The Gospel Preached to Abraham

Galatians and the False Gospel of the Judaizers

Go ahead and open your Bibles and turn to Galatians chapter 3. Now we haven't been in Galatians for a year. Oh, this year? It's the new year. Oh, yeah. Oh, okay. Never gets old.

Alright, we'll be back next year. It's 2016.

In my Bible. Your Bible? My Bible. We're back in our study of Galatians. I'm looking out trying to see who's been here, who hasn't. You know, you guys, I preach verse by verse. It's my method of teaching.

So, if you haven't been a part of this study or you haven't been here, or maybe you're new, maybe you came in over the holiday. I've been out for a couple of weeks. And you might not know where we're at or what we're talking about.

So, I like to give at least a little bit of a catch up so that we understand sort of where we are in the text. I did miss a lesson a couple weeks ago, Christmas week. I was supposed to be here, but my daughter was in the hospital.

How's she doing? She's okay. She had a very high fever and it lasted like 10 days. And she had come to find out she had a bad infection and a virus at the same time. So, it was tough, especially for a two year old.

So, we were in the hospital on Christmas morning. So, that was an interesting way to spend the holiday. But, we got to go home Christmas night and have our time with our other kids. And, this is the first Sunday after the New Year, right?

Yesterday was New Year's? So, I guess I only missed one week. Yeah, okay. Alright. Well, the book of Galatians is Paul's... Paul is addressing a group of people called the Galatians. This is actually a group of churches in an area which is now referred to as Turkey, but at that point would have been referred to as Asia Minor.

And, the southern portion of that is a group of churches in Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe. And, those churches he had gone in during his missionary journey and he had planted churches there. And, then he left to plant other churches in other areas.

After he left, other people came in and they started teaching a false message. We see this in chapter 1. Paul says, I'm astonished that you have so quickly turned from the Gospel that I preached to you and you have turned to another Gospel.

Not that there is another Gospel, for there is only one Gospel. And, he begins to challenge them in regard to why they have turned away from the truth. He then goes through a series of explaining why his message and his ministry is valid.

We see this at the end of chapter 1 and all through chapter 2. He is showing his message is the message that is the true one. And, it's sort of like this. You've got two competing voices. You've got Paul's voice who is giving one message and then you've got the other group that came in and they're giving another message and Paul's attempting to show why he is the one that is accurate.

I mean, you guys have probably experienced this in your life whether you've been around various religions. Everybody thinks they're right. Everybody thinks they've got it nailed down. But really, at the end of the day, there is only one right answer.

You may have heard that there are many ways to God. You may have heard that we're all going to the same place. We're just taking different roads. We're all going to the same top of the mountain. We're all just taking different roads.

That is wrong. There is another way to understand and it is the way that Christ gave us. In Matthew chapter 7, Jesus said there is a broad way which leads to destruction and a narrow way which leads to life.

There's only two ways. The right way and the wrong way. And no matter what you are in, if you are outside of Christ, you're on the wrong way. If you are not in Christ, you're on the wrong path. Whether you're a Mohammedan, whether you are a Buddhist, whether you are a Jehovah Witness, it doesn't matter.

If you are on a way that does not follow Jesus Christ as the Lord of Glory, you are on the wrong way. There is no other gospel. That was Paul's message. It's been Paul's message since the beginning of the book.

The Judaizers, Circumcision, and the Sign of the Covenant

So, when we get to chapter 2, toward the end, he begins to explain why his message is correct and why the message of the false teachers is wrong. By the way, if you've been here, you know who the false teachers are.

The false teachers were the Judaizers. You say, what does that mean? Well, the Judaizers were a group of people who said that unless you become a Jew, you can't be saved. And the way that you had to become a Jew was you had to be circumcised.

Now, most of you, probably, well, I don't know, I don't want to get into this, but I imagine a lot of you are circumcised due to the fact that that's been a fairly traditional reality in America. Especially for young men, you know, that they would be circumcised.

Well, they would only be young men. Sorry.

But, at this particular... What's that? Is that still a requirement or something you should do? No.

The reason people are circumcised today typically is for traditional reasons. There's even a debate as to whether it's a health issue. I tend to think it's a health issue. Yeah, infections and stuff like that.

There's a lower incidence of yeast infections in Jewish women type thing. There are some health issues. But primarily, it's a tradition. It's a tradition. And so, within the people of Israel, it was a command.

It was a command of God. Genesis 17. God says to Abraham, you are to circumcise yourself and your children and their children's children and every generation that comes after is to be circumcised. As a sign of the covenant, God had made a promise to Abraham and this promise was going to be accompanied by a sign.

Every promise God gives is accompanied by a sign. Think about it. Going back to the promise God gave to Noah. What was the sign? The rainbow. God gives a promise to Abraham. What's the sign? Circumcision.

God gives a promise to David. What's the sign? This one's harder. The throne. The throne. He says your throne will last forever. Christ is going to come and sit on that throne. So the throne itself is the sign of the covenant God made with David.

And then God makes a covenant through Christ. What is the sign of the new covenant? Jesus said this is the new covenant in my blood. What is it? A little more specific. You're right. A little more specific.

The Holy Spirit. The bread and the cup. Jesus held them up. He said this is the sign of the new covenant. This bread represents my body. This cup represents my blood. So this is the sign of the new covenant.

And we also have in the new covenant, baptism. Which is a sign of entrance into the covenant. You enter into the covenant by faith, but faith is followed by baptism. We receive baptism as a sign of that promise.

It's an expression of our faith, but it's also a picture of the promise of God. We've been buried with Christ in baptism, raised a new life. Yeah, yeah. So, all of that is to simply say when God makes a promise, He gives a sign.

For the people of Israel were given a promise. They were also given the sign. The sign was circumcision. So here Paul comes in and he preaches a message of justification by faith alone. Then he leaves.

And in comes this group of people, the Judaizers. And what do they say? No, it's not by faith alone. You must also be circumcised. See, the scripture says it. Go to Genesis 17. Of course, they didn't have numbers.

See, here he said to Abraham, you have to be circumcised. Are you better.

Than Abraham? Well, we're.

Going to get there. But the point is they're saying is your faith is not enough. You have to do this extra thing. It's not just a matter of belief. It's not just a matter of trust. You have to add this thing.

And it wasn't just circumcision, but it was the keeping of the law. You have to be circumcised. That was a primary thing. You have to keep the dietary restrictions. What are the dietary restrictions of the Israelites?

Can't eat pork. Can't eat shellfish. Certain types of washings. That's right. All of these different things. You can't mix. Can't have a bacon cheeseburger. One, because you can't have the bacon, but you also can't mix dairy with beef.

So you can't have a cheeseburger. Be that as it may. The point is there were their dietary restrictions. So you not only had the circumcision, you also had the dietary restrictions and the restriction of Saturday there is to be no work done.

That's called the Sabbath. And the Saturday Sabbath was a very important standard. It was a thing that marked out the Israelite people. They were not to do anything. And if you remember the Pharisees, that was the group that Jesus was always battling with when he was on earth because they were the religious zealots.

They were the religious men of the day who were very conscious of the law. Those guys came up with all kinds of extra rules for the Sabbath. The Sabbath just simply said don't work. But they would say, well, you got to walk.

How much walking constitutes working? Well, they would say, okay, so you can take this many steps. Right? Or, you know, they would have this many rules. You might need water, but you can only pull this much up in a bucket or whatever.

There were all these standards and rules. And that's where Jesus said, you know, you guys strain the gnat and swallow the camel. And basically what he meant was you guys are pedantic about little things, like how many steps you're taking or how much water you're drawing, but then you go over here and you lie, cheat, and steal.

You swallow the camel. You're so pedantic on the little things, but you don't care about the things that really matter. So Paul has planted these churches. He has left. Another group has come in. They have taught what Paul gave you is not enough.

Yes, faith in Jesus is important. Yes, faith in Jesus is necessary, but faith in Jesus is not sufficient. That's the message of the Judaizers. Faith in Christ is necessary, but not sufficient. And Paul's response is that that is a false gospel.

If someone tells you that faith in Christ is not sufficient, that Christ is not sufficient, that is a false gospel. Understand? So based on that, we get to chapter 3. And Paul uses now the process. He's made his argument that faith alone and not works saves, and not the law, because you can't work your way into salvation.

Abraham Believed God and It Was Counted to Him as Righteousness

Chapter 3, he gives us his argument based on two things. And we've already looked at chapter 3, verses 1 -5, and that's his argument based on experience. But then he gives his argument based on Scripture.

So we're going to read chapter 3. We're going to begin at verse 1, but our focus is going to be on verses 6 -9. So again, we're focusing on verses 6 -9. We're going to read to establish context beginning at verse 1.

O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this. Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?

Are you so foolish, having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain, if indeed it was in vain? Does He who supplies the Spirit to you and work miracles among you do so by works of the law or by hearing with faith?

Alright, stop right there. So his argument is simply this. You have come to Christ. You have been saved. You have received the Spirit. Did any of that happen by keeping the law? No! Does any of that maintained?

Is any of that maintained by keeping the law? No! As I've said, and I've said this several times, but again, some of you weren't here. It's like there's two mountains. It's like you have two mountains.

One mountain is called.

Law, and the other mountain is called grace. We try to climb law mountain.

By doing good things, by keeping the rules, by doing all these things, and we think that's how we get saved. The problem is you can never make it up Mount Law. Because every time you start moving up Mount Law, you realize how much of the law you've broken.

You're stepping on stones that are falling underneath your feet. The law cannot save you. The difference between Mount Law and Mount Grace is Christ picked you up and put you here. You didn't climb it.

The Bible says in Ephesians 2 that you were dead in trespasses and sins. But God, being full of grace, made you alive in Christ. And He seated you in heavenly places. That's the work of God. That's salvation.

Not what you have done for yourself, but what God has done for you. This will always be insufficient. Your ability to keep the law will always fall short. So we have grace. And grace is not only necessary, grace is sufficient because it is based on the work of Christ.

So, that is the experience we have and that's what He talks about in verses 1 -5. And now He's going to use Abraham as the example. Look at verse 6. He says, Just as Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness, know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham and the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the Gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, In you shall all the nations be blessed.

So then those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. Let me pray real quick because this is the Scripture I'm preaching on. So, Father, as I begin to explain this text, Lord, keep me from error.

Lord, use me to speak to these men, and by Your Spirit, Lord, those who are saved, that they would be challenged and encouraged. And Lord, those who are not, that today would be a day of reckoning, and they might come to You in faith, in Christ's name.

Amen. So, our primary goal today is to get through verses 6 -9. Verse 6. Just as Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness. How many of your Bibles have quotation marks there? If you have ESV, then it's got a quotation mark.

Or it's bolded. What version is that? The CBS? HCS. Yeah, that's what I meant. Yeah, the Holman? Yeah, the Holman does. It bolds. Anytime you see that, or you see quotation marks, basically what that's saying is this is something that's being quoted from somewhere else.

And you notice that's what he says. He says, just as Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness. He's not saying that on his own accord. He's saying that because it's written somewhere else.

Yeah, Genesis 15 -6. In Genesis 15, go back there with me. Hold your place in Galatians, but go back to Genesis 15. We have Abraham having already received a promise from God. He received a promise from God in Genesis 12, and we're going to talk about that in a minute.

But this scene in Genesis 15 is Abraham being given a promise from God about his children. This is after he's rescued Lot. And I talked about this in our last sermon, so if I'm repeating myself some, just know that this is important stuff and we should hear it more than once.

You know, the key to learning is repetition, and repetition is the key to learning. Alright, so in chapter 15, it says after these things, this is after he's rescued Lot and he is given a tithe to Melchizedek.

This situation has happened now. It says after these things, the Word of the Lord came to Abraham in a vision. Fear not, Abram. I am your shield. Your reward shall be very great. But Abram said, O Lord God, what shall you give me?

For I continue childless. And the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus. And Abraham said, Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir. And behold, the Word of the Lord came to him.

This man shall not be your heir. Your very own son shall be your heir. And he brought him outside and said, Look toward heaven. Number the stars. If you're able to number them, then he said to him, So shall your offspring be.

And he believed the Lord and he counted it to him as righteousness. So there is the passage that Paul is quoting. And Abraham believed God and he counted it to him as righteousness. But the situation is a situation of promise.

Abraham has received a promise from God. The promise is this. You're going to have children. Now Abraham's an old man. His wife's an old lady. He hasn't had any children at this point. Even though three chapters earlier, God promised him a nation.

Now three chapters earlier, several years before... Yeah? Was that.

Metaphorical because it says the believers? I understand then that those who believe are children of Abraham. Now,.

Not metaphoric, but spiritual. That's referring to we who believe the same as Abraham are spiritual.

Descendants of Abraham. Okay, so not necessarily bloodline.

Yeah, exactly. And that's what we're going to get in a minute. My point now is simply to say this. God made a promise to Abraham in Genesis 15 and Abraham believed the promise.

I mean, that's simply it. But he was thinking bloodline.

Well, and he does get a bloodline. He gets Isaac. Isaac has Jacob. Jacob has 12 sons. And 400 years later in Israel, there's several million Jews. Yeah, and again, even now, if you read back in Genesis 15, what we just read, he's already offering God an out, right?

God has offered him a nation. Several years later, he's looking up to God saying, God, I guess I'm going to have to choose this guy, Eleazar of Damascus, who was basically the child of one of his servants.

So he had, in that time in history, if you didn't have any children and you had these people that worked with you in your home or worked for you in your home, you would take one of their children as your heir.

That child would become the person who would take on your property and your land. Because it couldn't be a woman. It had to be a man. And he didn't have any children at all. So he's got to give it to this boy, Eleazar of Damascus.

And God says, no, it's not him. It's not Eleazar of Damascus. Not that there was anything wrong with him, but he wasn't the promise. Yeah, he wasn't the one that God had given to him. He said, don't try to give me an out.

If God has made a promise, you don't need to try to circumvent it and go a different way. You need to trust that the promise is going to be fulfilled. Right? Same way with this, because later, the situation with Ishmael.

Hadn't had a child in a while. No God promised it. My wife's old. I'm old. But her handmaiden, she'd be young. So, we can do a little business ourselves, have a child, and what happens? All kinds of bad stuff.

Well, yeah, it produced two lines. And those lines are still fighting today. But again, God made a promise and Abraham did believe it. Even though there was that point of trying to circumvent, Abraham believed God.

Remember what I said last time. He didn't believe in God. He believed God. There's a difference. Every time I go out witnessing, we have a, you know, we do our booth at the fair and different things. I'm talking to people.

If people say, yeah, man, I believe in God. I don't care. Demons believe in God. James chapter 2. You say that God is one. You do well. For even demons believe that and fear. Believing in God does not save you.

It's belief of God. Believing God that saves. Not believing in Him. God has made promises. This is the promise. This is the hope that He has sent His Son into the world to die, to pay the sin debt for everyone who believes in Him.

That's the promise. You believe that or you don't. And if you believe that, you are in Him. And if you don't, you're not in Him. It's like the ark, right? Noah built this ark that God had given him, but he still had to go inside because if he stayed outside, what's going to happen?

He's going to die. Right? If Christ is there, if we are in Christ, we are saved. If we're outside of Christ, we're lost and we're going to die. We're going to go to hell. It's a very simple analogy. The ark is a type of Christ.

Come to me, all ye who are weary and heavy laden. I will give you rest. Right? Christ is the ark. We go in and we're in Him or we're not. And that's the point Paul is making. And Abraham believed God and it was accounted unto him as righteousness.

He believed God to the question, again, we should all ask ourselves, do we believe God? So now, moving back to Galatians, that's the quote from verse 6. Now we're going to look at verse 7. Galatians 3 .7 Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham.

This goes back to your question, brother, because you asked about spiritual versus metaphoric or whatever. What he's saying is this. If you believe God the same way Abraham believed God, then you are a spiritual descendant of Abraham.

Think about this. Remember when John the Baptist was baptizing and the people said, we're the sons of Abraham. And he said, God is able to raise up sons of Abraham even from these stones. Right? He's saying something about what it means to be a son of Abraham.

Being a child of Abraham was something the Jews felt very proud of. They took great pride in their relationship with Abraham by blood. Well, that's Luke 16. It says that you're accepted where Abraham is and into Abraham's bosom.

That was known as paradise. So, Abraham was a very important figure and the people of Israel felt very proud of their relationship to Abraham. But what does the Bible say? It is those who are of faith who are the true sons of Abraham.

It's those who are of faith who are the true descendants of Abraham. What did Jesus say in John chapter 8? If Abraham was your father, you'd believe in Me. You'd do the works that he did. Because the Jews, again, they were saying, hey, we have Abraham as our father.

If Abraham was your father, you would do the things he did, but you're not. He believed in Me. Remember, John 8 is such an important passage because Jesus said, Abraham rejoiced to see My day. And they said, you're not even 30 years old.

Or you're not even 50 years old. I'm sorry. You're not even 50 years old. And you're telling us Abraham has seen you? What did Jesus say? Before Abraham was, I am. Notice. He didn't say before Abraham was, I was.

It's John 8, 58, by the way. He said, before Abraham was, I am. Now, I don't know how many of you are able to come, but we're doing our Greek class at the church starting next week. And I know some of you guys are going to be able to come.

We're going to look at some of the language of the New Testament. That's one of the most important passages because of the way that it's given in the Greek. It's not before Abraham was, I was. It's before Abraham was, I am.

Why does that matter? Well, it is the tense of the verb is what matters, but what... Well, it refers to the trinity. What matters is the phrase I am is the name God gives to Himself. In Exodus, Moses said, who are you?

Who should I tell the people has sent me. You tell them I am has sent. Yeah, that's right. Yes, sir. Go ahead.

Go ahead, brother. He said I am because He is. He's everything. That's right. He's everything. We need everything. We want everything. We see He's everything.

He's our all in all. Absolutely. And He's also...

I'm sorry. It was kind of referred like that. He changes at some point. But I am is like He's constant, always been there, always will be. Yeah, He doesn't change.

The phrase I am speaks to His independent and self-existing nature. God is not dependent on anything. If I say I am, I have to qualify that. I am because I have the right amount of oxygen. I am because I have the right amount of atmospheric pressure.

I am because I have the right amount of food. I have the right amount of water. I am because of so many things upon which I am dependent. God simply says I am. Period. I'm not dependent on anything. God's not dependent on us.

He didn't create man because He was lonely. Lonely... This whole idea of God needing us. God doesn't need you. God doesn't need me. God chooses to love us. He chooses to use us because that is in His nature.

He doesn't have to. That's another point of His great love is the fact that He loves you even though He doesn't have to. He makes a choice. Brother BJ, you were going to say something. That's right, for Christ.

Christ, again, one with the Father. He is second person to Trinity. And when He says before Abraham was, I am, He's referring to the fact that He's always been. He is the I am. And when the Jews heard that, what did they do?

They picked up stones to throw at Him. They were going to stone Him. Because they knew what He was saying. He was giving Himself, He was equating Himself with God. By saying before Abraham was, I am, they picked up stones.

Man, we've got to stone this guy. He's saying He's God. That's right. And if He was not telling the truth, He was blaspheming. It's like C .S. Lewis said. He said Jesus is one of three things. He's either a liar, he's a lunatic, or he's the Lord.

Because if He said the things He said and they weren't true and He knew it, He was a liar. If He said the things that He said and they weren't true and He didn't know it, then He's a lunatic. But if He said the things that He said and they were true, then it's the most important thing in the world.

And this is something else. Another theologian said this. He said Christ is either the most important thing in the world or He's not important at all. He can't be middle because of what He claimed. He claimed to be God in the flesh.

And if He is, that's the most important thing in the world. And if He's not, it's not important at all. But He's certainly not halfway important. He's certainly not middle important. It's either the most important thing or it's nothing.

Again, that's right. So again, if you come to faith in Christ, you're a son of Abraham because Abraham believed in Christ. You say, now how did Abraham believe in Christ? Abraham lived a long time before Jesus.

Abraham lived some 2 ,000 years before Christ would come. How could we say Abraham had faith in Christ? Well, that's what Paul is now going to argue. And this is really where we didn't get to last time, so I want to hope to get here now.

Because verse 8, I use verse 8 all the time when I'm trying to explain what we call, in theological terms, the continuity between the Old Testament and the New Testament. A lot of people focus on the discontinuity between the Old Testament and the New Testament.

And there is some discontinuity. In this, there are some things in the Old Testament that are abrogated in the New Testament. For instance, we no longer have to maintain the dietary laws. I can eat a pork sandwich to the glory of God.

Praise the Lord. And I love it. And I'm thankful. That's Acts chapter 10, right? Take, kill, and eat. Rise, kill, and eat. Praise the Lord. I can have a pork sandwich to the glory of God. With cheese.

And I can wear mixed fibers clothing. I can have a 50 -50 polyester cotton blend. You know, there are things that the Old Covenant would have forbade that are no longer maintained because those were intended to separate Israel from the other nations and to show Israel what was called a peculiar people or a different people.

Circumcision, dietary, clothing restrictions, all these things were to show them a different people. That they would be separate. When Christ came into the world, the Bible says He came to die for men of every tribe, tongue, people, and nation.

He came to not replace Israel, but to expand the Gospel to all nations. Where the Gospel had been held in Israel, now it would go to everyone. Yes, sir? Yep? Absolutely, yes. And you just nailed it. That's right.

Israel is very much a prototype of the church. It's a picture. It's a type. The church is the antitype. The type is what points to the antitype. For instance, in the Old Covenant, you had the sacrifice.

That was the type. Christ is the antitype, meaning the fullness or the fulfillment, right? In the Old Covenant, you had the ram. Remember when Isaac was taken up the mountain and was going to be sacrificed and Abraham said, do not lay your hand on your son, and he showed him there was a ram caught in the thicket?

That was a type of substitutionary atonement. Isaac gets to come off the altar, the ram goes on the altar, and there's a substitution made. Same thing happens when Christ goes to the cross. I should have been on the cross.

I get to come down off the cross, Christ goes on to the cross for me, and he becomes a substitute for me. He's the ram. Right? So, yes, in that sense, Israel is the type. It's the picture of what God would do in the church for all people and nations.

He would take for Himself a people from all tribes. The Bible says, this is why it's stupid to be racist by the way, and I know this is coming out of left field, but there's no reason to be racist, because you're going to have heaven full of black people, white people, Asian people, and all kinds of other people.

Because the Bible says of every tribe, people, and nation, there will be those people in heaven. Now, how we're going to look in heaven and all the differences, I don't know. I might still look like this.

I hope not. It's a long time to keep looking like this. But, the point is, the Gospel is the expansion of the promise. And this is what we see in verse 8. And I've got to, again, I want to read it, and then I want to try to explain it as best I can.

It says, and the Scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the Gospel before him to Abraham, saying, In you shall all the nations be blessed. There's so much here to unpack.

Let me try in the short amount of time that I have to unpack. Number one, it says the Scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles preached the Gospel. The Scripture, in this sense, is the Word of God written down that we have.

It's basically treating the Bible as it were a prophet. The Bible is written by men of God. It's written by prophets, but it itself is just a book. But in this text, it says, no, the Scripture preached to Abraham.

And here's what's funny about that. Abraham didn't have a Bible. When was the Bible written? When was the first books of the Bible? Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. When were they written?

Anybody know? What? No, you're thinking of the Masoretic text. I'm talking about when was it originally written. 1620. Written by Moses. It would have been in the desert of Sinai somewhere in the mid 1400 B .C.

During the Exodus. During the Exodus. So from a historical perspective, and again, I have a horrible marker today. Here's a basic timeline of history. You have creation. You have the fall. You have the flood.

This is very simple. Then you have Abraham. The patriarchs. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. Then you have a 400 year period of slavery in Egypt. Yes, mid 1400s, right? Right in here is the life of Moses. That's when Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and portions of Deuteronomy were written.

The last portion of Deuteronomy was written I believe by Joshua. Why do I believe that? Because Moses died. It talks about Moses' death at the end of Deuteronomy. I'm pretty sure Moses didn't write that.

I mean, he could have prophetically wrote about his death, but I don't think he did. I think Joshua took up the writing of Deuteronomy, finished it. Because Deuteronomy is essentially a sermon. Deuteronomy is a sermon from Moses, and then at the end you've got this portion about the death of Moses.

Then you have the writings of Joshua, which come after. So you have this period of time. If Abraham's back here, and Moses is here, there's no Scripture there. Noah didn't have a daily Bible reading. He didn't have a Bible.

Abraham didn't have a daily Bible. Abraham didn't have a Bible, right? But they did have the Word of God. Because prior to the inscripturated Word, meaning the written Word, the men of God in their day would receive the Word of God audibly.

They would hear from God. Noah was told by God, go and build an ark out of gopher wood, cover it with pitch, take your family, get inside. Noah heard it, believed it, did it. Abraham actually got to eat with God.