Abraham’s Promised Seed (Selected Scriptures) | Worship Service

Psalm 72 and the Call to Worship

Welcome to Kootenai Church, we're glad you're here today.

The psalmist says in Psalm 72, blessed be Yahweh God, the God of Israel, who alone works wondrous deeds, and blessed be his glorious name forever. And may the whole earth be filled with his glory, amen and amen.

Would you please stand as we sing blessed be your name.

Just one announcement for you and that is that the spring registration, the spring conference registration is open. Talked about that last week at our business meeting. So you can go to the church website and register there.

If you need a discount code for being part of Kootenai Community Church, you can get that from myself or from Josh or from Marsha or from Kathy. Anyone of them will be able to give that to you. And I think we have arranged and I might be wrong about this, to have somebody taking registrations in the foyer.

If you need help getting online and paying for that, then you can see somebody who's supposed to be set up in the foyer today. And if it's not this week, it'll be next week for sure. Turn please to Hebrews chapter 11 verse 8 for the scripture reading.

Hebrews 11 verse 8. We're going to read together from verse 8 through verse 22. Hebrews 11 verse 8, by faith Abraham when he was called obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance and he went out not knowing where he was going.

By faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise as in a foreign land dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob fellow heirs of the same promise for he was looking for the city which has foundations whose architect and builder is God.

By faith even Sarah herself received ability to conceive even beyond the proper time of life since she considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore there was born even of one man and him as good as dead at that as many descendants as the stars of heaven in number and innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore.

All these died in faith without receiving the promises but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own and indeed if they had been thinking of that country from which they had went out they would have had opportunity to return but as it is they desired a better country that is a heavenly one.

Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God for he has prepared a city for them. By faith Abraham when he was tested offered up Isaac and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son.

It was he to whom it was said in Isaac your descendants shall be called. He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead by which he also received him back as a type. By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau even regarding things to come.

By faith Jacob as he was dying blessed each of the sons of Joseph and worshipped leaning on the top of his staff. By faith Joseph when he was dying made mention of the exodus of the sons of Israel and gave orders concerning his bones.

Will you stand with me as we pray? Let's bow our heads. Our Father you are a great God merciful true kind and good in all of your dealings. You are sovereign and majestic and powerful and mighty and you are a God who makes promises and keeps promises.

You are a God who has ordained all things that are coming to pass and we thank you that we live in a world that is under your sovereign control. You rule all things by the word of your power and you uphold all things by the word of your power and we are grateful that we serve such a God and that we can entrust our times, our days, our lives in this world and our life to come into your hands.

We know that you will accomplish your every purpose concerning us, your people, the nation of Israel, your church. We thank you that you are working all things according to your own purposes for your own glory and we can rest in your sovereignty.

Thank you that you are good towards those who have named the name of Christ and are included in what he has done by virtue of faith and repentance. We thank you that you are faithful to your word that you always keep it and we thank you that you have worked in our hearts to bring us to salvation.

And while the world around us seems to be falling apart we know that everything is unfolding according to your plan and that you are even right now accomplishing your every good pleasure in this world ultimately to bring to pass the blessed hope and that is the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.

Keep us faithful in this world to live as strangers and aliens in this land, to live by faith and to walk in obedience to you that you may be glorified in and through your church and to our lives both now and forever we pray in Christ's name.

Amen.

In closing we're going to sing the song that we introduced a few weeks ago called Christ will be my hideaway and that song comes from Psalm 91 and we're going to read Psalm 91 14 through 16. Because he has loved me therefore I will protect him and I will set him securely on high because he has known my name Yahweh.

He will call upon me and I will answer him. I will be with him in his distress. I will rescue him and honor him with a long life.

I will satisfy him and I will show him my salvation. Let's begin with a word of prayer.

Before we open our Bibles. Our Father we ask now that you would show us your nature, your glory, your goodness, your mercy, your grace, your eternal plan, redemption that we may know you more and worship you as you are revealed in the word of God.

We pray that our hearts and minds would be conformed to scripture and that all that is said and all that is done here may be an encouragement to us as we see you and your work in history. Bless we pray this time and our study together and give us illumination in your word.

Open our minds and our hearts to it that we may understand and obey and love you more we ask in Christ's.

Name. Amen.

The Abrahamic Covenant and the Question of the Promised Seed

Turn now if you will please back to Genesis chapter 17. You may have been expecting me to say turn to Hebrews chapter 11. There's a reason we're going back to Genesis chapter 17 and that is that as I was going through Hebrews 11 this week I realized that we started to pull a little bit of a thread in Genesis last week and we didn't quite pull all of the thread in Genesis last week.

So while I only said about 1 of what could be said about Abraham and his significance, I really said about half of what needed to be said about Abraham and his significance. So we're going back to pick up where we left off last week and I sort of hit the brakes and changed gears midstream, the middle of this week, which is a little bit of an odd thing for me to do, but I just realized that we have a lot of unvisited stuff yet in the book of Genesis that we needed to follow all the way through to the end so that we can understand that the promises that God gave to Abraham then went on through Isaac and Jacob and Joseph.

And so we just want to follow that, keep pulling that thread until we get at least to the end of the book of Genesis. And I have more material this week that I need to cover than I did last week. Last week's sermon was longer than normal, which means that we have to hit the 1 .5 button today on the sermon so that we can get through everything that I have prepared here for this morning.

So back in Genesis chapter 17. We looked last week at the call of Abraham in Genesis 12 and 13 and 15 and 17, that in Genesis 12 there is the skeletal outline of the Abrahamic covenant that is given as God promises to Abraham physical descendants which would outnumber the sand of the seashore and that nations would come from him.

And then God promised him a land that he had not yet seen and not yet been to. And then God promised him that through him in some way all the nations of the world of the earth would be blessed. And that's the basic outline, the skeleton of the Abrahamic covenant.

But then as we go into chapter 13 and 15 and then 17, the Lord adds more and more details to that covenant as Abraham moves into the land and begins to see it for himself and God gives him more and more revelation.

And we saw that there were details that were added to that like the boundaries of the land from the river Euphrates all the way through to the great river in Egypt. Abraham was told that nations would come to him, that kings would come to him, that the heirs of the promise would be in slavery in another nation and that they would then spend 400 years there and then come out plundering that nation.

And that Abraham himself would never see this but he would die before he ever actually possessed the land. But then his descendants would possess it and possess it forever. And that everything that Abraham was being told was part of an everlasting covenant.

And all of the promises that God gave to Abraham in Genesis 12, 13, 15, and 17, in those four chapters, every promise that has been fulfilled to this day has been fulfilled literally just as the promise was given.

And if you want to know how future prophecy is going to be fulfilled, you need to look at how past prophecy has been fulfilled and I think that that is an indication as to what lies ahead. That tells us how it is that God fulfills the prophetic word.

But then we come to an interpretive question. Up to this point, that is Genesis chapter 17, the promises seem a little bit broad to this point because we might ask, okay, descendants of Abraham, Abraham had more than one son.

He had Isaac and he had Ishmael and then later on after Sarah died, he had other sons after that and we're going to look at some of that before we're done. And so to which of those descendants was this promise given?

Do all of the descendants of Abraham inherit that land? And if it is to all of the descendants of Abraham, then we might look at modern day Jordan and Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and Turkey and we might say, okay, so it looks to me as if that promise has been fulfilled.

But if in fact it is only a narrow portion, some of Abraham's descendants and not all of them, then we would have to say up till today that that promise has not been fulfilled because the descendants of Isaac have not inhabited that land and possessed everything that Abraham was promised.

And then we also have to recognize that there is in Scripture a spiritual seed of Abraham. There are the spiritual children. Now, if you are a Jewish, of Jewish descent here this morning, and you are a believer in Christ, then you are both a physical descendant of Abraham as well as a spiritual descendant of Abraham.

But if you are like me, and there's probably not a Jew anywhere in your history, and you are as Gentile as Gentile can possibly be, but you have faith in Jesus Christ, then you are a spiritual descendant of Abraham.

And this is what Paul is talking about in Romans chapter 4 when he says in verse 11, and he, that is Abraham, received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while uncircumcised, so that he might be the father of all who believe without being circumcised.

That is to say he is the spiritual ancestor, the spiritual forefather of all who, apart from circumcision and trying to keep the law and being part of the physical descendants of Abraham, those who believe, they are the spiritual children of Abraham.

We look to Abraham and he is the father of all the faithful. In the physical sense he is the father of all of the Jewish nation, and so every Jew can trace their lineage back to Abraham. He is their physical father.

Of those who are outside of that lineage, me for instance, by virtue of faith in Jesus Christ, Abraham is my spiritual father. I look to him and say, he was a man who was made righteous in the sight of God, apart from circumcision, apart from being a descendant of anybody else, he was justified by faith and faith alone, so he is my spiritual father.

So Paul says in Romans chapter 4, for this reason, that is salvation, is by faith, in order that it may be in accordance with grace, so that the promise will be guaranteed to all the descendants, not only to those who are of the law, but to those who are of the faith of Abraham.

Now you might say, well all the descendants, wouldn't that be spiritual and physical? Paul in Romans chapter 4 is not talking about the land promise or the covenant promise there, he's talking about salvation.

It's Romans chapter 4, he's talking about salvation. So this promise of being justified by faith is for all those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, as it is written, a father of many nations have I made you in the presence of him whom he believed, even God who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist.

So Abraham is the spiritual father of all who believe in Christ, and if you are a Jew who believes in Christ, then he is your spiritual father as well as your physical father. If you are a Jew who does not believe in Christ, he is not your spiritual father, he is your physical father, and you are outside of Christ and therefore outside of the blessings of salvation, even though you might be a descendant of Abraham.

So we are spiritual descendants of Abraham. Do you remember the song, Abraham had many sons, and many sons had father Abraham, I am one of them and so are you? Okay, Josh wanted to sing that for worship today, and I said no.

We're not going to do that, because we do the right arm, left arm, right foot, left foot, spin around, fall down, people think we're a charismatic church. We're not going to sing that song. It might be true as far as it goes, but we're not going to sing that song.

So, is the land promised then to all of Abraham's seed, his physical as well as his spiritual descendants, or was that land promised to the physical seed of Abraham? What part then do the spiritual seed have in that promise?

That's an issue that we have to address before we get out of Hebrews chapter 11. Genesis chapter 17, let's pick it up where we left off, verse 1, now this is going to be a bit of a reiteration, I'm just getting this for context to kind of remind you of where we took off last week, we're going to, or where we landed last week, we're going to take off from the same landing strip, as it were.

Genesis 17, verse 1, now when Abraham was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to Abraham and said to him, I am God Almighty, walk before me and be blameless. That's not a condition of the covenant, that is simply a command.

Other people were commanded to be blameless as well. This is not saying if you walk before me and if you are blameless, I will do this. Remember that God had already sworn to Abraham, put Abraham to sleep, made the covenant with Abraham.

He had no part in any conditions to that, it was an unconditional covenant. So verse 2, I will establish my covenant between me and you and I will multiply you exceedingly. Abraham fell on his face and God talked with him saying, as for me, behold, my covenant is with you and you will be a father of a multitude of nations.

No longer shall your name be called Abraham, but your name shall be called Abraham, for I will make you the father of a multitude of nations. I have made you exceedingly fruitful and I will make nations of you and kings will come from you.

I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and to your descendants after you. I will give to you and to your descendants after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession and I will be their God.

Now, this is not a promise that is given to anybody, Abraham's physical seed. Genesis chapter 17, we're going to find out now, verse 9, we're going to find out now that it is not all of his physical seed that are included in this promise, but only some.

Verse 9, God said further to Abraham, now, as for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations. This is my covenant, which you shall keep between me and you and your descendants after you.

Every male among you shall be circumcised and you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin and it shall be the sign of the covenant between me and you and every male among you who is eight days old shall be circumcised throughout your generations.

A servant who is born in your house or who is brought with money from any foreigner who is not of your descendants, a servant who is born in your house or who is brought with money shall surely be circumcised, thus shall my covenant be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.

But an uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people, he has broken my covenant. So the circumcision was given as the sign of the covenant to Abraham, the covenant that was unconditional, the same covenant from Genesis chapter 15.

And circumcision had a wider application than just merely the sign of the covenant because not everybody who was circumcised was included in that promise because later on Abraham circumcised Ishmael and Ishmael is excluded from the land promise.

So while everybody who is included in the promised seed is circumcised, not everybody who is circumcised is included in the promise of the land and the descendants. That promise, that covenant is going to pass down through a specific lineage but Abraham was to observe the terms of that and the sign of that as a reminder of what God had promised to him throughout his generations.

This becomes obvious in the next section, verse 15, then God said to Abraham, as for Sarai, your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her and indeed I will give you a son by her, then I will bless her and she shall be a mother of nations.

Kings of peoples will come from her. Now here's the key, Ishmael by this point had already been born because Abraham had taken Hagar, Sarah's handmaid and had a child by her in an attempt to fulfill the word which God had given to him and to gain a descendant.

So Abraham by this point already had a descendant and now the Lord is reiterating the promise back to him that one coming from Sarah, not Hagar, will be the mother of this promised seed. Look at Abraham's response, Genesis 17 verse 17, then Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said in his heart, will a child be born to a man 100 years old and will Sarah who is 90 years old bear a child?

So they're 100 years old and 90 years old. Now I need to say something at this point about biblical time frames and ages of the patriarchs and I should have said this probably back in Genesis regarding Noah when we're talking about people living to be 900 years old.

We should not think when we read about the age of the patriarchs that somebody aged to be 90 years old and that they were the same 90 that you and I would be at 90. Because then if you think, okay so they lived to be 90 years old and then lived another 900 years after that, that rate of decay really makes for a bad long old age.

That's not the way that that worked out. The age, what would you call it, the age curve was about the same it was just stretched out over a longer period of time. So that in Adam's day a 900 year old man would be like a 90 year old man today because we die around 90 or 100 and I know that there's some wiggle room there but bear with me and a 900 year old person would be like a 90 year old.

I would be like a 500 year old person in Adam's day. Okay so the age curve is the same it's just stretched out over a longer period of time. The aging process was slowed down or was slower we should say in the early years.

So when it says that Sarah is 90 years old and Abraham is 100 years old, Abraham lived to be 175. So if we take the 175 and you mark it out to about 100 or 90 of what we would die today that means that when Abraham was 100 years old it would be like a 60 year old man today.

When Sarah was 90 years old it would be like somebody in their 50s today. So possible past the point of time where she would be able to conceive a child but not past the point of time where she would be able to give birth to a child.

So when it says that Sarah is 90 years old don't think of your grandmother giving birth to a child and carrying a child like that. It would be different. It would be as if a lady in her mid 50s or late 50s would bear a child.

Physically she would be able to do that. I'm not saying it would be easy. I just said physically she would be able to do that. I looked up there are people in modern today who have children in their 50s and even past the age of 60.

Now google it. It's scary. Genesis 17 verse 18, Abraham said to God, oh that Ishmael might live before you. He already had a son. So it's almost as if Abraham is saying we can make this really easy. I've got Ishmael.

He could be the one to whom you give all these promised blessings. That Ishmael may live before you. But God said no but Sarah your wife will bear a son and you shall call his name Isaac and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.

As for Ishmael I have heard you. Behold I will bless him and I will make him fruitful and will multiply him exceedingly. He shall become the father of 12 princes and I will make him a great nation. All of that unfolded exactly as it happened.

Verse 21, but my covenant I will establish with Isaac whom Sarah will bear to you at this season next year. And when he finished talking with him God went up from Abraham. So now the Lord has narrowed down who it is that's going to receive this.

Let Ishmael live before you. He could be the one. Nope. Sarah's going to bear a son. You'll call his name Isaac. I will establish my covenant, this eternal covenant that I have told you about back in chapter 12 and 13 and 15 and 17.

That covenant is going to be established with Isaac, not with Ishmael. So it is the physical descendants that the Lord is being very specific. It's the physical descendants of Abraham through Isaac that will receive the promise of this land and the promise of the blessings.

Not all the descendants of Abraham, only Isaac. So that rules out Ishmael and all of the nations, all of the kings, all of the countries that have come from Ishmael. They're ruled out of this. They're not included in this promise.

From Isaac to Jacob: The Covenant Line Narrows

Genesis chapter 22. This happens after, oh let me point out, Abraham had three wives or women with whom he had children during his life. Sarah bore him Isaac. Hagar bore him Ishmael. Keturah, who he married or took as a wife after Sarah died, he had six sons from her.

And we see that in Genesis chapter 25. So all of this lineage, this promise is traced through one line of Abraham. Out of the eight sons that he had, there's one who is the son of promise, and that's Isaac.

Now after Abraham offers up Isaac and gets ready to sacrifice him on the altar, Genesis chapter 22, turn over to chapter 22, verse 15. Abraham was faithful and obeyed the word of the Lord. So verse 15 says, then the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven and said, by myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this thing and have not withheld your son, your only son.

Indeed, look at the reconfirmation now of this blessing and promise. Indeed, I will greatly bless you and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore, and your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies.

In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed because you have obeyed my voice. Sarah died in Genesis chapter 23. Look at 23, verse 1. Now Sarah lived 127 years. These were the years of the life of Sarah.

And then Abraham, after Sarah died, sought a wife for Isaac. Turn to chapter 24, verse 1. Now Abraham was old, advanced in age, and the Lord had blessed Abraham in every way. Abraham said to his servant, the oldest of his household, who had charge of all that he owned, please place your hand under my thigh, and I will make you swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of earth, that you shall not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites among whom I live, but you will go to my country and to my relatives and take a wife for my son Isaac.

The servant said to him, suppose the woman is not willing to follow me to this land. Remember they're in the land of promise. Suppose she's not willing to come back from where you came from. Suppose she's not willing to come back to this land.

Should I take your son back to the land from where you came? Verse 6. Abraham said to him, beware that you do not take my son back there. The Lord, the God of heaven, who took me from my father's house and from the land of my birth, and who spoke to me, and who swore to me, saying to your descendants, I will give this land.

He will send his angel before you, and you will take a wife for my son from there. But if the woman is not willing to follow you, then you will be free from this oath, and only do not take my son back there.

So the servant placed his hand under the thigh of Abraham, his master, and swore to him concerning this matter. See, Abraham would not let his son leave the land. Why? Because Abraham was convinced that Isaac was going to inherit that land and that blessing.

Then after the death of Abraham, Isaac becomes the central figure. Look at Genesis 25, verse 1. Now Abraham took another wife whose name was Keturah. This is after the death of Sarah. She bore to him Zimron, and Jochshon, and Medan, and Midian, and Ishbak, and Shuon.

Jochshon became the father of Sheban, and Dedan, and the sons of Dedan were Asherim, and Lethushim, and Lumenim. The sons of Midian. Hey, don't laugh. You're not up. You just be thankful you're not the one up here reading these names.

The sons of Midian were, I think I already read that, didn't we? Verse 5. Now Abraham gave all that he had to Isaac, but to the sons of his concubines Abraham gave gifts while he was still living, and sent them away from his son Isaac eastward to the land of the east.

Now why did Abraham give all that he had to Isaac? He gave gifts to his other sons, sent them away from Isaac, and gave everything, the entire state, to Isaac, even though Isaac was not the firstborn.

Who was the firstborn? Ishmael was the first one born, but Isaac was the son of promise. Therefore, everything Abraham gave, he gave it to Isaac. Verse 19. Now these are the records of the generations of Isaac, Abraham's son.

Abraham became the father of Isaac, and Isaac was 40 years old when he took Rebekah, the daughter of Bethuel, of the Arminian, of Padon Aram, the sister of Laban, the Aramean, to be his wife. Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife, because she was barren, and the Lord answered him, and Rebekah, his wife, conceived.

But the children struggled together within her, and she said, If it is so, why then am I this way? So she went to inquire of the Lord, and the Lord said to her, Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples will be separated from your body, and one people shall be stronger than the other, and the older shall serve the younger.

She had two nations in her womb. Notice the language of the Abrahamic covenant that comes to bear. There are two nations in your womb. Remember God had said to Abraham, I will bring nations from you. This is the first record that we have.

We have two nations that are being described, Esau and Jacob. And Esau became the father of the Edomites. So this is the language of the Abrahamic covenant that is used here, and one of them would be preeminent.