would have been an attempt to check him but remember the point we made

that it wasn't mentioned in the record that he pitched his tent until he came to bethel not that he had not had a tent before but it hadn't been said until that point and when he came to the house of god he pitched that tent as a stranger and a soldier in the land looking for a city whose builder and maker is god now here he is going back station by station till he gets to bethel where he had pitched his tent at the beginning

and that's clearly telling us that abraham was hurrying back to recommence his pilgrimage in that land

that's what he's doing

and it says he pitched that tent between bethel and ai

now bethel

is about 12 or 15 miles north of jerusalem

and ai brothers and sisters if you're looking at a map it would be on the right hand side just a few miles to the east of battle towards the valley of the river the valley of jordan

and bethel means the house of god

and ai means ruin

and he stood between those two places

between the house of god and ruin

and a great decision was going to be made there by him and by lock and says the record in verse 4 under the place of the altar which he had made there at the first

you see

see how the record is telling us so he goes back where his tent had been at the beginning and he's now at that altar where he had made at the first

and here's abraham retreating his steps to commence his pilgrimage and he comes back from that place of the altar brothers and sisters and there he called upon the name of the lord

rededicated himself to the purpose for which he was called out of here the call deeds a chastened man

these are the experiences of life brothers and sisters that we all go through we all have these experiences we all make bad decisions we all run into disaster and what we should do is do what abraham did get back to the beginning

retrace your steps

be determined to go there and get back to where we started and you know as one brother once said in a talk that i heard i thought it was a rather expressive thing that he said

he said you know we we are taught in the bible

that our life is a life of education and discipline and we grow in maturity

but he said for me

it's a constant struggle

to get back to my first flush of enthusiasm and my word there's a lot of truth in that

and i can remember brothers and sisters as a young man coming out of the worst of the world that when i came into the truth i flipped the first six or 12

months of my life in the truth the world was an absolute blank

i can't think of anything in the world in that period that i took congressman it was a total blank

sad to say

that it's not so now it returned

and the first flush of enthusiasm had waned hadn't it and problems come into my life and crowded back and i know things i ought not to know and it's a constant struggle to retrace my steps to where the tent had been at the beginning and where the altar was of the truth to which i had first come that i might call upon the name of the lord again that the world might become a blank to me again and that's exactly what is happening here with abraham

now the time came for a decision to be made

because we read in verse 5

and lot also which went with abraham had flocks and herds

and tents

so both men are growing very great

and the record says and the land was not able to bear them

the land

was not able to bear them but god is going to tell this man unto thy seed will i give this land and he's going to tell him that this seed is going to be numbered like the dust of the earth and here's two families and the land is not able to bear them

can you just think of the test upon abraham's faith with all these things the canaanites in his land

it has experienced a famine now he's come back with lot and just two families and the land cannot bear them

but under your seed abraham as the guts to the earth will i give this land now they would have taken incredible faith to believe that under these circumstances just as it is brothers and sisters with us and we say we believe that the kingdom is going to be set up on the earth our brother bob last night

made us get a point score about that belief how strong do we believe that oh we globally say we believe it but you look around you it seems impossible

it seems that everything is so real today and unreal tomorrow but this is the unreal world and the real world is coming and abraham had to believe that because here he can see that it wouldn't even bear two families

and tragically brothers and sisters

possessions and riches verse 7 says brought about a strike

between the herdman of abram's cattle

and the herdman of lot's cattle

they were brethren in the truth

and there was a commencement of strife brothers and sisters when they didn't ought to be strife

because you see the record goes on and says

and the canaanite and the perizzite dwelt then in the land and there was no strife between them

and this bible is beautifully written it's written by the finger of god look how that's put so here are two men

called of god to the pristine truth of his word

who ought to have been one who ought to have been been able to make the accommodation to live together

brothers and sisters they needed to live together because the canaanite and the perizzite were living together in that land and they were desperately in need to stand against the influences of that world and there's a great message in that for us

there's a tremendous message in that for us we've had some disgraceful divisions in the brotherhood of christ that ought not to be

when issues brothers and sisters have divided us some of them yes there have been justification for that because they impinge upon our statement of faith and some of them don't

and i tell you brothers and sisters this world is full of the canaanite and the parasite and they're united and if we're not careful if we shiver to pieces brothers and sisters we will expose not only ourselves but our children and our grandchildren the pressures they will not be able to bear believe me

because we're rapidly coming to a situation in this world where we're going to be put on enormous pressure look all put together the christodophians are a feeble folk in the earth

people hardly even know we exist

but brothers and sisters the pressure is coming upon us and we need to be aware of that we're going to have to make a stand for the truth oh yes we say christ is coming and he will take us out of the world but you don't know when and i don't know when that will be and we don't know how long we're going to be here

and brothers and sisters we're going to find that the very moral issues we stand for we're going to have to stand up tall on those issues because the day is coming when they're going to be challenged in melbourne just recently in australia in the city of melbourne the brethren put on a lecture about homosexuality and the hall was full of a riotous crowd

and they were abused

and after that they got from the public a very good response

but i'm telling you these are the issues that are coming upon us and when they had this gay mardi gras in sydney these are the issues that are coming on the sydney harbour bridge there was a huge banner right across the bridge which said welcome to sodom

i'm telling you

welcome to sodom and lot is about to make a trip into sodom

and exposed himself to danger brothers and sisters when they didn't ought to have done that

but he could have had the protection of the faith of his uncle abraham

and paul you know in galatians says they that are of faith are blessed with faithful abraham not without him

they that are of faith are blessed with faithful abraham and this division of thought here brought about by material things

split present

and put lot into a very very invidious position brothers and sisters

the love of money is the root of all evil says the apostle

and many he says who covered after that money are pierced through they earth from the faith and they pierce through with many many sorrows

and look at the tragedy of lot

just look at the tragedy a block brother look this is how it went

he went down there didn't he in the end he lost his home

he lost his wife

his children married outside the truth to the worst sort of people

and even when they were dragged out of sodom and saved by the skin of their teeth his own daughters who had been now skilled in the ways of sodom committed incest to their father got him drunk and committed incest with him and two boys were born moab and ammon both of whose names indicate from father

and these children of the incest who that came from that incestuous union of his own girls with him grew into nationhood and became absolute thorns in the side of israel so much so brothers and sisters that in the 83rd psalm

when's when there's a list of all israel's enemies they're not simply called edom and mullah or moab and ahmed rather they're not simply called that

tragically they're called the children of lot

and look at the expression that that conjures up the children of lot

and they became dangerous enemies of israel

who would never have been in the earth

had not stayed with faithful abraham but material things divided brethren in a dangerous world brothers and sisters and zephaniah the prophet you know it was zephaniah the prophet when he was denouncing the neighboring nations around israel who were there in veteran enemies he said concerning moab and airmen

he said i will make you like sodom and gomorrah and if ever there were two nations who should have understood that they should have understood it

the conceptions of their nation

was right under the shadow of that holocaust

and zev and i said i'll make you like sodom and gomorrah

and that was the threat against the moabites and the ammonites

now abraham pleaded with lot in verse 8

and he said look let there be no strife he says

let there be no strife

he said because

between me and thee and between my herdman and die hardman but we are brethren

we are brethren

brethren sisters we have an enormous responsibility

to realize the import of that

i mean these two were brethren because god called them out of the land

he called them out of their their house and and country and he brought them into the land they were brethren because they had the same hope and the same faith

the children of israel were brethren because god brothers and sisters brought him out of egypt on the basis of the death of the next door neighbor's son so god killed other people to make them united

and they weren't worth it says ezekiel the prophet when that happened and therefore they ought to have had gratitude towards god that other people's children suffered that they might be delivered and god would have expected from them a response

brothers and sisters we haven't simply been called out of the land to go to the kingdom it hasn't been other people's sons that have been killed that we might be delivered it's god's boy that died

and he died expressly for the purpose that we might be one

that the last prayer he ever made before he went to the garden of gethsemane was a passionate prayer that we might be one as he was with the father

and if we're stupid enough to divide on issues where we didn't order divide and i know there are issues which call for that because they're fundamental they're not talking about them but if we're silly enough brothers and sisters to allow these things to come into our lives materialism or preoccupation with self or anything else then we deserve all we get

and this is what happened a lot

and he went down into that dangerous country and abraham look at the the monumental faith of this man but in verse nine he says says the light look like it's not the whole land before you before thee separate thyself i pray thee from me if thou will take the left hand then i will go to the right

or if they are the part of the right hand then i will go to the left

so abraham gave lot the widest

and the first choice

and yet says the apostle in hebrews chapter 11

or chapter 6 7 rather verse 6

he said concerning abraham to quote the greek he was the holder of the promises

now the man who was the holder of the promises who had the title deeds of that land by promise it's his he says the lot there it is the whole lot of it

you take first pick anywhere you like

that's the words of a very faithful man brother and sisters

because he knew in the end

it was all going to be his

all going to be his

and lot was told well if you want to make the choice

separate yourself from me you don't do that as i said in galatians chapter 3

they that are blessed are blessed with faithful abraham

dangerous thing brothers and sisters to separate from the truth as we have it in the covenants of promise an absolute disaster

well how did lot separate why did he separate it's very interesting to follow the retrogression of lot

look for example in verse seven first of all brothers and sisters the first step in the process

is strike

it always begins with strike

and when there's strife of course

then there becomes discontent

and we separate

and then in verse 10

he lifted up his eyes and he beheld all the plane of jordan so the sight of his eyes begin to lead him away

so this strife

there's the lifting up of his eyes and then in verse 11 lot chose all the plain of jordan

and verse 12

it says at the end of that verse he pitched his tent toward sodom so he's only just going in that direction you see and he's still got a tent

and he just pitches his tent in that direction

but down there brothers and sisters are dreadful people but it's a beautiful country and it offers great prospects the jordan valley then was not like it is now

and so lots of decline continued and as he went towards sodom to pitch his tent it wasn't long until we come to chapter 19 and verse 1 when we read

and there came two angels to sodom and even and lot sat in the gate of sodom

so he's among the rulers of that country

as a matter of fact the sodomites accused him of that he has grown to great prominence such great prominence that his wife is caught up in the social aspect of that city her heart is entwined in that wickedness brothers and sisters and she settled down in a luxurious situation and she loves every minute of it and poor lot

has walked into disaster you know peter's comment concerning lot that he is a righteous man he backs to his soul lot will be in the kingdom of god i believe but my word brothers and sisters he'll be a very chastened man when he comes to that kingdom

he lost everything

but he hung onto his faith even in those circumstances it could have cost him his own life

and as his law as his name means he was veiled his name means veiled he couldn't see brothers and sisters could he the god of this world had blinded him and looking around the world the plain of sodom he could see the sweep of the jordan valley he can see in those days as it was a glorious valley fertile sparkling with greenery and of course there was no no such thing then as the salt sea and the deadness of that it was it was vital with life and it was a country to be greatly desired by men with flocks and herds the possibilities were endless brothers and sisters but he was vile because he couldn't see the people that were there

he didn't take cognizance of the people who lived there and he went into that dangerous situation extremely dangerous situation you know the thing that grieves me i i'm an old-fashioned person i probably tread on a lot of toes by that mean but i don't care honestly i don't care the thing that grieves me today as you move among the the brothers and sisters is the education of our children how on earth how on earth are our children ever going to become embedded into the truth brothers and sisters with the extent

and the intensity

of the education which people deem necessary today for children to get a job how on earth are they ever going to get down into this book and you hear some of the stories and the length of time the kids have got to spend at universities in that and i just despair and i think to myself the world by wisdom knew not god

and this man got tangled up in all those sort of things

and it cost him almost everything and i believe brothers and sisters that as the time goes on and pressures become even more intense radical situations are going to need radical adjustments

or we won't survive

this is not an idle warning brothers and sisters as you grow older and you look around you and you see the things that are happening and because you've got a basis of comparison having lived to that point you see it brothers and sisters ever so clearly and we need we need desperately to get back to this book to open its pages expound it's it's wonderful message and to inspire our brothers and sisters but where oh where are the young men today who've got the time to do that

and this is what happened here

and he pitched his ted and you know what it says in genesis 13

when he beheld all the plane of jordan look look how he saw it

why it was well watered everywhere

before the lord destroyed solomon gomorrah you see jordan valley is only like it is today because of the holocaust of solomon gomorrah that changed the whole contour of the land it changed the climatic conditions it baked the earth into sterility but it wasn't always like that

and lot looked down there and he saw it like the garden of the lord says

he saw it like eden

like egypt

and in his mind

he's seeing this tremendous valley oh he's look at this it's like the garden of eden it's just like egypt garden of eden was never like egypt

and lot had equated in his mind brothers and sisters those two things

and he thought he could have something in this life and something in the next as well a lot a lot of people think the kingdom of god will be like the garden of egypt and some of them think just like today

it'll be nothing like today

it'll have no resemblance to today

it'll have a splendor and a glory brothers and sisters which will be on their comprehension now but which we must try and fix our imagination but it'll be nothing like today did you see how egypt had affected lot

egypt had made a big impression on him hadn't it

and that's how he saw

the garden of the lord as it were

down there in sodom

and so we read in verse 12

and abraham dwelt in the land of canaan

and lot dwelt in the cities of the plain look at that and the decision was taken brothers and sisters between bethel and ai bethel to the west and ai to the east and we read in verse 11 that lot journeyed toward the east he went straight into ruin hai

and abraham turned west and went to the hills of judea to bethel and you would never have found a greater contrast because the hills of judea brothers and sisters were bare and sparse

there was little virgin there we know that because they couldn't well together a man could barely eke out an existence but that's the way that he went

and brother and sisters that choice is before us every day of our life which way do you want to go

here are the possibilities to the east

there are immense possibilities

this world can offer much

there's money to be made it can run out of your ears

if you prepare to give your life your soul and your might to the god of this world well go east and you'll walk into ruin

but where are the people that's going to go to the left towards the west who wants to go to the house of god but if you want to go there there's not much offering in this life i'll tell you

and the choice is ours brothers and sisters it's the house of god or ruin the choice is crystal clear

and lot made the wrong choice

and he went down there to sodom

and you know brothers and sisters

sodomy as we know it today was not the only sin of that place

and when jesus said as it was in the days of lot he never mentioned that abomination

he never said a word about it

what he said was this

like i said in the days of lot he said

they builded

they planted

they married and were given in marriage

things were prosperous he never said a word about the abomination which came as the end result what jesus was warning us about was not the abomination but that which led to it

and ezekiel the prophet said this was the sin of thy sister city sodom

fullness of bread

abundance of

idleness and carelessness about other people

ezekiel

said brothers and sisters they were the factors that led to that abomination bread

plenty to eat the economy is booming

abundance of idleness come to australia four weeks and you'll leave

plenty of public holidays work 10 years for your employer and you get 13 weeks off

full pay

long service leave they call it and every year after that you get five weeks and you'll leave and when you go on annual leave you get 17 and a half percent loading on top of your wages

and what's australia like

one of the stupidest countries in the world

okay

absolutely idiotic

are people laid back

sport crazy absolutely indifferent to anybody else selfish brutal

only about 10 years behind america in all its technology

and none of us brothers and sisters here today belong to either country

we're not proud of our country

we're israelites aren't we as is another citizenship another citizenship entirely

and you know this is what lot shows

but you see after lot was departed from in verse 14

and this is a wonderful moment in abraham's life

and the lord said unto abraham after the lot was separated from him you see he acknowledged abraham's greatness and his his magnanimous attitude towards lot as he offered him everything brothers and sisters when he had the promises and god was thrilled with that attitude

and he says abraham lift up thine eyes and look from the place where you are and where was he he was in bethel the house of god

and he told him to look northward

and he would look therefore towards the lebanon

he would look southward down through jerusalem and down through that through hebron and onto the negan

and eastwood

and abraham would turn and look eastward

and as lot disappeared into the distance god was telling him don't worry about it abraham in the end it's yours anyway

and eastwood

and finally westwood he would look over samaria over the plain of charon right at the mediterranean sea was all here

what a wonderful thing brothers and sisters

and so the pilgrimage of this life is worth every inch of the way isn't it it's all ass

to thee will i give it he says unto thy seed for this is the first time that abraham is promised this land and when in the 23rd the 13th chapter rather of luke when the lord jesus christ was talking about the inheritance of abraham he said they shall come from the north

and from the south and from the east and from the west and shall sit down with abraham so it wasn't just simply a promise brothers and sisters of all directions of the compass it was a promise of all directions of humanity

there was a width and a breadth about that promise that was staggering

and they would come from all points of the compass and here we are today hundreds of thousands of years removed from abraham from all points of the compass and we're all converging on the house of god what a marvelous thing

and god went on to tell him abraham i will make thy seed as the dust of the earth

abraham's seed was to be developed first of all from the dust of the earth

from a dry in a parched place later on when isaac was offered he was going to make like the stars of heaven

and when the faith had come to fullness the seed was not going to come from the dust it was going to be a star-spangled heaven of great people descended from abraham by their faith and this is how the the promise developed and you know brothers and sisters you know it's a marvelous figure of speech the dust of the earth

in isaiah's prophecy it speaks of the time when god would bring out of the dust of the earth the seed of abraham and he said it'll be like pouring water on a dry and a thirsty land

and he said the the virgin would grow up like like the reeds of the watercourse right rushes of the river in other words brothers and sisters it wouldn't be a slow growth

the rapidity of the growth would be like the rushes of of the river the reeds of the watercourse on a drier the thirsty land and when the apostles went out with this message that abraham's seed were not restricted to the jews

that god had made him the father of many nations and by the mercy of god people of all ranks of society and from all nationalities could become his seed what did they do they poured water on a dry land the roman world was sterile and what happened hundreds of people thousands of people believed the truth and they sprang up like reeds of the watercourse like rushes of the river said isaiah the prophet from the dust of the earth and those same people as they develop in their faith one day brothers and sisters will shine like stars of the firmament it was a wonderful promise

but it's conditional

it's conditional

and here comes a marvelous thing

you see abraham was told brothers and sisters

to walk

through the land

now that wasn't said idly

i want to show you now how that runs through the bible

abraham you

walk through the land

and the apostle tells us and i'm not turning these references up because you know them well i understand you know them well he says abraham is not only the father of the circumcision that is the father of the jewish people this is romans 4 verse 12 he said he's not only the father of the circumcision but the father of those also who walk

in the steps

of that faith of our father abraham

think about that

who walk in the steps of that faith of our father abraham abraham arise walk through them you know what god was saying

he was saying brothers and sisters that this promise would be fulfilled there's no doubt about that and abraham's participation would be dependent on where his footprints were

in other words god was issuing him a promise with a challenge and the challenge was abraham it's up to you

if you walk with me if you walk in this land i will give you everywhere where your footprints are and you follow abraham's life brothers and sisters as he moved around that land he literally walked the length of it and the breadth of it

and left these footprints all over it

where are your footprints

and where am i

well we don't intend brothers and sisters we we don't believe that in the end god's going to give us a baseball stadium and that's where your footprints are you're not going to get that in the kingdom of god you're not going to get a picture theater

you're not going to get the entertainment places of this world

you're not going to get the pleasures that sport may offer if your footprints and my footprints in the wrong place brothers and sisters woe unto us walk in the steps of that faith of our father abraham what a wonderful thing that was now let me tell you how that worked out

you look at this

to there will i give it unto thy seed forever

it was dependent upon faith in action

arise walked through the land and the length of it and in the breadth of it then abraham removed his tent and came and dwelt in hebron

immediately after the promise of the land he removed his tent

he pulled up the the pegs and and the ropes folded up his tent and off he went

and finally came down through past jerusalem about 20 miles south of jerusalem to hebron which means fellowship

now just think of this and so paul says we also walk in the steps of that faith of our father abraham now come to caleb

and what happened here brothers and sisters was this

caleb i believe was a gentile

he was a kennezide

and his name means a dog

and that's the title the jews gave to gentiles you remember the woman of syrophoenicia

the dogs which eat the crumbs which fall from the table and the jews call them dogs

and if we read the record correctly as the hebraics tell us when caleb's speeches are recorded he's evidently a pretty rough diamond the hebrew is inarticulate and broken and colloquial in its language

so caleb you know he's a pretty rough old guy but he was or caleb and he came from among the gentiles but he had a towering faith brothers and sisters and he believed in god as a matter of fact the indication that he was a gentile was that god said to him in commending him through joshua that he'd wholly followed the lord god of israel now that would have been a superfluous comment to a jew but to a gentile that would be full of meaning he had wholly followed the lord god of israel you know what he did

he said to joshua you see he was 85 years old

he'd been 40 years in the wilderness and now they've come to the end of the journey and they've got to go into the land

and he goes in as one of the spies

and he went in one of the spies and he of course he came back and had to wander another 40 years

and so you see he was now 85 years old he was 45 years when he went into that land and what did he do

he remembered the words of moses in the 11th chapter of deuteronomy moses had said this he said all the land upon which your feet have trodden will be yours listen to that all the land upon which your feet have trodden so caleb heard that

and he went into the land and he was going to go to a certain place and he was determined to go there guess where he went he went to hebron and there were four giants there four giants

and he'd seen them as a spy

and he'd gone there and seen that brothers and sisters and now came the time the division of the land and he said to joshua i want hebron

and he says because you know joshua he said moses told you all the land upon which your feet had trodden he said you'll find my footprints in hebron

nobody else would go to hebron there were too many giants but he went there

and he put his footprints in the steps of that faith of our father abraham in hebron which is abraham city

isn't that incredible

and he reminded joshua that and when time came brothers and sisters for the inheritance of human he got hebron for an inheritance and you see what happened a gentile

came into fellowship

with god

through the faith of abraham because he walked in the steps of that faith of his father abraham he did that literally

now isn't that an incredible story but it doesn't end there

when the time came brothers and sisters for that land to be settled

joshua was to distribute to the levites up and down the land both sides of jordan 48 cities so he put a study leader within proximity of everybody everyone had a study leader in a levite set in proximity to them throughout the land

and of those 48 cities he chose three of them east of jordan and three west of jordan for cities of refuge

and the levites inherited those 48

cities

guess who got hebron for their inheritance among the levites

none less than aaron's own family think about that

you would have thought wouldn't you that aaron's family being the family of the high priest would have got jerusalem they got hebron

and you look now from the scene as god would see it and there in hebron when when they gave the sons of aaron hebron you know what they did they said yes the city of hebron is yours but the suburbs of that city reaching out for a thousand cubits around that city shall be caleb's

so he never lost the city he kept the country around about hebron and then you got a marvelous picture

of a gentile dog

who went and put his footprints in the steps of that faith of our father abraham came back and reminded joshua that moses had said that wherever your feet have trodden i can have it joshua you'll find my footprints in that city and he finished up in fellowship on the basis of the promises made of the fathers and he was living with the high priest of israel

now isn't that absolutely remarkable and here we all are brothers and sisters gentiles dogs according to the jews but walking in the steps of that faith of our father abraham and where are we today

where we're in the suburbs

we're waiting to enter to that city

but we know we dwell in the presence of the great high priest of our profession and that's the mystery of the gospel that the gentiles should be fellow heirs

having the same hopes as the apostles through those great and wonderful promises which god made unto the fathers

until abraham removed his tent

he came and dwelt in the plane of memory which means vigorous

there was a vigor about the truth here he came and dwelt in the plane of the vigorous which is hebron which means fellowship and there he built an altar under the lord

and so brothers and sisters he'd built an altar at shechem

where the principle of separation was set forth he came back from egypt to build an altar at bethel where the principle of dedication was set forth and now he comes to hebron to build an altar upon which fellowship is based

you

Transcript

the theme for brothers martin's classes this week

is abraham

father of the faithful today's class is entitled the righteousness of faith genesis chapter 15.

brother martin

well good morning brother and sisters

it's raining

and i rang home yesterday and it's freezing in adelaide so i'm very pleased to be here even though it's raining

now look we're going to deal with genesis chapter 15 today which means we've jumped chapter 14 that won't matter

but brothers and sisters have a look how genesis 15 opens it says after these things after what things

well it's after the great defeat by abraham of the confederated armies of the north

who came down and sacked sodom and gomorrah and took lot his nephew into captivity

and abraham and his 318 trained servants in his house had defeated that northern army and delivered the captives that were taken from sodom including lot and they sent them back to sodom and the king of sodom had come to him

to offer him a gift

and abraham would have nothing to do with him

as a matter of fact chapter 14 brethren sisters if you read that he turns his back on the king of sodom in the middle of a conversation right in the middle of a conversation because melchizedek came to meet him and he turned around and addressed melchizedek and totally ignored the king of sodom abraham and had no affinity whatever with that wicked king

and when the king of sodom offered him a gift

because what he had done for them abraham said i wouldn't take a bootlace from you

and rejected that reward that was off to him

and it was after those things that god said to abraham abraham i am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward

and god was very pleased brother and sisters uh with that response of abraham firstly to acknowledge melchizedek as being greater than he and secondly to spurn that wicked king of sodom and when he did that of course abraham would incur the wrath of that king

and could worry very well have been in danger but god said to him abraham don't worry about that i'm your shield and i'm your exceeding great reward don't take rewards from him

and brothers and sisters when we adopt that attitude then god will be similar to us never mind about the rewards of this world

never write about the windows of opportunity which take us away from the truth and bury us in business activities or whatever spurn that brothers and sisters

spurn it and take a simple life take the simple choices believe me and look god will reward you there's no question of that we've proven that over the years make the right decision never mind about ambition turn your back on that and believe in god and god will say to you i am your reward and he will be brothers and sisters there's no question of that whatever

now god responded to abraham in a vision

as we read here

and he says fear not abraham i am thy shield i'll protect you abraham and don't worry about the rewards of sodom i am your reward now just keep your hand in genesis and have a look at psalm 47 brothers and sisters

which is a commentary upon that incident upon that very incident

and in psalm 47

we read from verses 7 to 9.

for god is the king of all the earth

sing ye praises with understanding

god reigneth over the heathen

god sitteth upon the throne of his holiness

the princes of the people are gathered together even the people of the god of abraham for he is the shields of the earth which belong unto god he is greatly exalted and here is the people of the god of abraham and he will be a shield of them in the earth when we exalt him that term is a commentary upon that incident in abraham's life brothers and sisters

now you know paul said

that without faith

it is impossible to please god

for he that cometh to god must first believe that he is

and secondly

that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him

abraham i will be the exceeding great reward

abraham had believed that god is

and now brothers and sisters he's going to be brought to that point of his life when he's got to believe in the reward now people say oh look we shouldn't believe it like that we shouldn't think about what we're going to get out of the truth that's not what paul says

you know people who believe that god will reward them must believe that he is you can't have a reward from somebody it's not there

and therefore the greater we desire the reward of the kingdom brothers and sisters is the intensity that we believe in god

now abraham had believed in god

and now he's offered this great reward and you know what

immediately abraham reacted to that because there's one thing he desperately wanted

he was longing for it with all his heart and soul and he poured out his soul to god and as soon as god mentioned reward one thing only came into his mind

it wasn't riches brothers and sisters it wasn't self aggrandizement

it was nothing like that it was an ambition where is this boy

where's this child that's the thing that dominate him and verse two abraham said lord god what will you give me what will you give me he says for he's seeing i go childless and the steward of my house is this eliezer of damascus and the hebrew expression here i go childless is really i'm going to the grave childless god please please he said if you're offering me a reward this is all i want brothers and sisters can you imagine god's reaction to that request

because god had promised him that seed

and the promise of reward evoked from abraham the very thing that god had promised him

and the father in the heavens would have been thrilled with that to think that abraham longed for what god had promised and that's all he wanted and he wanted it so badly he said what about this eliezer of damascus the steward of my house

and the word steward is ben meshech it means you know one born or son of my possession he's really my son god i know he's only a servant but he's like a child to me he's like a son can't we do it through him and you see abraham had seen that he was growing older and sarah was growing older and they hadn't had any children surely god can't we do it through him he said and eliezer brothers and sisters was a very faithful man

as a matter of fact eliezer was a man of prayer

he would have been the servant that was sent of course to get a wife for isaac and when you look at genesis 24 and you read what he did he went all every step of the way he prayed to god he was a very faithful servant

his name means ale is my help

god is my help but the true seed brothers and sisters was to be emmanuel ale god with us

and it was going to be far greater than abraham could ever have imagined

and abraham wanted one born

in his house

because he said look he's been born in my house can't he be the one

but paul says in hebrews chapter 3 of brethren and sisters that christ is a son over his house

and built the house

it wasn't only one that was going to be born in the house the lord jesus christ was to be the son over the house and the very builder of it says paul in hebrews chapter 3 and again the promise went way beyond abraham's anticipations as god's promises always do

and then god said to him verse 4

and behold the word of the lord came unto him saying this shall not be thine air abraham but he that shall come forth of thine own vows shall be thine here it couldn't have been more expressive brother and sisters could it out of his own bowels he's got to believe

and then god invited him abroad to tell the stars he says come and tell the stars abraham and the word tell means to count them

and you know what god was telling him you see he was concentrating he said abraham it's your body that i'm talking about your own body abraham there's where the sun is it's going to come forth of your bowels now abraham look here and he looked up there and what god was saying brothers and sisters that though that boy would have human origins

there was a divine destiny for that scene

a divine destiny now you turn to romans chapter nine keeping of course genesis 15 always ready if you look at romans 9

says

so though he would come of abraham he would also the seed would also have god for their father now there's interchangeable terms here brothers and sisters count the stars well look look at romans chapter 9 says

and in romans chapter 9

we read in verses 7 and 8

neither because they are the seed of abraham are they all children

but in isaac shall i seed be called

that is and they which are the children of the flesh these are not the children of god but the children of the promise are counted for the seed count the stars

counted for the seed and so the seed was to have a human father yes but they were ultimately to have a divine destiny

and the child that was coming brothers and sisters would not only be the son of abraham he'd be the son of god now look at the interchangeable terms here in verse 7 look what it says neither because they are the seed of abraham are they all children

now verse 8

that is they which are the children of the flesh these are not the children of god

so verse 7 talks about the children of abraham

and verse 8 talks about the children of god same people

and that's what galatians 3 said

ye are all the children of god by faith in christ jesus

and if you're christ's

then you're abraham's children same thing

and the terms are interchangeable so we're the children of god and we're abraham's children exactly the same thing and we're going to see brothers and sisters in genesis 17 where god was to make abraham a father like himself and that's a remarkable chapter when we come to that and we'll see how that the fatherhood of abraham became as it were entangled with the fatherhood of god and together

father of the of the heavens and our father the faithful working together to produce that seed brothers and sisters whose faith would be characteristic of that of abraham it's wonderful how this is done

and so abraham is told to come forth

and to gaze upon that starry sky

you know it's a poignant scene brothers and sisters

the apostle says in romans chapter four we won't turn to this he said he diligently considered his own body now dead and he considered the deadness of sarah's womb paul says that he says abraham diligently considered it he thought deep about it

and that old man came out there brothers and sisters on that starry night and you can imagine with with none of the city lights that we have to dim the heavens

and the bolt of the heavens that night the velvet blackness of that and the sparkling stars millions of them up there and he came abroad this old man he looked up there

and he gave diligent consideration his body

and although he of course was to have children later

he then considered

the deadness of sarah's womb

and she never could have children

beyond the time of life

and he gave that deep and diligent consideration said the apostle and believed god

and god counted that to him for righteousness it says here in this chapter in verse 6 he believed in the lord and he counted it to him for righteousness

now i'm going to make a statement in it now brothers and sisters i want you to listen carefully

because i believe that when you see it this way it makes all the difference this verse

and this is the statement

it's not so important

to know

that abraham believed

what is important is to know

what

he believed

now look at the importance of this

so it's not the emphasis on the fact that he believed

but it's what he believed

now that's where the emphasis is and so we find in romans 4 galatians 3 james chapter 2 this verse is quoted as a monument of faith

absolute monument of faith

and this man rose above the flesh to believe this

and god said that's righteousness now what's righteousness

well what did he believe

he believed a human

impossibility

and god counted his belief

in a human impossibility as righteousness see the point and so when paul expounds this in romans chapter four in particular

he sets forth the righteousness of faith and the righteousness of faith brothers and sisters is a belief in something that we can't do

so it's important to know the character of what he believed now in order to illustrate this listen to the apostle listen to him paul says now look

it was not imputed unto him only he says

but it shall be this was not written for his sake alone he says that it was imputed unto him

but unto us to whom it shall be imputed if we believe what

that god raised jesus our lord from the dead can you raise the dead

i can't

and we've got to have a belief brothers and sisters in what is absolutely impossible with us

so it was not written for his sake alone says pauline in romans 4 verse 22 it wasn't written but unto us unto whom it shall be computed if we believe this that god could raise a dead body

now it's all very well to say that our doctrines the statement of faith says we believe in the resurrection of the dead

it's a fundamental of our faith and the bible is full of it so we can prove it

but as you grow older brothers and sisters

and the aches and pains come

and the memory fades

and solomon paints his picture in ecclesiastes 12 of the golden bowl that is broken of the silver thread and the chain that fails the grinders

are grinding low

the lights are going out

we got to believe

really believe

that god can actually raise a dead body there's no way in the world we can do that and when we believe that brothers and sisters god counts that

unto us for righteousness something we can't do ourselves that's the incredible faith of abraham

now i want to show you romans chapter 9 again

and i want you to turn up romans chapter 9 and i want you to turn up with the other hand isaiah 51

and paul builds upon this wonderful doctrine of the righteousness of faith

9

rather romans 9 and isaiah 51.

come to romans 9 first

so paul has this to say and here's the case brothers and sisters where paul doesn't quote the bible here's a case where paul actually paraphrases it

it's a simple paraphrase

so in isaiah 9 and verse 30 he said what shall we say then

that the gentiles which followed not after righteousness have attained to righteousness even the righteousness which is of faith

but israel which followed after the law of righteousness have not attained to the law of righteousness why

it's an incredible thing the gentiles were not following after it and they found it

and here's the jew

following diligently the law of righteousness and he can't find it paul says why

one's not looking for it and found it the other one's looking diligently for it and can't find it why

because the jew was looking in the wrong direction

he was following after the law of righteousness but the gentile found the righteousness of faith see verse 32 why because they sought it not by faith but as it were by the works of the law now brothers and sisters that's isaiah 51

keep your hand in romans we'll come back here in a minute look what isaiah 51

says

verse 1

hearken to me

ye that follow after righteousness so there it is ye that seek the lord well how are we going to find it look under the rock from whence you're hewn and the whole of the pit from whence you dig look unto abraham now look at that brothers and sisters so the jew was looking in the wrong direction he was looking in the law

and the righteousness of god was only prefigured and typified in the law it wasn't there in reality it was in faith in abraham's life and if we were to take that literally if we were to take isaiah's advice literally and say you're looking for righteousness following alfred look under abram say we took that literally we got a concordance out we think all right righteousness isn't abraham's life we'll find it there so we turn up the record from genesis 11

right through to chapter 26 to 27 of abraham's life

and lo and behold

we find the word righteousness once

so we don't look very far

in genesis 15

he counted him for righteousness

oh

and now we've found out that righteousness is something we can't do

and the jew thought it was something he could do

and that's why the gentile when the offer was made to them recognized it they recognized their lowly position they were dragged from the gutters of humanity and they accepted god's offer of righteousness the jew was searching through the law is what he could do to work his way to god and so paul says they being ignorant of god's righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of god and isaiah 51 and verse 4 says listen israel hearken unto me my people give me unto you oh my nation for a law shall proceed from me look look at the direction it's going it wasn't the jew working his way to god it says god says it's coming this way it's me working towards you

and then he says in verse 5 my righteousness is near

my salvation has gone forth

and they were not submitting to it but being ignorant of god's righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness they were going in the wrong direction

look under abraham he says and there we've seen that brothers and sisters a belief in the humanly impossible

now come back to genesis 15.

wonderful chapter of scripture this is they're all wonderful in the life of abraham there are monumental principles here taken up in the new testament by the apostle

but now you see

in verses 7 and 8

and god said unto him i am the lord that brought thee out of earth the caldees to give thee this land to inherit it but abraham's got a problem

and he said lord god whereby shall i know that i shall inherit it now brothers and sisters let's get this in context there's no way in the world that verse 8 is a doubt

because verse 6 just says was a monumental peak of abraham's faith here so he's not now doubting it

the apostle would never have quoted that paul twice and james once had this verse 8 been a doubt

abraham's problem is

i'm model

you tell me that i'm going to inherit this land forever i believe what you've said about the seed i know that you will do it i can't do it but i believe you will do it but god how are you going to deal with me on dustin ashes how am i going to have this mortal body changed what's going to happen that was his question

i'll show you that in a minute

and god said to him

take a sacrifice

and now abraham has shown how it's all going to be done and he took a hepa of three years old a she-go a ram and a turtle dove and a young pigeon

and you know brothers and sisters the law of moses sprang out of the record of genesis and extrapolated these principles in in the legislation of the law much of the law is rooted in the life of the patriarchs

and we look at those animals hey what was the point being made and when you go through all the offerings the sin offering the birthing the peace offering the trespass offering and you run down through all the long schedules that were given what do you find you find that those animals mentioned are scattered through all those offerings they're scattered through the whole lot of them but when you sort them out there's one thing they got in common here it is

the heifer the red heifer was for the removal of mortality that's abraham's problem

the she-goat was it was a sin offering for a commoner

the ram was used for the trespass offering

and the turtledoves and pigeons for the sin offerings for the poor the only thing they all had in common scattered throughout that law was to do with sin

and that's abraham's problem

and forgiveness of sins is the essential element of the abrahamic covenant

but this is the covenant said jeremiah that i will make with him in those days set the lord not like the covenant i made with them in the land of egypt though i was a father unto them but this is the covenant that i will make in those days i will put my law in their hearts and in their minds and their sins and iniquities i will remember no more

and so the new covenant brothers and sisters was guaranteed by the forgiveness of sins and that's the barrier that abraham was worried about sin brought death how could god handle that god says i've got it under control and so peter says in speaking to the jewish people he says you are the children of the covenant which god made with abraham he's sending his son first unto you

to bless you

in turning every one of you away from your iniquities acts chapter 3 of verses 25

and 26 and so peter saw the quintessence of the promises as being not just simply forgiveness did you notice

but such forgiveness

that we would turn away from our iniquities there would be a moral imperative force in those promises with the grace of god that was given unto us now just to illustrate my point

about how the law

extrapolated these principles the first animal abraham was told to take was a hepa

and here is the foundation of that sacrifice of the red heifer of which we spoke about last night the only one that can remove mortality

the only one that was made outside the law entirely and the only one that could be used more than once a unique offering and that's the first animal mentioned now was that is that linked through the law with abraham

i want to invite your close attention to paul's exposition of this in hebrews 9.

just have a look at this

and brethren sisters

remember what we said last night about bible echoes

now the echo of the bible is heard well you're going to hear three of them loud and clear

abraham's problem was mortality god how are you going to handle the problem of sin and mortality

and so the heifer is taken and here's the exposition of the red heifer

verse 13.

or if the blood of bulls and the goats and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctifier to the purifying of the flesh how much more shall the blood of christ who through an eternal spirit offered himself without spot to god purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living god now listen to the next verse and listen to three glorious echoes

and for this cause he is the mediator of the new covenant

that by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first covenant and here they come

the day which are called

might receive the promise

of eternal inheritance that's all straight out of genesis 15

the day which are called might receive the promise

of eternal inheritance lord god whereby shall i know

and the surety of that brothers and sisters was the death of the lord jesus christ which not only was to forgive the sins of his contemporaries and those who would live after him it reached back it reached way back over the annals of history and it gathered up right back to abel it gathered up all the faithful

was looking forward to this great sacrifice and abraham rejoiced to see my day said the lord and saul was glad his faith developed right through the offering of isaac and he knew now what god was going to do

and so that by means of death for the redemption of those people who died under the first covenant which couldn't save them

they which are called

might receive the promise

of eternal inheritance three glorious echoes of abraham's life right in the context of the red heifer and mortality and that's abraham's problem isn't that magnificent and so how the law of moses picked that up and just developed that right through that way and paul just picking it up again brothers and sisters and joining the two of them together with those echoes to show that here is the solution to abraham's problem and your problem my problem

but the promise is sure to all the seed because jesus has come and has died for our sins that we might live again that's the whole question brothers and sisters

now we come back

to genesis 15.

and god is going to put abraham into a

symbolic time frame

and verse 10 of genesis 15 he took unto him all these and divided them in the midst and laid each piece one against another but the birds divide he did not so abraham divided the offerings brothers and sisters

and now the idea of that as we learned from jeremiah 34 verses 18 and 19 was that when men made a covenant they used to pass between the pieces

they would swear to one another that they would keep the terms of the covenant between them and they would cut up the animal and each party would walk between the pieces jeremiah 34 verses and 18 and 19

mentions that custom

abraham i do not believe ever pass through those pieces

what he did was to divide the animals up

and verse 11 says that as the fouls came down the vultures came down to feed upon the carcass he he shoot him away he kept him away all he could do was to preserve the offering he couldn't do anything about it else and then god put him in verse 12 into a horror of great darkness

a horror of great darkness

he fell into the article symbolically of death

that's why jesus said when god spake abraham when he was dead

he said god is not the god of the dead

but of the living

because he said i am not i was i am the god of abraham the god of isaac and the god of jacob and when he said that in exodus abraham and i said jacob were dead he didn't say i was he said i am

he's not the god of the dead of the living and here he's talking to a symbolic dead man

counting that he was alive brothers and sisters which he really was but in symbolically he's dead and god speaking to him and in that horror of great darkness the king of terrors has come upon him and yet god is telling him that abraham when you sleep in the dust of the earth

this is the history of your seed martha isn't it the way this is done

and he said to abram know over surely that thy seed should be a stranger in the land that is not theirs and shall serve them and they shall afflict them 400 years this is their stay in egypt and also that nation whom they shall serve will i judge and afterward

shall they come out with great substance

and thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace thou shalt be buried in a good old age

but in the fourth generation they shall come hither again

or

the iniquity of the amorites is not yet full

isn't that incredible

need you to note something

here's a man of whom it had just been said

that god counted his faith for righteousness

but when the man falls into a deep sleep brothers and sisters in the horror great darkness and god speaks the history of his seed the climatic point

which is going to come when that seed being developed in egypt would come into the land to which it was promised to abraham

the climatic point

was not their righteousness but the iniquity of the amorites note that

so there's no claim brothers and sisters upon the rewards of god

not even to a man of whom it had been said encountered him for righteousness

the climatic point came in the sins of other people and when they had reached their fullness of their iniquity then abraham's seed took the land now is that the right interpretation of that is that how you should read that have a look at the ninth chapter of deuteronomy brothers and sisters just have a look what moses said

and notice the emphasis that moses puts on this

the ninth chapter of deuteronomy verse 3

understand therefore this day

that the lord thy god is he which goeth over before thee as a consuming fire he shall destroy them and he shall bring them down before thy face so thou shalt drive them out and destroy them quickly as the lord has said unto thee speak not thou in thine heart after the lord thy god hath cast them out from before thee saying for my righteousness the lord hath brought me in to possess this land

but for the wickedness of these nations the lord doth drive them out for before them

not for thy righteousness or for the uprightness of thine heart thus though go to possess their land but for the wickedness of these nations the lord thy god doth drive them out from before thee and that he may perform perform the word

which the lord swear unto thy father abraham isaac and jacob the iniquity of the amorites is not yet for

brothers and sisters the lord jesus christ is coming back to the earth

he is not coming back for the specific purpose to save us

he's not coming back for that specific purpose

he's coming back to judge the world in righteousness

and the climatic point that's going to bring him into the earth

is the same climatic point that sent him to the cross

and when he went to the cross to save the world

he wasn't waiting for men to be righteous

he told them he told israel fill up the measure of your fathers

and isaiah rather daniel had prophesied in chapter eight that when the fourth beast would come and destroy the jewish people and destroy the temple and and magnify himself against the prince of the host daniel said it's when the transgressors are come to the full

and the lord is coming back because the days of lot are fulfilling and the days of nara fulfilling and he's coming back brothers and sisters to judge this world and he's not coming back to specifically save us because we're righteous

now that is a clear message and even when abraham was given the specific promise that sarah would have that child the angels came down not for that p purpose they came down for the purpose of seeing that the wickedness of sodom was so great and they passed by abraham and almost as an afterthought they turned around and said god said i better tell abraham what i'm going to do

doesn't that put us in our place

and moses reminded them of that don't ever forget he said

but the climatic point has nothing to do with your righteousness god doesn't wait for people to become righteous he'd wait forever

but he doesn't have to wait too long

or iniquity to reach its climatic point

and that's what abraham was told in a horror of great darkness when god encountered it to him for righteousness but it was something that he couldn't do

it was the grace of god brothers and sisters

peter says the righteous shall scarcely be saved

and we will see in that day that the the real issue is the glory of god that will flood this earth the manifestation of his power among men that they might stand in all of him

and we brothers and sisters will scarcely be saved and we need to understand that

and so abraham then he saw the sun go down coming back to genesis 15

and it says and it came to pass in verse 17 that when the sun went down and it was dark

so the time came for the for the for the covenant to be made a covenant by sacrifice and when judas went out brothers and sisters to betray our lord john says and it was night

and at the darkest hour and it was night he went out

to betray his lord to death

well it came to pass when the sun went down and it was dark

behold a smoking furnace and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces so abraham in this in the symbolic death can do nothing about it he's inert

he's he's all but dead and he's watching this and he sees this lamp this flickering lamp goes through the pieces

and that's the lord jesus christ

and in the lord jesus christ god was in christ reconciling the world unto himself and god passed through the pieces in the person of his son

and because abraham looked forward and rejoiced to see christ die abraham was involved in the coming of messiah and he was it were as it were by faith immersed into him and abraham was represented there as well and the two parties in the one man pass between those pieces now look at hebrews chapter six

look at paul's exposition of this

wonderful exposition of it

verse 13

for when god made promise to abraham because he could swear by no greater he swore by himself saying surely blessing i will bless thee and multiplying i will multiply thee and so after he had patiently endured he obtained the promise

for men verily swear by the greater and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife wherein god willing more abundantly to the show under the heirs of the promised the immutability of his counsel confirmed it by an oath now in my bible the word confirmed has got a little number alongside of it and it tells me that the greek

really means

put himself between by an oath interposed put himself between buy a note now work it out

there's the pieces of the offering

and here's your burning lamp going between and god is putting himself in between now where's the oath whereby he put himself in between

the lord has sworn

and will not repent

thou art a priest forever after the order of melchizedek and god swore the priesthood in with the oath and the priesthood is that which goes between

and so he put himself between with that oath and god never swears an oath on any other occasion except when it's got to do with eternal matters you will never find an oath of god in relation to anything temple it doesn't exist

and when he says the lord has sworn

he interposed himself and there was the certainty of the coming of the son of god as the great high priest of our profession after the order of melchizedek and he walked between god and men

and god was in him

and we relate to him brothers and sisters

and we'll come out of the horror of great darkness

and we'll inherit the kingdom not for our righteousness or for any good deeds that we may have done

but we will be most thankful that we won't be swallowed up in the holocaust which will obliterate the wicked from the earth and by the grace and mercy of god we will stand before him saved by god's grace because righteousness had been counted unto us because we didn't believe we could do it ourselves that's abraham's faith

that's the quality of it brothers and sisters and that's the humility of it and we need never to forget that

now i've just got enough time to deal with the last few verses of hebrews chapter brother of genesis 15.

and here in genesis 15 it says in the same day verse 18 the lord made a covenant with abram saying under thy seed have i given this land from the river of egypt under the great river euphrates now brothers and sisters paul says in romans 4 that abraham was promised the world how did he know that

well we deduce it we say well if the land is going to be given to abraham that's the center of the kingdom and so because of the center of the kingdom which will then radiate out from the confines of the world in that sense god promised him the world but he promised him the world

from the river of egypt to the great river euphrates was the then known world now all you've got to do don't turn this up but you look at isaiah chapter 19.

he speaks of from syria to egypt and israel in the middle with the then known world

that was all they knew

and it's twice in isaiah's prophecy i think it's 23 the other one but certainly in chapter 19 he talks about assyria he talks about egypt and israel being a third three-thirds of the world

and abraham was promised the world now when you look down through those nations

there are 10 of them

and 10 is the aggregate number

laban changed jacob's wages 10 times in the siege of jerusalem leviticus 26

says 10 women shall bake bread in one oven

daniel's wisdom was ten times better than magicians

but there were ten virgins in the parable and in zechariah 10 men out of all the languages of the nation shall take out of a skirt of him that is a jew that's the world

10 is the aggregate number

the first nation mentioned

are the descendants of jethro the father-in-law of moses whose son went with moses and became an integral part of the commonwealth of israel

hobart his son and continued with israel right until the captivity in babylon and when nebuchadnezzar was hammering upon the walls of jerusalem when israel were deep in iniquity and jeremiah was told to run through the streets and find me one righteous man there was only one family holding the truth and it was the family of jethro

and this little group of gentiles who had been adopted into the house of of israel were standing firm and fast and jeremiah paraded them before israel and said look at these

and that's the first nation mentioned here

and the second nation mentioned is where caleb came from

the dog they're the first two nations mentioned here

the kenneth the the the kenites and the kennezites the kenites came from death row and hobarb and kent the kenneth was where caleb came from they're the first two that's mentioned

and the last one

is the jebusites

and they were the people occupied jerusalem

and their name means

trodden down

and jesus said jerusalem shall be

trodden down

until the times of the gentiles be fulfilled

and so abraham was promised the world

and the day is coming when jerusalem shall no longer be trodden down

Transcript

brother martin's classes this week have been on the subject abraham father of the faithful

today's class is entitled a father of many nations

good morning my dear brothers and sisters and our lord jesus christ

right brothers and sisters now the life of abraham takes a very interesting turn indeed believe me because what we're going to see brothers and sisters is the spotlight is going now to fall upon sarah

and the seed of the woman is about to come into the world and this wonderful promise of the seed is about to be fulfilled in a remarkable fashion and abraham now is educated to that end now brothers and sisters the scene had been set for this drama

because of the disaster of the experiment with hagar we haven't we're not going to consider that in chapter 16

but we know what happened that there was an experiment whereby sarah felt that through her handmaid and hagar they could have this seed but it's the apostle paul who says in hebrews 11

by faith sarah herself

and there's the word sarah herself conceived see and it had she had to come to realize that that seed was to come through her and so this morning we're going to concentrate on genesis 17

in this dialogue between the father and the heavens and he's going to make a father on the earth and this is a wonderful chapter of scripture

now genesis 17 opens up with the fact that abraham was 99 years of age it now once but one year brothers and sisters before this faith before his faith is going to see that child in the world

and the apostle paul commenting upon this chapter says that he staggered not in unbelief he believed that god would produce that seed

thirteen years had passed since the birth of ishmael

thirteen years had gone and ishmael was in the world

abounding young lad in the earth and the great lesson had been learned that that's not the child of the promise the essence of the promise that was given to abraham was god said i will come and sarah will have a sea

now it's interesting as we read this chapter

that the lord appears to abraham and the lord there of course in capitals is the divine name of yahweh but he doesn't reveal himself at this time to abraham as yahweh you see that's what moses said in exodus 6

by my name yahweh was i not known to abraham now brothers and sisters he was known to abraham as yahweh this record here proves that but the point being made is this

it's not that name at this time that that god is going to reveal himself to abraham because he's not working through that name the name he's working through is the is the next or not so much the name but the title is the next one

almighty god

now that's very interesting you see because the hebrew there is ale shaddai

ale

is of course signifying the uncreate

the mighty power of the universe the enormous power of god now should i brothers and sisters and this is intensely interesting and we won't be able to turn all these references up but i want you to listen carefully

today i we've been told in the concordance means either nourisher

or

destroyer

now how could it mean those two things which seem so opposite well the fact of the matter is it comes from a word shad which means to bulge like a muscle you see to bulge like a muscle and so he's a powerful destroyer

but the same term brothers and sisters is used

of the woman's breast

and it's that term that is applicable to this situation because what's about to happen is that god is revealing himself to abraham as a father about to have an infant family now you watch this and as i say we won't turn these references up but that word is used through the patriarchs with that sense

and so when god was to give these promises to the fathers in the context where he says i will multiply your seed

he did so through ale judai

and that word shidayai is rendered over 20

times

in relation to the breast of the nursing mother

and when jacob for example was implored by his other sons to finally send benjamin down into into egypt where joseph was and he didn't want that to happen because he was absolutely petrified that he would lose his baby boy

he appealed to i'll should i be with you because it was his little baby you see

and the title was used in that sense that god was going to have an infant family it's going to start here

and so it wasn't the divine name which applies to the grown-up nation when they came out of egypt when his son had come to maturity here he is this ale should i working with the patriarchs to develop that name now it's used in genesis 49.

see let's have a look at this one in genesis 49 look at the way it's used here

the title of bail should i referring of course to the young family being developed nursed by its mother

but this not so much its mother now but by his father in the heavens who acting like a nursing mother towards this family and so we read in genesis 49 and verse 25

even by the ale of thy father who shall help thee

and by the should die i who shall bless thee with blessings of heaven above blessings of the deep that life under blessings of the breasts and of the womb see the way that title is used and so the young family is about to come through abraham and the seed is about to be developed and the child is about to be born and nursed into the world and you know brothers and sisters that's even carried over into the new testament

when the apostle was appealing to the corinthians to come out of the world

he says come ye out and touch not the unclean thing and i will receive you says god and you shall be my children you shall be my son and daughters seth

the lord almighty

and there it is in the new testament in exactly that context as god was developing these infants in corinth who couldn't partake of the milk of the word said the apostle rather than meat but they were in need of the milk of the word and he called them out and you shall be my sons and daughters set the lord almighty

so even that title in that sense is carried over into the new testament that's fascinating

now as this chapter in of chapter 17

develops we see how god is going to make abraham a father like himself

and so he's told to walk before god and to be perfect

and in verse 2 he says i will make my covenant between me and thee

now the covenant had already been made in chapter 15 but here the word means to give i'm going to give you this covenant and there are three words used of that covenant god made it

gave it and then later on he's going to talk about making it rise

so he gave it he's making it and he's going to make it rise with abraham he's going to develop that covenant through the birth of this seed

now brothers and sisters here's a wonderful thing you know

keep your hand in genesis 17 and let's come to romans chapter four and then we'll come back to genesis 17 and show you what the apostle is he is saying

now abraham is about to be made a father

but no ordinary father

and so in romans chapter 4 we read this

verse 16

therefore says paul it is of faith that it might be by grace

to the end

that the promise might be sure to all the seed not to that only which is of the law but to that also which is of the faith of abraham who was the father of us all

you know jesus said call no man your father on the earth didn't he how come abraham's got that title

you see but paul says this

as it is written i that is god have made thee a father of many nations so god made him a father

an extraordinary father not a natural father a father of many nations a man could be a father of a multitude given enough time and enough wives but no man can be the father of many nationalities naturally that's got to happen spiritually and here's the point look at those little words here before him whom he believed

before him whom he believed now in my bible in the margin it's got

like unto him whom he believed

and so god was to make abraham a father like himself

now come back to genesis 17.

now just have a look at this

you read these words with me and let's pick them out five times this is said five

the number of grace and that's what paul says that it might be by grace

grace that the promise might be sure to all the seed that is if god's mercy is with us we can be sure of our inheritance because we can't be sure by law can we brothers and sisters if god made it by law we'd all fail but because it's by grace it's sure now just five times we've got this statement in genesis 17 that abraham's going to be made a father like god now listen verse 2 i will make my covenant between me and thee verse 4

as for me behold my covenant is with thee

verse 7 and i will establish my covenant between me and thee verse 10

this is my covenant which ye shall keep between me and you

and the end of verse 11

we shall be a token of the covenant between me and you look at that

you and me me and you like him whom he believed and so god took abraham

into a little intimate relationship where he shared with this man his divine fatherhood that's how abraham becomes the father of us all because the children that abraham produces are not natural children

just the same as god in heaven above is not procreating natural children but spiritual children and he's sharing this with abraham you know what he did he then changed his name and what did he do to change it he put the fifth letter

of the hebrew alphabet in his name

and it's the main consonant

of the yahweh

name and there's the beginning of god surnaming himself upon the patriarchs

the fifth letter of the hebrew alphabet is inserted in that name abram and now he's abraham

and he's the father of many nations

and he's got the main consonant now of god's own name between me and you you and me five times

like him whom he believed isn't that a wonderful comment of the apostle paul and so these children that are going to be developed from abraham are spiritual children now have a look at isaiah keep genesis 17. have a look at isaiah 29

and here

in isaiah 29

the prophet speaks of those children of the of the patriarchs

and how those children would be developed

now they were ashamed of their natural children

the patriarchs if they could have lived and seen the end result of their natural children would have been ashamed of them but here in general in isaiah 29 we read in verse 22

therefore thus saith the lord who redeemed abraham

concerning the house of jacob

jacob shall not now be ashamed

neither shall his face wax now wax pale

but when he seeth his children

the work of my hands

in the midst of him they shall sanctify my name and sanctify the holy one of jacob and shall fear the god of israel if abraham isaac and jacob are coming forth brothers and sisters to learn that over the centuries of time their natural seed disgraced their name they're going to be ashamed

absolutely ashamed of their natural seed but they're going to be presented to a vast multitude of whom they're going to be told that these people were developed in the earth by their example

following their example of faith and we walked in the steps of that faith of our father abraham and we are his children characteristically

and they will not be ashamed they will be proud of those children and they will say well how are these so different because god will say they're the work of my hand

and the fatherhood of god and the fatherhood of abraham here is joined together to develop that wonderful seed it's a marvelous story it really is

and so we're coming back to genesis 17

and we read brothers and sisters

in verse 5.

neither shall i name any more be called abraham but thy name shall be called abraham

or a father of many nations have i made thee

now you know something in the 32nd chapter of deuteronomy you have the word rock used about nine times of god

and it says there in verse 18 of the 32nd chapter of deuteronomy of the rock that begat thee thou art unmindful so a rock begets children

and in isaiah 51

the prophet says look unto the rock from wenchia hewn look under abraham

and here's god and here's abraham as rocks producing children now rocks can't have children there's no natural life in rocks

the brethren sisters in certain rocks

they're full of character

men split them and polish them

and they gleam with all the grains of the minerals the sediment that has been settled down into that hard brittle rock and it comes up beautiful no natural life but full of character

and both god and abraham are likened to rock like fathers god is able of these stones to raise up children unto abraham said john the baptist that's not natural children

that is spiritual children and so in verse 7

of this chapter chapter 17 god said i will establish my covenant

now in genesis 15 god said i will cut a covenant and he divided the pieces

and the burning lamp pass between those pieces but now here this word means to rise i will rise a covenant

and jesus both died and rose again brothers and sisters to establish that covenant between god and his people through the death and the resurrection of the lord jesus christ that was all done

and so there's going to be covenant that will rise

to finally confirm that everlasting covenant which we read in verse 7 and i will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after the in their generations for an everlasting covenant that's different than the law of moses

the covenant of the law was not everlasting

and you know something the term everlasting covenant

appears in the old testament just 14

times

twice seven

everlasting covenant seven seven

and in the new testament

it appears once

and it comes brothers and sisters

at the end of one of the most majestic expositions of the law you will ever read

at the end of the book of hebrews

now may the god of peace

be brought again from the dead our lord jesus by the blood of the everlasting covenant that's the only place that ever appears in the new testament so that which was everlasting in the old testament has now focused on the lord jesus christ

and the blood of that covenant brothers and sisters was precious blood

blood that had life in it not just natural life but spiritual life a life that was lived like no other life it was different

and it was precious blood

it was by that precious life god's not talking about fluid he's talking about that which it symbolizes and by that perfect life he raised that man to everlasting life to establish that covenant and that covenant was made to rise

and come to its fulfillment god had given it he'd cut it he'd made it and now it's rising brothers and sisters and here we have all those promises being brought forward here in this chapter

now god is going to give by abraham a token of this covenant

and that token in verse 10 is this

this is my covenant which ye shall keep between me and you and thy seed after thee every man-child among you shall be circumcised

and it's very obvious you know you can talk about circumcision all day it has many many facets to it its significance is is mini-faceted it really is it means a lot of things

and i just want to dwell now on a couple of those things because it's so pertinent to this record you see what was happening brothers and sisters god said abraham now look you and i you and me are going to share a fatherhood a spiritual fatherhood now abraham i'm not talking about natural procreation because i'm going to give you a token which tells you that's not the way it's going to be done

and we all know what circumcision is

and circumcision performed upon a 99

year old man when that was done in that immediate context he could not have been the father in a natural sense it would not have been possible so god was saying to him in effect not like that

and you know stephen picked that up beautifully in the seventh chapter of acts

when he mentions events 12 months apart and he rolls them together like this he said this and so

he gave him the covenant of circumcision

uh and isaac was born

and so he gave him the covenant of circumcision and isaac was born he's 12

months apart

now isaac was the child of abraham by nature he was the child of sarah it was not born of a virgin it was a normal birth but it was not a normal birth those two people were too old

and had not god come into that situation the boy would never have been born

certainly wasn't a virgin birth but it was the nearest thing to it in the old testament you'll ever get

and he began isaac because he began he gave him the covenant of circumcision so isaac was known then as his only begotten son when in literal fact he was not

as ishmael was well and truly 13 14

years of the world before isaac was born

and so that's the way the covenant was given now brothers and sisters circumcision then became extremely important

you see there are many things of which it is significant now i'm going to show you what happened under the law of moses

i won't go into a lot of detail about this but i want you to see this the importance of circumcision you see what happened was this

the law of childbirth

when a woman had a baby if it was a little baby girl she had to undergo two periods of uncleanness now the reason there was two periods was this that the first period that woman would be banned from the she would not be able to go into worship in the tabernacle nor could she mix socially with her own family for the first period of uncleanliness and during the second period she would be allowed to go back and mix in the domestic circle but she could not worship now that happened for both boy and girl

but you see the difference for the girl she was unclean for two

weeks

and then followed another period of 66

days making a total of 80.

for the boy she's unclean for seven days

and then another period of 33 days making a total of 40.

now it is normal in our literature and i have the greatest respect for our literature it is normal in our literature to say that that there shows that the girl was double the period of the boy i don't believe that

i believe

the truth of the matter is the boy

is half that of the girl

you say oh come on what's the difference it's enormous difference

you see when you go through the law minutely you'd find that that period is the normal period of uncleanliness

that's the normal one

but this boy is able to harbor

now look at the way it's put

you see the boy is unclean first of all for seven days one two three four five six seven but the girls unclean for two [Music] weeks

look how that's put

why because to the jew a week was a cycle of time

so she has two cycles of time and what the law is saying being a girl she would go on being unclear

she would go on being unclean it would never end why because she couldn't be circumcised

and so the next period of uncleanness is the number of men six six

but unto us a child is born

and unto us a son is given and he doesn't go around the circle it counts off one two three four five six seven and on the eighth day

he can do something the girl can't and the flesh is cut off

and brings to an end that cycle of uncleanliness that will take every man and woman to the grave where it not be for the man child

and he was 33 years of age

when paul says in galatians chapter 6

he was circumcised on that cross

and brought to an end

the curse of the law that flesh tried to keep lord would have an endless cycle of uncleanliness but circumcision brothers and sisters the cutting off of the body of the sins of the flesh enabled us all to be saved and we're all girls

because we're the bride of christ

we're all girls

because we're the bride of our husband and if we haven't got our husband to die for us we'd never be in god's kingdom now where did i get all that from is that my did i dream that up come to colossians chapter 2.

here it is here's paul's exposition of that wonderful principle

and in colossians chapter 2 we have to read this together it's just tremendous how he expounds this

and as as i read it brothers and sisters i want you to notice the words i emphasize here

listen very carefully to the emphasis i put on these words and see how circumcision applied verse 9 of colossians 2

or in him

dwelleth all the fullness of the godhead bodily and ye are complete in him which is the head of all principality and power

in whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh

by the circumcision of christ

buried with him in baptism we're in also ye arisen with him through the faith of the operation of god who has raised him from the dead

and you

being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh hath he quickened together with him

having forgiven you all trespasses

blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us which was contrary to us and took it out of the way nailing it to his cross see the point

and we as little girls as it were

unable to be circumcised in the uncircumcision of our flesh jesus didn't put off the cir the the the sins of the world in that little operation of a piece of skin he was circumcised in the body brothers and sisters the circumcision he says by the body of the sins of the flesh he was totally perfect and put them all off and stripped off of him everything that was unclean which we couldn't do but now we're with him in him with him and associated with him we can have the kingdom of god now that brings me to another point about circumcision it's a representative thing you see exodus 12 and verse 48 said this no

uncircumcised person

they'll eat the passover where did that put the sisters

nowhere unless they were represented by father brother uncle son husband or whatever

they're members of the family no uncircumcised person you take peter he calls noah the eighth

the word person in second peter is not there he said noah was the eighth how does he know he was the eighth well there were like people in the ark but how does he know he was the eighth because you read don't turn this off you read genesis 7 over and over and over again it says this and they all went in unto noah

and god saved noah and every living thing and they all went in unto noah

and nothing and noah survived and all that were with him and when the door closed when the door had the ark closed it says now listen the lord shut him in

he shut him in there's a whole creation in there

but he's the eighth because he was the representative man

that god had saved the world because of batman's faith and he worked through him and so peter says he was the eighth

and so we've got this man-child who has come along brothers and sisters and he has been the one through whom this promise has now been able to have its focus and its fulfillment it really is a remarkable thing

now we come back to genesis 17

sorry i'm at the rush this it's so beautiful i just love to be able to develop this further it's really beautiful

and so god says in verse 12

he said and he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you every man child in your generation he that is born in the house or bought with money of any stranger which is not a thy seed

he that is born in thy house and he that is bought with money must needs be circumcised and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant so you see we have to be born in abraham's family

and we are spiritually

and we have to be bought with money

and paul says we're bought with a price

but a stranger that was only just an itinerant could not be part of that brothers and sisters he if he could not be circumcised and a man that was on hot on wages a day laborer who was a hired laborer he couldn't participate in that they were just itinerants passing through with no intentions of becoming the true seed of abraham but we've been born into abraham's family by baptism we're related to him by character and the money that's been paid is the price of the blood of god's own son it's quite remarkable

but now comes sarah hey

in verse 15

and god said to abraham as the sarai thy wife thou shalt not call her name saraya but sarah shall her name be you know what god did he changed her name from meaning dominant or a head person

he changed her name to sarah which means princess or queen no he did it by putting the fifth letter of the hebrew alphabet in her name and they became heirs together of the grace of life

this is how it was all going to be done

now of course you see

now the focus is on sarah this is really impossible

and we're going to see that when we come back next time brothers and sisters when the angel comes to visit this is really impossible and now it calls for extraordinary faith never mind about any more expedience like hagar that's out of the way question look god look abraham says god it's going to be sarah i'm going to give a son from her she's going to have it here comes the seed of the woman

and it's a wonderful story brothers and sisters it's the seed of the woman you see genesis when it said the seed of the woman would come we we pick it up and we say oh yes c to the woman that means he would be born of our nature he would have all our disabilities he'd be tempted like as we are and that is absolutely true but that is not the primary teaching of genesis

it's true but it's not the primary teaching i'll prove it to you the primary teaching is he would not be the seed of man and the proof is self-evident because the seed of the woman is going to bruise the seed of the serpent on the head and if the seed of the woman is primarily teaching that he's in our nature then we've got the doctrine that flesh overcomes flesh and it doesn't

but you see a wonderful golden thread runs through the bible so genesis said seed of the woman he would not be the seed of man question is who then will be his father ii samuel chapter 7 god says i will be his father

the next obvious question is how can that happen and isaiah says a virgin will conceive oh

what we want to know now is when will that happen well paul says in the fullness of time god

sent forth his son

made of a woman there it is and the last question is

why do it that way or what the law could not do

in that it was weak through the flesh god sending his son in the sameness of sins flesh and because of sin condemned

sin

in the very flesh where it reigned in other

but there's the answer not an earthly father i will be his father how by a virgin when in the fullness of time why because flesh can't do it

sarah is going to have this child

god's going to come into the affairs of mankind and this child was to be born now look what happened verse 17

abraham fell on his face

and laughed and said in his heart

shallow shall be born unto him that is a hundred years old and shall sarah that is 90 years old bear now i know there's people here from australia that would respectfully just differ from even this but they're wrong

you know i do not believe and i have powerful reasons for believing this i do not believe that abraham laughed in incredulity

i believe he laughed in sheer joy in belief of what god had said

and here are my reasons brothers and sisters

first of all he was not condemned for doing it as was sarah

secondly

he laughed in his heart

and when we come to the time when sarah laughed

the hebrew says she laughed in her stomach

it was a mere emotion

of her stomach her feelings that abrahams was in the heart

secondly or thirdly paul quoted this chapter to say he staggered not in unbelief

quoting this chapter

that could never have been said if that has been a laugh of incredulity

and finally jesus said abraham rejoiced the sea my day and he saw it and was glad and this is the only occasion recorded of abraham laughing

and i believe that and not only that but when he did laugh he fell on his face and did it in an act of worship

and i believe brothers and sisters it was wonderful now you know what happened don't you

abraham absorbed this he concentrated upon sarah he considered the deadness of sarah's room womb and his heart bursts with joy and he fell on his face in an act of worship and said in his heart oh

ill will it be will it be and he knew it would be brothers and sisters and it was just like the apostle who says in galatians for all those related to abraham in his seed he said god has sent forth the spirit of his son in our hearts

and both jew and greek cry out ever

father

and standing alongside our jewish compatriot who is a true seed of abraham by faith we of the gentiles and the jew says abba and the greek says father together and they say it in the heart because they can see brothers and sisters the spirit of that son is in their hearts because they're going to be related to him in a huge family and they're going to be like unto god

what a wonderful concept and i believe that's what happened here with abraham when he fell on his face and did that and then verse 18 realizing the import of this realizing it it says

oh god that ishmael might live before thee

and what he was saying in effect was

look what about ishmael what about him and abraham could see now that ishmael was excluded as it were from the child of the promise and abraham would be concerned about that boy and god reassures him and god said sarah thy wife shall bear to your son indeed she will surely have a son so you see he's endorsing he said you're abraham you're right she will but don't worry about ishmael he says i've prepared for him

and god is not unmindful of abraham's paternal feelings

he's not going to wipe his mail out but because he is the seed of abraham who is god's friend god says i i'm going to make him a great nation abraham and he reassures abraham brothers and sisters of that fact that that this would happen

now of course

as we come to this end of this story

verse 20 he says but as for me ish i have heard thee and ishmael means heard of god

behold i have blessed him and make him fruitful and multiply him exceedingly

twelve princes shall he forget and i will make him a great nation but abraham

my covenant will i establish a rise with isaac my covenant i will will i make a rise with isaac

which sarah shall bear unto thee at this set time in the next year

now i want you to notice the last that this verse 22

we're going to finish off here this time brethren sisters

and he left off

talking with him

and god went up from abraham

now if i had time i could show you that that language is only used when god makes a very personal and private visit to people when it says in the record that god went up from him

that special language in the bible

it really means that it's not just an ordinary manifestation like you would see angels visit men but here is a personal intimate visit that god is talking about it's used for example at the end of jacob's life when when the angel talked with him and went up from him and hosea quoting that says he found him in bethel found him god had been with him before

but betrayal when he came back a chastened man from from laban's experience brothers and sisters there was a more intimate manifestation to jacob and he found him in bethel well that's what's happening here

but you see listen what's happening

and he left off talking with him

and elohim went up from abraham now he is a lesser manifestation

talking about the theory of the child being born just come to chapter 21 and see what happened when the child was born and we'll come back to this brothers and sisters but just let's have a look at this

just note the language

and yahweh oh now this is the greater manifestation and yahweh visited sarah

as he had said and yahweh did unto sarah as he had spoken

for sarah conceived and bear abraham a son in his old age at the set time of which

elohim had spoken to him look how that's put

so here's the man

to whom the lesser manifestation in the elohim the angels is talking about the theory of the thing

now we've got the woman

and here's the great manifestation here is the divine name yahweh visited her and did to that woman something of which elohim had been talking to him about it

what about that and here comes brothers and sisters the seed of the woman

god was in christ reconciling the world unto himself look at that focus just look how that's focusing now that bringing our attention to the wonderful thing that has been done that unto us a child is born and unto us a son is given you work that phrase out

some people say that's a hebraism you know where a thing is said in the same way twice it's not

listen unto us

a child

is born he's our child because mary is our us he's one of us he's our race

so unto us a child is born but brethren sisters unto us a son is given

might have been our child

he was not our son

and when the angels came to announce the birth of the seed of the woman they said unto you is born this day in the city of david a savior which is christ the lord he's god's son and god gave his only begotten son he may be our child he's not our son and so this wonderful promise was now about to be culminated with the birth of that child and as it was as i say the spotlight and the focus switches from abraham and sarah stands here in the full glare of that spotlight impossible by men

and god visited that woman he paid her a visit and did something to her

and the child came into the world oh yes a natural birth in the sense that it was a man and a woman involved but unnatural brothers and sisters in the sense that had god never visited that house that child would never have come into the world and so paul in romans 9

gathering all this together said this is the word of promise

i will return and sarah will have a sun

Transcript

in isaac shall thy seed be called genesis chapter 21

now brothers and sisters we want to start with genesis chapter 18 if you would

and here we're coming now to that point that i've been mentioning all along when sarah becomes the center of focus

and the seat of the woman is about to come into the world

and this remarkable child is to be born

now it's amazing brothers and sisters that this message which came from the angels to sarah direct came not because they had descended to the earth to give her that message as a matter of fact when you read the record the specific purpose they had was to go and destroy sodom and gomorrah that's very interesting they didn't come down for this purpose and it was almost an aside and mentioned in the record that they turned aside to speak under abraham because god said he's my friend and i will reveal to him what i'm going to do

and these angels came and they were to reveal themselves unto sarah and this message was to come that she was to be the mother of this seed as already abraham had been told and we pick up the record in chapter 18 and verse 9

and they said unto him that is unto abraham

where is sarah thy wife now notice the term

where is sarah thy wife here is her name and the enunciation of her status very clear he is the true wife of abraham that tried uh the the scheme with with hagar and it doesn't work this is how it's going to work and he said behold

in the tent

that's very interesting

did you know brothers and sisters when you look at verse 10

you'll find that when sarah heard this message of the angels to abraham it says at the end of verse 10 and sarah heard it in the tent door which was behind him now that's abraham's tent

but you see sarah had her own tent if you turn to genesis chapter 24 and verse 67 you learn that

in the last verse of genesis 24 we learn that fact that she had her own tent and it says there that concerning isaac that he brought her that is rebecca into his mother sarah's tent but now when the angel comes with this message to abraham of her personal involvement she's standing in abraham's tent and you say to yourself well what what's the what's the big deal about that

well if you turn to the first of peter chapter 3 brethren sisters here we have peter's commentary upon this incident and others in the life of abraham and sarah

and you know in this particular section

there are many things that peter mentions in relation to

married couples and how they should conduct themselves and and so forth the many of these things are taken from the life of abraham and sarah

and he speaks in this chapter three the first of peter chapter three and he talks in verse five about the wise thing and subjection to their own husbands

and he comes down to verse four and he says but let it be the hidden man of the heart and we're going to see that in a minute

when sarah says in her heart

my lord shall i have pleasure my lord also being old

and abraham was the hidden man of her heart as as the peter says as holy women also trusted in god adorned themselves being in subjection to their own husbands even as sarah obeyed abraham calling him lord in her heart didn't say it out loud the only one record of her ever calling him lord on this occasion not that she didn't call him lord all the time but it's only recorded once and she said it in herself she really meant it

despite the circumstances of life that he had put her through we mentioned that before

and then we go on in peter and he says this in verse seven

likewise ye husbands dwell with them

dwell with them according to knowledge

and so the husband is to live with his wife according to knowledge

and here she is this time standing in the door of his tent when this comes and what was the knowledge that he had to have

dwelling with them according to knowledge giving honor under the wife as the weaker vessel

and brothers and sisters in this matter of the birth of isaac she was clearly the weaker vessel because abraham later on still had children there's no way that that woman according to nature can have a child

and so here she is with abraham and he's got to dwell with her and give her honor why because yahweh honored her

he honored her by visiting that woman

and the power of the spirit of god operated upon her dead womb to produce that child she was honored by god dare her husband not honor her

and you know there's a great lesson in that for all the husbands in this place today there's a great lesson it's a lesson for me

we live with our wives and we give them honour

they may be the weaker vessel but brethren you know as well as i do that there are many occasions in our life

when that wife is so honored by god to influence us that we ought to acknowledge that

and we ought to acknowledge sometimes that in our uh prowess as we might imagine that we've got it and and our own strength and the fact that we are we are the head of the house and and so forth and all those divine rights which we think we have that we've got to honor that woman who is with us when we see that very often god works in her life with such power and force to inspire us that if he honors her then so are we and it's extremely interesting that when that honor was given to her she's standing in his tent not her own she was dwelling with him

and peter says

the honor was given because they were to be the heirs together of the grace of life

now all of this is based upon the life of abraham and sarah

both of them had the fifth letter of the hebrew alphabet put in their name by god

both of them

and they were to be the heirs together of the grace of life

and this child that was to come was to be the child of both of them and it was to be by god's grace brothers and sisters

and so the child that was born was to join them together and then peter finally says this that your prayers

be not hindered

now i don't know whether you've ever been through this experience but i have and i i think every married couple goes through this experience more or less

marriage doesn't always run smoothly

even the best of marriages don't run smoothly

and there come those little tips at times

when we may exchange

a few little sharp words

and a few tears are shared

and you know brothers and sisters i don't know how you feel about this but i know i just how i feel but on those occasions when it does happen and i'm i i have a very happy marriage i i must say and i'm thankful to god for that but it's not without its imperfections

and we run across each other at times and and we say cross things and i know this

that unless i make that up i'm very awkward in my prayers to god

aren't you

when you go down on your knees to pray to god and you you've had an altercation with your wife and it hasn't been cleared up and it's still in the air i find myself

very embarrassed and very awkward in my prayers i don't feel the same and because we have one flesh together in that sense that we're joined in christ jesus our lord it it's just you just don't feel right about that and you have to go and you have to say i'm very sorry about that you know i was really upset and i shouldn't have said what i did will you forgive me and then you go to god and you're all together different

now you know this happened to abraham in a remarkable fashion and i'm going to anticipate what's coming because i want to stay here with peter

and when he went through those experiences later on when he put sarah again into the arms of another man or he would have if god had not prevented it when that happened brothers and sisters and it all came out in right in the end you know what happened

abraham prayed to god

he prayed to god that that man's household that god would open the wombs of his wives and that abimelech himself might be given the power to procreate which god has stopped

and it wasn't until abraham prayed for him that that household was able to produce and that prayer became the inspiration for sarah to conceive

that your prayers be not hindered

and you could imagine how ineffectual that prayer of abraham had been if he had left that situation as it was with abimelech god would have closed his ears to that prayer

and it wasn't because abraham put it right

he didn't put it right god put it right

and when abraham acknowledged that in humility he was able then to really pray to god it didn't only open those wombs it was the inspiration for his wife

what a marvelous thing that is that in those very circumstances which were there all set up by god in the providence of god through the traumatic circumstances a man and a woman emerged from that problem so united in one that his prayer brought that child into the world

isn't that incredible and peter picks that up here that your prayers be not hindered that's the last thing that happened before the conception of isaac took place now i find that absolutely incredible

as peter just peels that off one incident after another in just a few words

to tell us of the great climax that was coming in abraham's life and so we come back to genesis 18.

i thought i'd anticipate that while we had peter open before us

and shows she's in abraham's tent

and the angel comes with a message of god

and we read in verse 9 and they said unto him where is sarah thy wife and he said behold in the ten and he said this is god talking through the angel i will certainly return unto thee i will come

and the message is clear

if god doesn't come there's going to be no child

and it doesn't matter that they're the man and wife and it doesn't matter they live together and cohabitate it doesn't matter that that happens if god does not come that boy will not be born and so in romans 9

and verse 9 paul says this is the word of promise this is it

i will return and sarah will have a son

it was god

deliberately dramatically entering into the affairs of that household and coming into the world that that boy might be born you know you can't miss can you brothers and sisters the the overtones here of the birth of the son of god

you can't miss it

god has visited his people said luke

the handmaiden of the lord had been chosen

that holy thing that shall be born of thee shall be called the son of god

god's son

and he visited that little maid of nazareth

and the virgin child came into the world this is a pre-thinking of all that and so here it is that god is going to come and he's going to come it says here according to the time of life

according to the time of life the hebrew has living time

living time rotherham picks it up and he says he's going to come in the quickening season

and would appear from that brothers and sisters that this child was conceived in the spring

new life is coming not only to the world not not only as the the sunshine of course brings forth uh the the herbage of the field but it's going to bring life to sarah's world with springtime in her life and yet she's a very old woman really in the winter of her existence

but god is going to come

at the springtime of her life

and you see it's she's going to have a child

and it says here brothers and sisters that sarah heard it in the tent or which was behind him now verse 11 says now abraham and sarah were old and well stricken in age and it ceased to be with sarah after the manner of women

you see they were both old

that makes it difficult

difficult enough for the man but not impossible but impossible for the woman it just ceased to be with her after the manner of woman

she had gone through the change of life there is no quickening time with sarah that's the point now i want you to turn to john chapter 1 and verse 13.

and i just want you to notice what john says here

in relation to this matter

when he talks about the principle by which the sons of god are born of the spirit in that sense

and so we read in john chapter 1 and verse 12

but as many as received him to them he gave power to become the sons of god even to them that believe on his name

which were born

out of blood

nor of the will of the flesh

nor of the will of man but of god note the three things

so people who are born spiritually into god's family and not born like that and you think about the situation

not of blood

it ceased to be with sarah the manner of women

not of the will of the flesh

and it says both abraham and sarah were old and she said shall my lord and i have pleasure not of the will of the flesh

and not of the will of man and they'd got together and schemed how they might do it through haggar see that and in those three ways it didn't work it didn't work by natural processes it didn't work because in old age they didn't have that sort of pleasure and it didn't work with hagar either not a blood not of the will of man not of the will of the flesh

so it didn't work any other way than the way that god wanted it to work and it had to be a god coming into their lives and changing their lives

and entering into the affairs of that man and woman so that when the child came and they looked upon that child oh people they saw themselves heirs of the grace of life that had nothing to do with the flesh and they were grateful to god and brothers and sisters when jesus christ came into the world you and i had nothing whatever to do with it

mary was merely an instrument

through whom the son of god was born and and to us a son was given and he was given with a forerunner whose name means the grace of god and when john spoke of the only begotten of the father he said we have received grace for grace

we've got a double because john the baptist's name means that and when the lord was born he came into the world by the grace of god and we had nothing to do with it and we're going to be heirs together because of that child you imagine how that child would have welded abraham and sarah together

now we know what happened

we read in this record of genesis that sarah laughed within herself

and as i pointed out brothers and sisters when abraham laughed and said he laughed in his heart

but in here the hebrew word means bowels

it means her bowels she laughed

with a laugh of incredulity she couldn't believe it

and she said after i'm waxed old shall i have pleasure my lord being old also

and yahweh said to abraham wherefore did sarah laugh notice he doesn't address the woman and she's right behind a husband you can imagine standing behind him hiding behind him as god addresses the husband why did she laugh

saying surely shall i surely surely have a job which i'm old and then he says in verse 14

is anything too hard for the lord

is anything too hard for the lord you know brothers and sisters that word is taken up quite frequently in the old testament scriptures to speak about the wonder of god's work among men do you know in isaiah 9 and verse 6 where it says unto us

a child is born and unto us a son is given it says his name shall be called wonderful

that's exactly the same word in hebrew

so it's not so much that he's going to be wonderful in the ordinary sense of the word

we're going to look at him and say isn't it extraordinary it's amazing thing what happened that he came into the world without the intervention of man

it's extraordinary did that happen

and then in psalm 118 when he rode into jerusalem and the people chanted that psalm oh save us hosanna to the son of david a psalm which says brothers and sisters that he would come back again they will not see me until they say blessed is he that cometh in the name of the lord that's psalm 118 and it also says this

this is the lord's doing and it is wonderful in our eyes that's exactly the same word

so it wasn't just a question of saying is anything too hard in that sense but the fact that when it happened men and women would stand in awe of what would happen

and god would be able to perform that that's what he said here

and we leave that record there brothers and sisters we turn the page and come to chapter 20 because we we're not going to deal with the destruction of sodom and gomorrah

and now something else happens which is quite extraordinary but after this wonderful promise and that sarah would have the child we read in chapter 20 and abraham journeyed from thence toward the south country and you know every time he went south he went into danger

and he came to a place that says he he dwelt between kadesh and sure and sojourn in ghirar

did you know gira means

a seed

he dwelt in the land of the philistines

at a place which means

a seed

now that's very significant it was in this place brothers and sisters that isaac later on was to sow the field

and to reap a hundredfold

the only time ever recorded of anyone

anyone who got a hundred percent yield from his crop

and it was the seed of promise who sowed in a place called a seed that reaped a hundredfold

and isaac of course being typical of the only begotten of the son of god brothers and sisters there was no other person who ever wrapped a hundredfold except a corn of wheat fall into the ground it abides alone said jesus but he came brothers and sisters as the seed of promise he sowed the gospel in the hearts of his disciples they went into the world and the result of that will be that this world will be full of the glory of god as the waters cover the sea a hundredfold

and it was only that man of whom that's recorded in this place but here's danger

here is danger because in verse two abraham said of sarah his wife she is my sister and abimelech king of ghirar sent to take sarah or he sent him took sarah

now here's danger

and abraham once more reverts to this expedient you think he would have learned his lesson but he hasn't

and once more she's put into terrifying circumstances

and abimelech abimelech

means

the father of the king

and of sarah it had been said kings shall come of her now here's the drama

here's the drama here we are in the land of the philistines among the uncircumcised

and abraham is there who has in his body the mark of circumcision indicating spiritual fatherhood and abimelech is an uncircumcised philistine and the question is who's going to be the father of the king

and the father of the seed

look at the dangerous circumstances that are here

and this is what happened with abraham will he become the seed of an uncircumcised philistine or the seed of a circumcised hebrew

now god intervened immediately

he intervened immediately and he comes to abimelech by night in verse 3

and tells him you're a dead man

you're a dead man if you touch that woman

or she's another man's wife

and god plagued his house not only closed up the wombs of his wife but closed up his ability to procreate too immediately

because there's no way this is going to be allowed to happen not only because brothers and sisters it's morally right which of course it was

but because it couldn't happen

and you know when the lord jesus christ was born of a virgin and he went around being he claimed to be the son of god the jews cast a slur on him and and circumstances must have been known about mary you can't hide that sort of thing and one of the things that were flung in his face was we be not born of fornication

what they said to him we've been born a fornication

the clear inference was we know about your circumstances

but here brothers and sisters it was made exceedingly

and it just wasn't going to happen

but what was quite extraordinary about this incident is this that that that abimelech protested his innocence and it would appear brothers and sisters quite clearly here that abimelech was a man of integrity

and what a remarkable thing that here is the uncircumcised king and the circumcised hebrew and he's got more integrity here than abraham himself

there's a great lesson in this you see the righteousness of faith is not personal righteousness it's imputed and these weaknesses of abraham are recorded for all posterity this is god's doing and god acknowledged that that man was was a man of integrity he says in verse 6 god said unto him in a dream i know that thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart he was an honest upright man for all that

but he had been deceived

now he says

in verse 7 now therefore restore the man his wife for he is a prophet and he shall pray for you

you imagine that king trying to understand that

can you imagine that king trying to understand that but in one breath god says look

i know your sincerity

i know you're a man of honor and integrity fancy this to a philistine king i understand that says god

but i've stopped you from sinning against me because you would have done it in ignorance i know that

and you've been deceived and this woman is another man's wife and i'm going to get her husband who did this

to pray for you

wow

there were lessons for everybody in that wasn't there

there were lessons for everybody in that brothers and sisters

that he was god dealing with men on the basis of his grace and favor

it wasn't the question of one being righteous and the other being unrighteous in that sense was all a question of the selection of god now you turn to psalm 105.

imagine abimelech having to accept the fact that abraham is to pray for him

and so in psalm 105 verses 14 and 15 he said he suffered no man to do them wrong yeah he reproved kings for their sakes saying touch not mine anointed and do my prophets no harm and abimelech was told he is a prophet

and he didn't suffer him to do any harm

and yet brothers and sisters abraham had to pray for him

but nonetheless as we read from we won't stop to up to consider this but from verses 9 to 13 of genesis 20

abimelech severely rebukes abraham and he had every justification for doing that

and so look at the interaction of men here look what's being learned by men here in relation to their relationships to god that abraham is in the wrong this man is is sincere and upright at his heart god stops him from sinning ask him to accept abraham's prayer and abimelech still goes to abraham and severely rebukes abraham for what he did and he had every justification for that

every justification

but he acknowledged brothers and sisters

that it was right

and abraham is to pray for him now in verse 15 of chapter 20

we read this

and abimelech said behold my land is before thee

well where it pleases thee and and unto sarah he said behold i have given thy brother a thousand pieces of silver

behold he is to thee a covering of the eyes

unto all that are with thee and with all other thus

and that's rather ambiguous in the authorized version what was the thousand pieces of silver about now we won't turn this reference up you might like to make a note of it in the song of solomon chapter 8 verses 11 and 12

the thousand pieces of silver are spoken of as being the price

of the vineyard of the messiah

and of his bride

so that silver is the price of redemption a thousand pieces underlines the fact that we belong

to him and in the song of solomon that's the price of his bride and his dinya

now the rsv puts verse 15 like this

behold i have given your brother a thousand pieces of silver

it is your vindication

in the eyes of all who are with you and before everyone you are put right

and a biblic a man of integrity came out with that symbolic price of a thousand pieces of silver and in front of everybody he gave it unto abraham and got everybody to watch him doing it that this man that man there is that ma woman's husband and that woman is his wife and that thousand pieces of silver he said has put everything right

and in the song of solomon that's exactly the symbolic use of the thousand pieces of silver and so it was all put right

and abraham prayed we read in verse 17

his prayers brothers and sisters were no longer hindered

because it's all put right

he has been severely rebuked

by the king and had to take that on the chin because it was just

but nonetheless the king had to accept that abraham

was the friend of god and therefore it wasn't the question of abimelech praying for abraham's wrong it was oppression of the question of abraham praying for abimelech which may have seemed to him back to front

but god's lordship overall was enforced

and when god was upheld

uh when abimelech was told by god that he was a just man and he had rebuked over him and put him in his place and when the thousand pieces of silver were shown to everybody that that woman belonged to that man and everything was right

abraham was free to pray

his prayers were no longer hindered

and he prayed that the household of abimelech all the wombs might be opened

and yahweh visited sarah and did to sarah exactly as he had promised and the prayers of that man brothers and sisters were not only effectual upon the household of the of the philistine but on his own house incredible

and it was going through that traumatic experience and that's our life isn't it

but there are times brothers and sisters when people in the world put us to shame like abimelech

people in the world who have some sense

of integrity sometimes put us to shame and sometimes we we're in a situation where we feel that we we've wronged people not only in the truth but out of the truth and we've got to take it from god and yet we've got the truth

and those people would depend upon us to tell them the truth and sometimes brothers and sisters in our homes with the altercation with our wives if we hang on to our bitterness and we will not give in and we won't say we're wrong because we're too darn proud your prayers are going to be hindered

and all of this had to be put right and when it was put right that prayer was powerful

and the seed came into the world

and paul says in hebrews 11 and verse 11

by faith sarah herself receives strength to conceive seed receive strength where'd she get it from she got it from the prayer of her husband she would have seen those wombs open she would have been inspired by that

and being used together with him with the fervent prayer of abraham she got the strength she needed to rise above the natural things of this life and sarah herself that's the key word never mind about hagar never mind about somebody else her and she had to believe brothers and sisters that was her that was going to have the seed and paul said sarah herself received strength to concede seed

and you know something

the word conceived there

is only used 11 times 11 times in the new testament you say oh well 11 times so what so this

the ten of those times

that word is found in one phrase

the foundation of the world

so what he's saying is that sarah receives strength to conceive the foundation seed

and therefore says paul there came from one and him as good as dead as the stars of the heaven for multitude so paul saw sarah's faith was not just him to have a child

but to have a family of children

her faith was way beyond that one child she had enormous faith now

how did paul know that

did he know that was the quality of her faith

well have a look what it says here in genesis 21

verse 6

sarah said god hath made me to isaac that's what the word isaac means laughter

he's made me to isaac

so that all that hear me will isaac with me

and she said

who would have said unto abraham

that sarah would have given

children suck

she only had one

who would have said that sarah would have given children so

and she received strengths as the apostle to conceive

the foundation said

isn't that interesting

so she uses the plural but she only had the one child

but she saw him and later as good as dead says the apostle that from that one would spring as many as the stars of the heaven for multitude her faith was enormous

it wasn't just a woman wanting a child

she saw the destiny of that child

and the ultimate family that would spread abroad through the earth

who would have thought that sarah would have given children

now that's how paul knew that was the quality of her faith

now of course ishmael

was old enough now brothers and sisters to express his contempt of this child

when sarah saw the the son of the woman son of the bondwoman mocking her child she said to abraham cast out this bondwoman and her son

and we would think that was cruel and unkind and i once read an article in the christadelphian magazine where sarah was taking the task for this as this was totally wrong and absolutely evil and all sort this but paul said those words are the scripture

what set the scripture

in galatians 4 cast out the bondwoman and his son is what the scripture says

wasn't just sarah that the spirit of the scripture is there why because he was a bondwoman

this boy was uncouth

he was not the promised seed and he was like them that cast her into the teeth of the lord we be not born of fornication and he mocked isaac and the word mocked his isaac

sarah laughed in belief and and the wonderful expression of her faith this boy laughed in mockery

and abraham was forced

to put that boy away because of the domestic upheaval that was there it was their expedient it had brought tragedy to their house but this is the bible what says the scripture

the children of the bondwoman are not counted for the seed but the children of the free

and so verse 10 said wherefore she said unto abraham cast out this bomb woman and her son

and verse 11 says and the thing was very grievous in abraham's sight because of his son

and so haggar saw rather sarah saw the boy as being haggar's son

and abraham was grieved because it was his son

in the rest of the record six times god calls him

the lad

verse 12

the lad

twice in verse 17 the lad verse 18 the lad the end of verse 19 the lad and in verse 20 the lad

he wasn't his son at all in the sense that god wanted it to be because he called isaac paul called isaac he's only begotten

as far as god was concerned

it was the lad

he's not interested

now hagar sat it says

in verse 16

a good way the boy fainted he was dying of thirst she was wandering in the wilderness of beersheba brother and sisters and and she in the in the desert down by beersheba and the lad was they had no water in verse 15 it was all gone and she went against in verse 16 and sat down against him

and watched him and then prayed to god and lifted up her voice and the record says that god heard the voice of the lad

he's over there and the woman has prayed but god he is the voice of the land

why because that's abraham's seed ishmael means heard of god and do you know this every single member mention of ishmael in the narrative record is of god hearing him

he's israel after the flesh and despite the fact that they've been children of bond women they've been enslaved to law and they're cast off and they're under a bush god still hearing their voice because of abraham

now come with me to isaiah 51.

and before we go there by the way just be let's read just just a minute let's let's read verse 18 of chapter 21 so she sits down under this over against him a good way off as it were a bow shot you see and it says it twice and she sat over against him and lifted up her voice and wept and in verse 18 it says the angel said arise lift up the land and hold him in thy hand now let's go to isaiah 51

and you notice the play on words here taken from this incident

as the prophet builds a prophecy on this incident now isaiah 51

deals with the faith of abraham

verse 1 hearken to me ye that follow after righteousness ye that seek the lord verse 2 look unto abraham

your father and sarah that bear you see the point

how can it be ye that follow after righteousness where do you find it look to abraham once you find it once in his life only once it's mentioned that he was righteous and the righteousness consisted of believing what he could not do

so that's where you find it

now there's three hearkens in this chapter verse one verse four verse seven harken

and there's three awakes verse nine awake verse 17 awake and chapter 52

verse 1 awake

now i won't go through all those sections but they all tell a story but look at verse 17 of chapter 51

i'm going to read certain words here and this is based upon the experience of hagar and ishmael because here jerusalem's got to wake up that the sun is not going to come through a bondwoman verse 17 awake away stand up o jerusalem that's what the angel told her in verse 18

there is none to guide her among all the sons whom she hath brought forth neither is there any that taketh her by the hand of all the son that she had brought up and the angel said take him by the hand

and why couldn't he take it by the hand because verse 20 says thy sons have fainted

and he fainted under the bush

and there is a paraphrase of genesis 21 with hagar and ishmael and we'll have to be quick brothers and sisters but you know what happened coming back to genesis 21

she had been wondering if we read in verse 14.

at the end of verse 14 hagar had been wandering in the wilderness of beersheba and there was a well of water there and she couldn't see it

just like israel

beersheba you see means the well of the oath the well of the oath and israel have been in the presence of the well of the earth all these centuries and they can't see it

but in verse 19 it says and god opened her eyes

and she saw the well of water

and that's what god is going to do for israel blindness in part has happened to israel blindness they can't see

but god opened their eyes so here's a little parable of the restoration of israel now look at verse 22 and it came to pass at that time

what time at the same time as haggar is wandering blind by the well of the oath and can't see it he is abraham making a covenant with a bimole

a biblic and they made a covenant at that well and so that abimelech had to acknowledge that it belonged to abraham

this world belonged to abraham

and in order that abimelech might accept this they made offerings there and agreed you see that abraham said this is my well and they're going to have to swear to this and in verse 27 we read and abraham took sheep and oxen and gave them under abimelech and both of them made a covenant and abraham

set seven ewe lambs of the flock by themselves

and abimelech says what mean these seven new lambs by themselves and he said these seven eu lambs shall take of my hand that they may be that they may be a witness unto me that i have digged this wealth now at the same time as israel in the person of hagar was wandering blind by the well of the oath is abraham at that time dealing with a gentile and making a covenant with him about that well that abraham has dug up and he's got these seven new lambs beersheba means the well of the oath or the well of the covenant oath and seven are the same word in the hebrew

and abimelech says you know all these what those little seven you land he said i want you to recognize that i've done this well you know what a yearland was brother and sister

under the law of moses

you will never ever ever find a male lamb for a sin offering it's not there

it's just not there not anywhere right up to malachi that was to come in the person of the lord jesus christ

but the you land was the sin offering of a commoner

a commoner

bullock for the priest bullock for the nation a goat for the ruler and a you lamb or a commoner

and abimelech had to stand there and acknowledge that he's not the father of the king

he is a mere commoner

and he had to acknowledge brothers and sisters that the the covenant which was being made had nothing to do with him but he had to be related to abraham because abraham had done that well

and abraham i believe had clear insight here of what was to happen and when that was accepted abraham called the place he planted a grove which is a tamarisk tree a statue tree of of one a solitary monument and he called it the well of the oath and called upon the name of the lord the everlasting god

the name of he who will be the everlasting god of the everlasting covenant and that philistine while israel are wandering blind to the well of the oath that philistine had to acknowledge that he's been a commoner

he's in need of god's salvation and he's got to acknowledge that he's got to be

a member of the commonwealth of israel he's not to be a stranger to the covenants of promise otherwise he's got no hope he's without god in the world that i have done this well and that happened at the same time that israel were wandering blind in the wilderness now you just think of that circumstance and here we are brothers and sisters just like that king having made that very covenant through the lord jesus christ