Book of Genesis - Ch. 15, Vs. 1-21 (08/20/2000)

Park Meadows Church

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Genesis chapter 15. I need to ask you, you can leave those on,

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I think. Okay. Who wanted them off?

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I did? Well, that's when Deborah's here.

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Now, the reason why we moved over here instead of over there, that sunlight coming through the window, she couldn't see me at all.

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She just saw a black object because of the light. But she's not here, so we'll do what we want to.

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What company is it that will give you a guaranteed lifetime work, also guarantee you full payment forever, and then will make all of the decisions for you?

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Let me repeat that. There is a company in existence that will give you a guaranteed lifetime work, guarantee full payment forever, and then will make all of your decisions.

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You don't know?

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Well, figure it out for next week. Chapter 15.

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You know, David, I've discovered something this past two weeks, that for some

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Christians, it takes a mountain of faith to move a mustard seed.

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After these things, the word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision, saying, we're in competition against somebody.

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Let me start over. No? We're going to vote on her then.

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We have just started with Genesis 15. After these things, the word of the

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Lord came unto Abram in a vision, saying, fear not. Fear not,

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Abram. I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward. You see anything there that's a little bit different?

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I guess not. So maybe I was the only one that it was different for.

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Yes, exceeding great reward. But what is the reward? Himself.

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He's not the only, he doesn't only bring the reward. He is the reward.

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And he told Abram that. I am your reward. The fact that God himself is and will be a shield to his people.

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To protect them from all evils. A shield not only to them, but a shield around about them.

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Should silence all mysterious, agonizing fears.

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Now we believe that. God help us to believe our belief.

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You know, you have to believe with a believing belief. And Abram said,

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Lord God, what wilt thou give me? Seeing I go childless and the spirit of my house is

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Eleazar of Damascus. And Abram said, behold, to me thou hast given no seed.

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And lo, one born in my house is mine heir. This servant from Damascus, he probably acquired in one of his battles as he moved across the country.

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So the word of the Lord comes to him now. And behold, the word of the

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Lord came unto him saying, this shall not be thine heir, but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir.

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In other words, you yourself will have a child with your wife and that child will be your heir.

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Now he does not tell him that it's going to be a special conception.

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He just says from you, didn't include his wife, just from you, there shall be one.

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Which gives a little bit of credence to what he and Sarah decided later. And he brought him forth abroad and he said, look now toward heaven, tell the stars if you're able to number them.

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And he said, so shall thy seed be. Bill, I meant to look up ahead of time and I have at one time or other, and maybe you know on a good starry night when there's no clouds, no moon, approximately how many stars are visible from any one place?

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5 ,000, 800 ,000. I saw a time exposure once.

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Boy, I'm glad you're here. Not that I believe you, but I'm glad you're here.

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I saw a time exposure once made of a sky at night and the camera followed the movement of the earth.

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So there was no blurring to it. And the stars, of course, the longer you expose the film, the weaker stars would begin to show up.

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And the sky was literally covered with them. It's just like, well, you could determine that there were spots, but you really had to look to see a blank spot.

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All the rest of it is full of stars. So just what we can see is not near any, anywhere near all of them.

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And he tells Abram now to come out and look. Now, he did not have a telescope.

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He just come out and looked. Yes. I don't believe man could do that.

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Do you? So shall thy seed be.

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Now, David, what seed is he talking about? Talking about his, uh,

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I don't know. That's right.

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The physical seed, the descendants. And he believed in the

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Lord and he counted it to him for righteousness. He being God or the

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Lord God counted it. And it is his faith, not his belief, his faith.

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To him for righteousness. And only God could do that. Abraham could not, or Abram could not count his own faith to his own self for righteousness.

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And he said unto him, I am the Lord. I am the

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Lord that brought thee out of the Ur of Chaldeas. So do you remember that Abram?

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To give thee this land, to inherit it. Think back each of you from where the

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Lord has brought you in the last six months, in the last 60 years, think back to where you were.

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Know for assurance that you belong to God. You are his and he bought you.

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He made you, then he bought you. And he said,

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Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it? Still Abram, he believed

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God, but he said, how am I going to know? God said, I just told you.

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He said, yes, but how am I going to know? I want something that I can actually know that this land is to be mine and my descendants.

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Well, I take it that this did not proceed from distrust of God on the part of Abram from where promise had been made.

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It seems as though Abram was a little different than any of the rest of us. He had to have a sign and we don't, do we?

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What are you laughing for? Well, he needed it for the, to strengthen.

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And here he prays, Lord, help me against my unbelief. Now he believed, but he desired a sign to be treasured up against an hour of temptation.

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Now we're coming to something very personal. He wanted a sign so that when a temptation come along, he could rely on that sign to remember what the

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Lord had told him. He also wanted it to ratify for the ratification of the promise to his posterity, those that will come after him.

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So he does believe that he will have a son, but he wants them to believe it also.

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And let me ask you something as a young boy or girl, did you ever carry a lucky corn, a lucky coin or wear a special ring or rabbit's foot?

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Nobody ever did that or anything like it. Did you ever put a penny in your shoe?

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Yeah, you wouldn't do anything like that, would you? This is the idea

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Abram had. He wants something he can feel, touch, smell, look at to remind him of something he might forget.

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But we have something that keeps us from forgetting who we are.

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What is it? What? Who said that?

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Raise your hand when you're going to speak, will you? All right. Okay. Now don't hold up two fingers.

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Okay. We have the Holy Spirit. He is right along beside us.

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He travels with us wherever we go. He gets in the car with you, sits down at the table with you.

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How far are you going to let me go? He's in you.

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So wherever you go, He is. He is the one that discerns between right and wrong.

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He is the one that guides God's people. He is not the one guiding

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Satan's people. It's hard to tell the difference sometimes for us because they might seem so righteous and so holy say such good things and not one bit of Holy Spirit about them.

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They've learned our vocabulary, but they do not have our dictionary.

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Nine, and he said unto him, take me a heifer of three years old, and a she -goat three years old, and a ram three years old, and a turtle dove and a young pigeon.

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David, why is a three -year -old? Anybody?

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What? Who's talking?

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Now say it again. All right.

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They have to be mature. It's worthy to remark here also that every animal commanded to be sacrificed under the

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Mosaic law is found in this list. Is this not proof that God is now laying a foundation with Abram for what he will expand and expound upon with Moses?

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The idolatrous nations are compared in scripture to the bulls and the rams and the goats.

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The dove and the birds represents

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Israel. Let me give you two or three scripture that'll help you understand that.

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Psalms 22, 12. Just write it down. Daniel 8, 20 and 21 and the song of Solomon 2, 14.

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So Abram took all of these and he divided them in the midst.

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In other words, John, he split them lengthwise and he laid each piece one against the other, but the birds divided he not.

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With thee will I establish my covenant, God had told him. The word tarbereth means to purify or to cleanse, signifies probably a purification or a purifier because in all covenants made between God and man, now listen close because you're going to find out the reason for a sacrifice.

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In all of the covenants made between God and man, sin and sinfulness are ever on the side of man, not on the side of God.

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Well, that's easy to understand. That in the covenant, the side of man represents sin, right?

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Now, can God enter into a covenant directly with sinful man?

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Somebody say no. So what is required?

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Sacrifice. A mediator. In the old Testament, it was a sacrifice.

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It is the mediator. So the covenant demands, in this case, a sacrifice, which is a purifier.

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Hence, in all of the covenants, a sacrifice was offered for the removal of offenses on the man's side and the reconciliation of the sinner to God.

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And hence, the word signifies not only a covenant, but also the sacrifice offered on the occasion was a purifier.

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That's why a sacrifice was always necessary between God and man, because God will not deal directly with man.

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Man cannot deal directly with God. It must go through something.

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In our case, Jesus Christ and the blood of Christ is that reconciliation between us and God, the purifier, if you please.

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In the eyes of the Father, we stand pure and holy because he sees us through the blood of Christ.

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In Abram's day now, they could not, if they had an agreement between two men, they could not go to the courthouse.

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They didn't have a notary public, didn't even have the seal of a notary public.

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So a sacrifice was used. If you bought land or cattle or whatever, and the two parties involved, they would have a sacrifice to seal the agreement.

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Animals were prepared to be burnt, and it was always on two altars with space in between the altars for a man to walk.

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The sacrifice was cut in half. Each piece was placed on the altar, one half on one side, one half on the other.

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Space was left for them to walk down between, and as the burning was taking place, the two parties would approach each other with a torch, lighted torch, and this would seal the agreement.

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Now the agreement was this, between men, that if either party broke the contract, they were willing to be cut and burnt just as the animal was burning now.

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That would make it pretty binding, wouldn't it not? Do you understand what

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I said? This particular event with Abram involved the

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Lord God only. Abram had nothing to do with it. It was a promise made without any action on Abram's part whatsoever.

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The promise is found in Genesis 13, 6, and I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth, so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered.

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Now let me ask you, how do we know that the art of sacrificing was of the

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Lord in its original instructions? How do we know that? Great.

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But how do we know that man had not conjured up the art of sacrifice?

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Right. There can be no false unless there is a truth. So we can safely assume that the

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Lord himself instructed Abram, he instructed Adam, in the art of sacrifice.

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If it were not that way, would God accept it? No, because it'd be man -made and he accepts nothing from man.

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Verse 11, and when the fowls came down upon the carcasses, Abram drove them away.

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Why did he do that, Virge? Because what?

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Bill, why would he drive them away? Sin or evil, standing in between them.

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But I'm not sure. I've been in trouble with somebody in the great beginning of this semester, that he feels like he's got to do something.

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Above and beyond what God's plan for the world, he's going to show us that down the way.

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And I'm just wondering aloud if it was necessary for him to drive the birds away. Dr. Turner came to sacrifice.

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Oh yeah. So was he driving the birds away because he thought God needed his help, or for some other reason?

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No, it wasn't because God would need the help. Well, I know, I didn't mean to imply that God needed his help, but did

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Abraham think that God needed his help now, or? I think the lesson from the fact that Abraham protected it from the worldly varmints was that when we're about the

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Lord's work, we must be sure to not let anything interfere. Don't let something distract you.

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Don't try to add to it. Don't try to stop it. You do just exactly as the

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Lord has laid it out. See, the method is just as important as the accomplishment of it, perhaps even more.

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If the method is followed, the accomplishment comes. So it's not enough just to present to him the end results.

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It must be as he has demanded that it be procured. So the end does not justify the means.

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Your brother Otis, though, was Abraham interfering, or was he supposed to be doing this? I mean, that's when he was driving the

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Bible. How about I'll say the world or something. Was he interfering with God? No, no, not at all.

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He was protecting that which was sacrificed unto

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God from the world. The sacrifices weren't burned at all.

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They weren't burned off at this time. There's still flesh that's laid on the altar. Right, it has not burned yet.

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That's when it was buried. That's right. And that's when we're attacked is at the beginning of any project, anything that we do.

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The easiest time is immediately for Satan to come in, not when it has already practically been finished.

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So I said, anytime we're about the Lord's work, when are we not about the Lord's work?

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When we're sleeping. No. When we're sitting. In other words, she just told us that when she sleeps, she sins.

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There is no time we're not about the Lord's work. I'll be sure you do it willingly.

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And when the sun was going down, now remember Abram could do nothing. All he could possibly do was to protect it and say,

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I know he's coming. I just don't know when. And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram.

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And lo, a horror of great darkness fell upon him. This deep sleep is exactly the same that you undergo in surgery.

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When the anesthetist puts you to sleep, they, the most important person in surgery is that anesthetist, anesthesiologist, because they kill you.

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They literally kill you and hold you just above death. Now, this is the same state in which he put

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Adam when he made Eve a deep sleep. This darkness that Abram sees, what do you suppose that could represent?

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Anybody? In his state, that separated from God. All right.

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It represents the coming bondage of the descendants of Abram.

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Because he goes on to tell him, and he said unto Abram, know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs.

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What's that speak to? And shall serve them and they shall afflict them 400 years.

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What's that refer to? And also that nation whom they shall serve.

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Well, I judge. And afterwards shall they come out with great substance.

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So he has just given to Abram the entire history of the people of Egypt until they leave bondage.

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And thou shall go to thy fathers in peace. Thou shall be buried in a good old age.

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What does the 15th verse have to say about the soul of man?

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John, he's looking for the word soul.

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Greg, that's right.

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How does it show that it's immortal? All right.

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I hope all of you see that. Look for things that are not printed. But in the fourth generation, they shall come hither again.

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For the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.

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The iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. Can someone show me how that teaches predestination?

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I'm sure he did. He was telling it right there. Even for the wicked.

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And it came to pass that when the sun went down and it was dark, behold, a smoking furnace and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces.

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Now, since Abram's not involved in it, he could not be one of those.

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So this is God himself ratifying the covenant.

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In the same day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram saying unto thy seed, have

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I given this land from a river of Egypt, the

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Nile, unto the great river, the river Euphrates. Have you ever looked that up on the map?

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You can see the width of their country. The Kenites, Kenazites, the

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Kadamites, Hittites, Prezites, Refrums, Amorites, Canaanites, Gergesites, Jebusites, and any other ites that might be there.

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Now, this land is full of people.

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Why? What do you mean taking care of it?

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Okay. From that, we learned this. The world is keeping all things in working order for us.

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They keep them oiled. They invent them. They put them on the shelf.

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They keep them cataloged, everything. And when it's needed by one of us, the

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Lord moves it off of that shelf and brings it to us. All ready to go.

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That's one purpose of the world. These people who are here, we're keeping this land in good shape for the children of Israel.

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And they are coming. All right, that's the end of today's lesson.

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Is there anything you would have to say or to ask?

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Also, I noticed that they went to a barren land. It wouldn't show

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God's power. They all inhabited it. They had to go over and conquer the land, take the land.

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God's might, it showed the rest of the world, the power of God's might. That's right.

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Anything else? If I may?

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Yes. I was still kind of looking, viewing from a sermon's point, and the activities of Abraham here, and the activities that are going to happen in the next chapter, where he and Sarah devise their own way.

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And he had sufficient faith in God. And it had been promised to him that his seed was going to be so plentiful.

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And he wasn't given any special instructions as to what he should do. That he should have known that God would take care of everything to see that he didn't have to go over and devise his own plan.

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All right? Right. And so in some ways, he's going to be punished for he and Sarah devising their own plan that was not

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God's plan. That's right. Now, that speaks to one kind of lesson. That's what

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I'm trying to get to the other question. He was also not given any instructions that I could serve to drive off the vultures.

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All right. That God said for him was to lay out the sacrifice for the way.

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Was he, and I know you've already addressed this, that there is something that there are things that we need to do.

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But was he kind of making up his own plan again? Or was he, do you think he was given instructions to protect?

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We have such a thing as good common sense. It would be a natural reaction for me if God had something here in front of me for me to try to protect it.

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When I know he does not need protection for anything, but we find no place where God reprimanded him for it.

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And it was natural that the birds of prey would come. And as far as I've been able to determine, there was nothing to prohibit him from doing that or to encourage him to do it.

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It's just something that occurred. Yes. That's true.

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And your description of the altar and the sacrifices is true. But I was trying to keep from using the word guts.

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There's some things that I don't want to teach you. Anything else?

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That was good, Russ. Then let's stand. Bill, would you dismiss us, please?

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Most gracious heavenly father, thank you for providing for us another beautiful day full of fellowship and study and hopefully for all of us in life.

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God help bring us closer to you. Help us make each day as we go through life a time of good more than betraying, but a time of doing things for your service.

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Yes, in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you.