Keep sharing good news without ads.
Bro. Bill Nichols
Morning. This morning we're going to look at the middle part of chapter 11 of Hebrews.
We'll begin with verse 8. By faith
Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed, and went out, not knowing whither he went.
Now in some small way, this verse defines faith. It's obedience because of what you believe, not because of what you know.
And one thing that's important to keep in mind as we go forward today and look at all the faith that's shown by all of the people that we're going to talk about, what faith is it that is on display?
Is it the faith of the individual or is it some other faith? But in any case, let's pray.
Most gracious heavenly Father, thank you for this day and thank you for giving us your son who came into the world to bear the burden of our sin, to give us a pathway to redemption, to give us salvation.
Thank you for giving us the Holy Spirit that he left behind when he ascended, gave to us to allow us to draw closer to you as we worship you and study your holy word by giving us the ability to understand those things that you want us to understand.
Lord, we love you. We honor you.
We worship you. And most of all, we want to draw near to you.
Bless us and keep us and go through the service today. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
Now we're going to drop back into Genesis chapter 12 verse 1 and we're going to start with what the
Lord spoke to Abram. Genesis 12 verse 1.
Now the Lord had said unto Abram, get thee out of thy country. I'm going to stop there and ask a question.
It says the Lord had said. That implies that he had said it earlier. Why is he saying it again?
Why do you think the Lord is saying again to Abram, get thee out of thy country?
He hadn't gone yet. Abraham had not yet obeyed. So what was he instructed to do?
Get thee out of the country and from thy kindred and from thy father's house unto a land that I will show you and I will make of thee a great nation.
Now I underlined the phrase from thy father's house.
That just doesn't mean just the building. That means the people. When he talks about the house, he's talking about the people.
And he says I will make of thee a great nation and I will bless thee and I will make thy name great and thou shall be a blessing and I will bless them that bless thee and curse him that curseth thee and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.
So now what are the promises? He says, I will show you a land. I will make thee a great nation.
I will bless thee. I will make thy name great. I will bless them that bless thee and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.
So my question is, how many of these promises did Abram believe?
Well, we really don't know. I suspect he believed them all. If he believed them all, the next question is, did he obey?
Well, what I said was eventually. Almost. He almost obeyed.
How many did he obey? How many of the things that the Lord asked him to do did he do?
Let's go back and look at what the Lord said for him to do. He said, get thee out of the country. He hasn't done that yet, but he's going to.
And from thy kindred and from thy father's house into a land that I will show you.
That's what he asked him to do. So what did he do? He's almost obedient.
He obeyed three out of the four. And I've got one more question.
Is almost obedient, obedience, or is it disobedience?
Well, it's disobedience. So in which one of those was he disobedient, not leaving his family?
Look at verse four. And Abram departed as the Lord had spoken unto him.
So he left like the Lord told him to. Finally. Now, this is not the first time the Lord had told him to get out of town, but this is the time he obeyed.
And Lot went with him. And Abram was 75 years old when he departed out of Aran.
And Abram took Sarai, his wife. Well, you'd expect that. And Lot, his brother's son, and all their substance that they had gathered and the souls that they had gotten in Aran.
And went forth to go into the land of Canaan. And into the land of Canaan they came.
God had told Abram to leave Lot behind. He didn't spell him out by name, but he did say leave your kindred behind.
But Abram had a different plan. He took Lot with him and trouble tagged along.
Look ahead a chapter to chapter 13, verse 5 of Genesis, and we'll see the problem that occurred because he took
Lot with him. Now, he didn't just take
Lot. He took Lot and all of Lot's possessions. So here's what it says.
And Lot also, which went with Abram, had flocks and herds and tents.
And the land was not able to bear them, that they might dwell together, for their substance was great, so that they could not dwell together.
And there was strife between the herdsmen of Abram's cattle and the herdsmen of Lot's cattle.
And the Canaanite and the Perizzite dwelled in the land. And if we followed that trail on down, we would see what happened.
They decided to choose. And Abram gave Lot the choice. You can go down into the valley where all the green grass is, or you can stay up on a mountain.
Or you go, I'll go the other way. You go, I'll stay. You stay, I'll go. Lot looked down, saw the well -watered fields, and went to Sodom and Gomorrah, and dwelt there, and was in the city, needed to be removed when the
Lord came back to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. And even before that,
Lot and his family were kidnapped, captured when the kings captured
Sodom. And Abram took his arm and went and fetched him back. And Lot stayed anyhow.
Lot liked it down there. Okay. So he kind of disobeyed.
He didn't obey fully what the Lord asked him. And so now I have one more question. When Abram disobeyed, did he invalidate his covenant with God?
You say no. Why not? What was there about the covenant that disallowed
Abram from disavowing it? It wasn't a covenant between Abram and God, was it?
It was a covenant between Jesus and God, with Jesus standing in the place of Abram.
And so when Abram sinned by disobedience, where did that sin find itself resting?
On Jesus. And when Jesus was crucified, he paid for that sin of Abram.
Abram could not have broken the covenant had he wanted to. He was not involved in it.
And that's something that can be comforting to us.
We can't break our covenant either. And one more question.
Did Abram's disobedience bring complications and problems into his life?
We talked about one of them. He had to go retrieve Lot from the kings that took him.
He brings him out, and Lot goes back to Sodom.
And then when the angel came, he had to dicker with the angel. He did dicker with the angel in order to arrange a possibility to save Sodom, but that didn't happen.
So he had to go, somebody had to go down and retrieve Lot and bring him out of Sodom before the
Lord could destroy it. And all of that happened. These are complications that were brought into the life of Abram because of his disobedience.
And that's a lesson for us. Disobedience brings consequences.
Although the disobedience may be forgiven, the consequences often remain.
There's hundreds of examples we could give that we could list where we were disobedient in something, something happened, the
Lord forgave us, but the consequences remained. Okay, back to Hebrews 11 9.
By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles, that's tense, with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise.
Okay, back to Genesis 12 verse 6. And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Shechem, unto the plain of Moriah.
And the Canaanite was then in the land. And the Lord appeared to Abram and said,
Unto thy seed will I give this land. Now that's another affirmation of the fact that the land belongs to Abram and his seed.
And Abram built, and there built he an altar unto the
Lord, who appeared unto him. And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, having
Bethel on the west, and Ai on the east. Now that Ai is spelled a little bit differently than it will be spelled in a couple of chapters later in Joshua.
Anybody remember the city of Ai? That's the city where just after Joshua and the
Israelites marched around Jericho and destroyed Jericho, they look up on the hill and there's this little town.
This little town of Ai. It's just the same town. The same town where Joshua got his comeuppance by believing that he was able with his intellect, with his power, with his ability to deliver.
But he couldn't. In any case, and there he built an altar unto the
Lord and called upon the name of the Lord. And Abram journeyed going on still toward the south.
Now why is he still, why is he wandering around through this city, through this country?
The country has been given to him. Why is he wandering around? Well, verse 10 of Hebrews tells us, for he looked for a city which had foundations whose builder and maker is
God. You see, he recognized something already. It wasn't the physical city of Jerusalem that he was looking for.
It was not the city of Jericho. It was not the country of Judea. It was a city which had foundations whose builder and maker is
God. Hebrews 12 .22 points that out to us. Hebrews 12 .22,
but ye are come unto Mount Zion and unto the city of the living
God, the heavenly Jerusalem, not the earthly Jerusalem, the heavenly
Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly in the church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirit of just men made perfect or made complete, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant.
That's what he's searching for. He's searching for a new and a better place.
He's not searching for the land of Judea. He's looking for a new and better place.
It's like we all are. We here look around, and we look at the United States of America, and we see a blessed country.
We see a country that God has created, has treated very well, and we love this country, and sometimes we forget that we're not really citizens of this country.
We're citizens of a greater country. We're citizens of a heavenly country. Whatever happens to this country, good or bad, only affects us temporarily, but what our relation is with the new heavenly city will be eternal, and then we get to verse 11 and Sarah.
Through faith also Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed and was delivered of a child when she was past age because she judged him fateful who had promised.
All right. Through faith, Sarah received strength to conceive, and as I read that,
I thought, wow, this is kind of a get out of jail free card to me.
How often did Sarah disbelieve? I think
Dave Huber last week dealt with this. She laughed.
Abram laughed too, but Abram's laughter was a different laughter than her laughter.
His laughter was a laughter of excitement of joy. Her laughter was a laughter of disbelief.
She couldn't believe. I mean, she's at this point 90 years old.
Abram's 100, actually 99. She couldn't believe, and she points out why she couldn't believe, but at some point, she does believe because Peter in 1
Peter 3 .5 talks about her specifically. I'm going to read that after I read 11 again.
Through faith also Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed and was delivered a child when she was past age because she judged him fateful who had promised.
Now, here's what Peter says in 1 Peter 3 .5. For after this matter in old time, the holy one also who trusted in God adorned themselves, being in the subjugation and to their own husbands, even as Sarah obeyed
Abraham, calling him Lord, whose daughters you are, as long as you do well and are not afraid with any amazement.
So Peter said that she had faith. Verse 12.
Wherefore sprang there even of one, that one is Abraham, and him as good as dead, 99 years old, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sands which is by the sea, sure innumerable.
Verse 17 of Genesis. And when
Abram was 90 years old and nine, Abram is 99, the
Lord appeared to Abram and said unto him, I am the almighty God. Walk before me and be thou perfect, be thou complete.
And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and I will multiply thee exceedingly.
And Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying, As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations.
Now here is a man 99 years old. He has one child by now.
Esau has been born already. Not Esau. What was his name?
Ishmael. Thank you. Ishmael was born already. And that was as a sign of disbelief of Sarah, wasn't it?
It was at her insistence. She says, I'm well beyond bearing children. Go ahead and have a child with my handmaid.
And she and Abram disobeyed and brought more problems into their lives.
Problems that exist even today. As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations.
Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be
Abraham. For a father of many nations have I made thee. And I will make thee exceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee.
And I will establish my covenant between me and thee, and thy seed after thee in their generations, for an everlasting covenant to be a
God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee. And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Cana, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their
God. Now, this covenant that God is going to establish with Abraham has four elements that it deals with the seed.
I will establish my covenant between me and thee, and thy seed after thee.
Well, who is this seed after Abraham? Well, in one sense, it's
Jesus and only Jesus. But in another sense, it's all of the elect. Galatians 3, 8 says this, and the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith preached before the gospel unto
Abraham saying, in thee shall all nations be blessed. So, in one sense, the seed is all of the believers in all of the nations that God has foreordained, has chosen.
And then we go down just a couple of verses in Galatians, to Galatians 3, 16, and he focuses entirely.
Now, to Abraham and his seed were promises made. He saith not to seeds as of many, but as one, and to thy seed, which is
Christ. So, whoever it was that said it was Christ, you're right in that sense. When you focus in, it's really
Christ. But how can it be both? How can it be to all of the seed that's talked about in Galatians 8 and to Jesus Christ Himself, only that one, in the same chapter in Galatians written by the same man, written on the same day when he says, and to Christ.
How can we be the seed of Abraham? We're his seed.
Mathematicians like to say, if and only if we're in Christ.
If we're in Christ, we are the seed of Abraham. And if we're not in Christ, we're not.
The only way that we can be a seed of Abraham is to be in Christ. Now, number two, the second element of this promise is the land.
In Genesis 17, 8, it says, I will give unto thee and to thy seed after thee the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Cana, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their
God. Now, you know how much land that is? That's all the land from Mediterranean Sea all the way over to Iraq, to the
Euphrates River. It doesn't end at the Jordan River.
It doesn't stop there. It goes all the way to the Euphrates.
And I will give unto thee and to the seed after thee the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Cana, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their
God. Now, the third element is a nation or actually many nations.
Genesis 17, 4, As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations.
And the fourth element is divine blessing and protection.
Genesis 12, 13, And I will bless them that bless thee, and I will curse him that curseth thee, and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.
So that's the covenant. That's the set of promises that God made to Abraham and ultimately to us.
Verse 13 of Hebrews. These all died. Now, these are
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
These were the three. These all died in faith, not having received the promise, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.
So they all understood that they were looking for a new heavenly city.
The promises were made first to Abraham, passed on to Isaac, then to Jacob, and ultimately to us, all of the elect.
The promise to Abraham in Genesis 12, 7.
The Lord appeared to Abraham and said unto thy seed, I will give this land.
And there he built it in our altar unto the Lord who appeared unto him. And the second promise in 17 for Genesis.
My covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations. Neither shall not a name be called
Abraham anymore, but thy name shall be Abraham. For a father of many nations have I made thee. The promise to Isaac.
You see, the promise was affirmed to each one of these patriarchs, and in fact, it is also affirmed to us.
So Abraham was told many times what he was going to inherit. So let's go to Genesis 26 and look at Isaac and his promise.
The promise God made to Abraham that was passed down from Abraham down to Isaac.
And there was a famine in the land besides the first famine that was in the days of Abraham.
So you know right away this is not talking about Abraham. And Isaac went down to Abimelech, the king of the
Philistines, and Gerar. And the Lord appeared unto him and said,
Go not down into Egypt. Dwell in the land of which I shall tell thee of. Sojourn in this land, and I will be with thee, and I will bless thee.
For unto thee and unto thy seed I will give all these countries. And I will perform the oath which
I swear unto Abraham thy father. And I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven.
And I will give unto thy seed all these countries. And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.
Because that Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.
So Isaac gets a reaffirmation of the promise made to Abraham.
Now we go a couple more verses down in chapters down into Genesis. Genesis 28 10.
And we'll see a new reaffirmation. The promise to Jacob.
And Jacob went out from Bathsheba and went toward Haran. And he lighted upon a certain place, and he tarried there all night, because the sun was set.
And he took of the stones of that place, and he put them for his pillow, and he lay down at that place to sleep.
I can just imagine sleeping with a rock for your pillow. And he dreamed.
And behold, a ladder set up on earth, and the top of it reached to heaven.
And behold, angels of God ascending and descending on it. And behold, the
Lord stood above it and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the
God of Isaac, the land whereon thou liest, I will give it to thee, and to thy seed.
So he's promised the land again, now to Jacob. So we've got the promise made to Abraham.
We've got the promise confirmed to Isaac, and reconfirmed to Jacob. And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west and to the east, and to the north and to the south, and in thee, and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.
And behold, I am with thee, and I will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again unto this land.
For I will not leave thee until I have done that of which I have spoken to thee of.
So he's reaffirmed the promise to Jacob. And now we're going to go to the
New Testament and get the promise to all of the elect. This will be in Romans 4 .17.
Romans 4 .17. As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations before him whom he believed, even
God who quickens the dead and call those things which be not as though they were, who against hope believed in hope that he might become the father of many nations.
According to that which was spoken, so shall thy seed be. And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, or as good as dead, when he was about a hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb, she was ninety, he staggered not at the promise of God wrought through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully persuaded that what he had promised, that's what
God had promised, he was able to perform. And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness.
Now here's the verse we were looking for. Verse 23. Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him, but for us also to whom it shall be imputed if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our
Lord from the dead, who was delivered for our offenses.
He was crucified for our offenses and was raised again for our justification.
Now I've got a good bit more to go, but I think
I want to stop here because we can't possibly get through. We still got Abraham and the episode on Mount.
No, I'm going to go ahead and get the name, and that's a good ways down.
It was, the name I want is, well, maybe
I won't find it, Jehovah -Jireh.
And Adam called the name of that place Jehovah -Jireh. As it is said to this day, in the mount of the
Lord it shall be seen. Now why did Abraham call that mountain
Mount Jehovah -Jireh? He had been willing to offer his son, his only son, the seed through which
God had said to this man will the seed pass.
If he offers that man as a sacrifice, what happens to God's original promise?
Either one or two things. Either it had to be voided, actually one of three things.
It would have to be voided, or there would have had to been a substitute for it.
God for Abraham produced a substitute for his son.
For us, God also provides a substitute for us.
And on this very same mountain, over 2 ,000 years later, the same mountain where Abraham offered his son and the
Lord provided a substitute, on that same mountain 2 ,000 years later,
Jesus offered himself as the substitute for our sins.
And I think I want to kind of leave it there. We'll go back and cover all this next week, but we were a little late getting started and we can't possibly get that far.
You saw how long it took me just to scroll down to it. Any comments or questions or things that you'd like to add?
If not, let us pray. Most gracious Heavenly Father, thank you for bringing us together. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to study your
Holy Word. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to worship you, to draw closer to you by the study of your
Word. Bless us as we go through the service a little later today. Bless Brother David as he presents the message and have him present the very message that he wants to present and the very message that we need to hear.