Sunday Night, March 18, 2018 PM

No problem. Sometimes the pages in your Bible stick and yeah.

Okay. So this is in Luke 11 you said? Okay. Ah yes.

So the question is from Luke chapter 11 and Jesus has given some instructions on prayer.

He has cast out a demon and the

Pharisees have tried to find a way to explain the power of Christ in a negative way.

And so they attribute his power, his authority on earth as that of the devil.

And so Jesus exposes their sin as blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. He shows that they are incorrect in what they think.

And so Jesus is saying these things. He's rebuking these Pharisees.

And in verse 24 it says, when the unclean spirit goes out of a man, Jesus is teaching here on demons.

When the unclean spirit goes out of a man it passes through waterless places seeking rest and not finding any it says,

I will return to my house from which I came. Jesus kind of giving a narrative here. People believe that the demons hung out in the wilderness where there wasn't any water.

And he's just kind of telling the story that they would recognize of this homeless demon. And it says,

I will return to my house from which I came. When it comes, it finds it swept and put in order. That's verse 25,

Luke 11. And then verse 26, then it goes and takes along seven other spirits more evil than itself.

And they go in and live there. And the last state of that man becomes worse than the first. Sounds like some of the houses on our street.

Just some of you know. That's not common.

That's not just our street. That could be any street. Not the parsonage. No, not the parsonage. Thank you, Jerry. Oh my.

Well, Jesus is saying these things. And then we find in verse 27, while Jesus is saying these things, one of the women in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, blessed is the womb that bore you and the breast at which you nursed.

Wow. What a great mother you had. I mean, look, you're out here teaching and you're saying these marvelous things.

And your mother must be the most blessed mother on the face of the planet to have had you.

And she just, she just is rejoicing with a mother that she has not met, but she obviously thinks a lot of.

But he said, on the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.

Now, so James's question is, how is it, obviously he's saying something that's contradicting, but how?

How is it contradictory? And I suppose we might be, at first, wondering how is it that Mary, the mother of Jesus, is in contradistinction to what

Jesus says in verse 28, right? Oh, actually, actually, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.

Was he saying that this is not true of his own mother? Is that where you're coming from,

James? Yeah. So I think that, first of all, we just kind of have this random woman yelling out in the crowd.

I think the idea, the clear sense of this is that she doesn't know his mother, okay?

And she invokes a blessing on her simply because of a biological relation, right?

Just because, simply because she is his mother.

Therefore, how greatly blessed she is. Now, Jesus, every once in a while, has to deal with the issue of family.

He has talked about what happens when those, when people will follow him, people believe in him and trust in him.

In his instructions in discipleship, he says that it can very well occur that in a family, it's three against five, or three against two, two against three.

In a family of five, some would follow Christ and others would not. That there would be daughter -in -law against mother -in -law, father against son.

He kind of just gave us some basic splits in a family unit to show what it would cost to follow him at times.

That shakes out by way of when you grow up in a Jewish family and you all go do sacrifices together, observe the same feast days together, and do all these same things together, if you start following Christ and begin to understand him as the fulfillment of all these things, and you stop doing these very

Jewish things because you trust in Christ, that's going to bring a large amount of conflict within a very small family unit.

What if not all believe? Well, then you're going to have a very big conflict within a family over who follows

Christ and who does not. And so Jesus would often take the opportunity to remind his followers that although family is incredibly important, honor your father and mother, and don't cop out by using religious language.

He was all over the Pharisees about that. He was very strong on the idea of marriage.

He didn't allow for divorce. He was very clear about family.

He was also very merciful to those who had struggled and sinned in these ways because he did not put out a smoldering wick and he did not break a bruised reed.

He was very compassionate, but he's also very clear about the importance of the family unit that God designed.

Nonetheless, water was more important than blood for Christ.

If we're baptized into Christ, that's the primary commitment over blood relationships. And so he demonstrated that in various ways.

One was his mother and brothers came seeking him to bring him home.

They thought he had gone mad. And he was teaching in a house and it was crowded, and they brought word to him, behold, your mother and your brothers are outside wishing to speak with you.

And he said, who are my mother and my brothers? And he pointed to people around him, behold, my mother and my brothers, my family, those who do the will of my father who is in heaven.

So he was showing the primacy of the church family over and against the family unit when it came to either or.

It's not always that way. Just because you're a Christian doesn't mean you have to go fight with people. There's no points for being obnoxious.

But this is another situation, James, where he's pointing that out.

So she doesn't know, this random woman doesn't know Mary, the mother of Jesus.

She doesn't know what she's like. And later on, we find her to be a member of the church. And with those in the upper room praying for the arrival of the

Holy Spirit, one of those filled with the Holy Spirit, she became a faithful follower of her

Savior, Jesus Christ, whom she praised and acknowledged her need for a

Savior in her hymn in the Gospel of Luke. At this point, Jesus is saying, rather than just looking at the biological connection and saying, well, then so -and -so is blessed.

On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it. Blessed are those who believe.

Blessed are those who actually follow God in faith.

Now, this is a passage that I think would probably be somewhat helpful to talk with Roman Catholics.

I was driving to the library the other day, and I'm driving along, I look over, and here comes this little tiny car zooming by.

And in the front, it had a shrine to Mary. I mean, there's

Mary, here's her little house, and just driving along with your idol right there on the dashboard.

And we have to be compassionate and not be rude about it, but hey, just because she's the mother of Jesus doesn't mean we worship her or think of her as a co -mediator or a co -redeemer and all those things that the popes have said.

She can't save and has no part in our salvation.

So that could be helpful when we look at this passage as well. Yes, Haley?

Probably not. Sounds like something

Ken would say. That's very good.

Say it one more time so we can hear. Very good.

"'Tis more blessed to have Christ in the heart than in the womb." Very good way of summing up the meaning of what

Christ said there. Yes?

All right, this is a good question about what

Paul is saying in 1 Corinthians 4. And so he says, "'Let a man regard us in this manner as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.

In this case, moreover, it is required of stewards that one be found trustworthy. But to me, it is a very small thing that I may be examined by you or by any human court.

In fact, I do not even examine myself.'" Okay. Now, what

Paul is saying there in context, I believe, is he saying,

I don't have to test myself to see whether I'm in the faith or I never have to check any of my motives or my actions against the

Word of God. I do not believe that's what he's saying. I think he's taking this into account of the last judgment.

So we read on verse 4, "'For I am conscious of nothing against myself, yet I am not by this acquitted.'"

Notice like he is thinking about, there is some introspection.

Have I sinned against you? Have I said the wrong thing? He's not conscious of any of that.

And he said, "'Yet I am not by this acquitted.'" So just because I think

I'm in the clear, that doesn't mean I'm in the clear. Just because I think I'm faultless doesn't mean that I am.

Notice, "'But the one who examines me is the Lord.'" And the Lord examines us, and we see, he will bring to light the things hidden in the darkness, disclose the motives of men's heart, and then each man's praise will come from God.

So Jesus is ultimately the one who examines us, and he has given us the Holy Spirit to convict the world of sin and righteousness.

The truth of whether or not that we are living in a righteous way, following Christ in the way that we should, have we convicted ourselves in a

Christ -like manner in this situation with this person? Ultimately, that examination is according to the

Lord. Now, we don't have to stay in the dark about that to say, well, who knows if I did right or wrong?

Only God knows, and go, you know, gallivanting along. We're given the

Scriptures. We're given the truth of God. We're given clarity about who

Christ is, and what God values, and what is right, and what is wrong. And so the Lord is the one who examines us, and he examines us according to the

Scriptures, inspired by the Holy Spirit, and illuminated to our heart by the Holy Spirit. So Paul is showing himself as an example to the church in Corinth, as they're in conflict, and it's because arrogant versus arrogant, and they're in conflict about things, and he's saying, you know, when it comes to resolving these issues, it's not based on whether the majority of these people think so -and -so is right and so -and -so is wrong.

It's not based on any human court to take the issues of the church into a courtroom setting.

That's not what resolves it. In fact, it's not even resolved based on whether I think

I'm in the right or in the wrong. All these things don't matter. Ultimately, it's the Lord who examines us, and so Paul is putting himself as an example to them, saying, when it comes down to it, everybody, it matters what

Jesus thinks of us and not what we would think of each other. So he's kind of putting himself as an example.

Does that answer your question? As in Timothy?

I'm sure that it's going to be the same idea, but I think the idea is when it comes to examining oneself, okay, we're not doing that based on our own instincts about who we are.

It's according to the revelation of God. So it's the Lord's standards that are examining us, not our own.

Does that help? Okay, anything else before we move along?

Okay, so we're in Genesis 15, and we've looked at verses 1 through 7, and noticing another affirmation of the promise that God gave to Abram in Genesis 12.

He said it again in chapter 13. It is certainly confirmed in a way in chapter 14 that God has his hand on Abram and has blessed him, and then we come to chapter 15, and it says, after these things, the word of the

Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, do not fear, Abram. I am a shield to you. Your reward shall be very great.

Abram said, O Lord God, what will you give me, since I am childless and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?

Abram said, since you have given no offspring to me, one born in my house is my heir. Then, behold, the word of the

Lord came to him, saying, this man will not be your heir, but one who will come forth from your own body.

He shall be your heir. And he took him outside and said, now look toward the heavens and count the stars, if you are able to count them.

And he said to him, so shall your descendants be. Then he believed in the

Lord, and he reckoned it to him as righteousness. And he said to him, I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the

Chaldeans to give you this land to possess it. Now, as we read through those verses, the term offspring and the term descendants are the same word, seed.

As the key word there in Genesis, we're tracing the promise of the seed, the seed of the woman from Genesis 3 .15

on. We have the word of the Lord coming to Abram and leading him outside.

The word of the Lord came to Abram and then took him outside. This is a person who showed up of some kind.

And if it's the word of the Lord, we know who it is, the second person of the Godhead, Jesus Christ. He comes,

Christ takes him outside, says, believe. He believes, it's reckoned to him as righteousness, as he believes in the seed, the promised one,

Christ himself. And so his faith is counted as righteousness. Now we come to verse 8.

Abram said, O Lord God, how may I know that I will possess it?

He has no child, but he's to be a father of a nation through whom all the families of the

He has no child. His descendants are to fill up the land that he does not possess.

So he's being told these things and he has so little tangible anything to hold on to.

That's the nature of faith. So he says, how will I know that I will possess it?

So he said to him, bring me a three -year -old heifer, three -year -old female goat, and a three -year -old ram, and a turtle dove, and a young pigeon.

And these are instructions about as odd as what God told Noah. Then he brought all these to him and cut them in two and laid each half opposite the other, but he did not cut the birds.

Now, I don't know if I have enough red ink to illustrate what just happened, but it's pretty gross.

If you take an animal, three -year -old animal, a mature animal, okay, and you cut it in half, no matter which way you think is half and half, okay, animals are going to tend to be heavy anyway.

You take them to where they're supposed to be, you cut them in half, you take one half of the carcass and you drag it over to the other side to make a path.

And what's in the middle but a whole lot of blood, okay. He does this three times.

There's not a ton of connection to the later sacrificial laws. After all, they usually brought yearlings, okay.

These are three -year -old animals, a heifer, a goat, and a ram, and a turtle dove, and a young pigeon.

So we can imagine, and I'll forgo the red, but you have three animals that are cut in half, okay, and the halves are drawn across one another, and then we have two birds to finish out the path, okay.

So this is a path down the middle. Each half of the animal is dragged away from the other half, and we have a pathway of blood.

He did not cut the birds, but that this was a gross scene is only emphasized by verse 11, the birds of prey came down upon the carcasses and Abram drove them away, okay.

So, you know, I don't know how it is that vultures know when something's dead, but they show up very quickly.

So there's these dead animals, and so Abram does what he's supposed to, and then he starts seeing, here comes the vultures, and so he begins to keep the whole area clear of any defilement.

So he's working hard at that, and the sun went down. Now, when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram.

This is the exact same phrase, exact same description as what happened to Adam, when

God put him into a deep sleep to remove the rib from which he formed

Eve. So a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and behold, terror and great darkness fell upon him.

God said to Abram, know for certain, know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed 400 years.

But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterwards they will come out with many possessions.

As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace. You'll be buried at a good old age.

Then in the fourth generation, they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.

It came about when the sun had set, it was very dark, and behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a flaming torch, which passed between these pieces, fire and smoke.

So, you know, Abram asks God, how do I know for certain that I will possess it? And then

God says, well, here's what we're going to do. We're going to take three grown animals and cut them in half and make a pathway of blood.

And we're going to kill two birds and put them at the end. And then God puts them into a deep sleep where there's great darkness and terror.

And I don't know if Abram's at some point wondering, I sure wish I didn't have to ask this question. How will I know for sure?

This is certainly making an impression on him. It should make an impression on us. Terror and great darkness, smoke and fire.

This is what happened at Sinai. Darkness and great terror, smoke and fire.

This is what led the Israelites through the wilderness to their promised land, a pillar of smoke and a pillar of fire.

This great terror and great darkness not only covered the scene of the covenant that God made with Abram and the covenant that God made with Israel at Sinai, but it was also what occurred when

Christ died upon the cross. It was not only Sinai, it was also Calvary. Darkness and great terror.

Why? Part of it, I think, is to emphasize the greatness of God, the power of God, so that there would be a true fear of the

Lord, a true reverence of who He is, that we would know with whom we have to do. It's an emphasis of His holiness.

It's an emphasis of His greatness, even as He makes a way for there to be relationship with Him.

What is it that we see as far as a timeline? What do you see that's important in the timeline that God gives to Abram?

Try to put yourself in the place of the Israelites who are hearing this read to them by Moses and by the

Levites as they are camped on the east side of the

Jordan River before they go in to conquer the land. What's important about this timeline that God gives to Abram?

That was part of God's plan. Some plan. Thank you,

God, for enslaving us for 400 years. Four generations.

Now, that's an interesting way of putting it. Four generations, 400 years. It's important, I think, for the Israelites to know as they come up out of Egypt and are ready to possess the land that what has happened in the interim between God's promises and God fulfilling

His promises is all part of His plan. This was foreordained.

This was promised long before. It was no accident. It was no accident of history.

It wasn't that God's plan went awry. This was all part of His plan. 400 years in four generations, interesting way of putting it.

A generation might be conceived of in a variety of ways. Sometimes, think of it in 20 years or 40 years.

In this case, 100 years. Part of this might just be that Abram was 100 years old when he first had his son.

In any case, there is this general figure of about 400 years. It was a little bit more than that, but this is the general figure.

God is promising something that's going to happen. Now, why do they have to wait 400 years?

What's the most obvious reason in the text? It's the sin of the

Amorites. The sin of the Amorites is not yet complete. The Amorites is a word that stands for not just Amorites proper, but it can also include a lot of different folks that are very much like them.

God says their iniquity is not yet complete. Meaning that God is being patient with this people group.

He's giving them a witness of His power and His majesty and who He is, not only through Abram, but Mechizedek is reigning in Salem, and he's the priest of God most high.

There's a bright light in Canaan declaring the glories of the one true God. Then Abram comes, and he's wandering about the land, and he's showing who the one true

God is. There is a witness unto the true God that God gives them 400 years to respond to.

It's got a patient God, got a long -suffering God, it's got a merciful God.

We see that, don't we? And then God promises that though evil would happen,

God would bring good out of it. He would bring them out of Egypt, they would plunder this nation,

He would provide for them. And He says all this to affirm to Abram that indeed

He and His descendants would possess the land. Now, to finish the covenant.

Now, when we think of the covenant, the idea is not simply making an agreement, but the cutting of covenant is the literal way of reading it, because you're cutting animals in half.

Now, notice there appeared a smoking oven and a flaming torch which passed between these pieces.

Now, just for context, if we understand how covenants are done, let's flip in our

Bibles over to Jeremiah 34. And we'll look first at verse 10 and some explanation in verses 18 and 19.

But Jeremiah chapter 34 gives us a context of the way of making a covenant and what does it mean.

And the background to this is that God, in His law, had made provision for when folks fell on hard times, they could sell their property and eventually the family would receive it back in the year of Jubilee.

Also, they could sell themselves as indentured servants and they would be freed every seven years.

But the people of Judah had failed to follow those instructions and they kept a thumb oppressing the poor and they finally decided to do something about that.

Okay, well, finally, we'll follow these regulations. We'll free the slaves the way we're supposed to every seven years. So, in verse 8, it says, "...the

word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord after the kings of Achaia had made a covenant with all the people."

So, "...proclaim release to them that each man should set free his male servant, each man his female servant, a

Hebrew man or Hebrew woman, so that no one should keep them, a Jew his brother, in bondage. And all the officials and all the people obeyed who entered into the covenant that each man should set free his male servant and each man his female servant."

So on and so forth. But afterward, verse 11, they turned around and took them back. They went back on the covenant.

They made a promise in the covenant and then they broke the covenant. Okay, so what happens then?

Well, down a little bit. In verse 18, "...I will give the men who have transgressed my covenant, who have not fulfilled the words of the covenant which they made before me, when they cut the calf in two and pass between its parts."

Sound familiar? "...the officials of Judah and the officials of Jerusalem, the court officers and the priests and all the people who pass between the parts of the calf.

I will give them into the hand of their enemies and into the hand of those who seek their life, and their dead bodies will be food for the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth."

Okay, so the idea is when you make a covenant, you divide an animal or animals in half, making a path of blood, and then you walk down the middle with the person you're making a covenant with, saying,

I agree to do this and you agree to do that. And if we fail in keeping this covenant toward one another, may we end up like the animals on either part of us.

That was the idea. And that's what's brought out there in the illustration in Jeremiah, because the people had made this covenant with kings

Zedekiah, and they had passed through the parts of this calf, they had made this solemn promise before the

Lord, and then they went back on it. So now they would end up like the carrion and the birds that come down on them.

Now, in Genesis 15, what passes down the path of blood?

What goes down the middle? Smoke and fire.

We know who that is. That's a theophany of God himself. Abram didn't go down the middle of that path, did he?

It's just God. Meaning that God, Abram said, how will

I know for certain that you're going to do what you said you're going to do? And God said,

OK, let's make a covenant, putting you in a deep sleep, and you're going to watch me go down the middle. Meaning God made a promise swearing by the glory of his own name that he would do this.

He would fulfill his promises. And this is emphasizing the unconditional nature of God's promise.

There would be conditions placed upon Abraham. There would be conditions placed upon Israel. But as God deals with Abraham and Israel and David and so on and so forth, when we find those conditions, we also find unconditional aspects to the covenants that God makes.

And these God keeps. And he keeps unfailingly, no matter how bad

Abram fails in marrying Hagar, no matter how bad

Israel fails in going after idols, no matter how bad David fails and Solomon fails in their immoralities,

God doesn't fail. He keeps his promises. He keeps his covenant. And we just keep on seeing that on the human side of things, on the human side of things.

The human servants tend to fail, don't they? They just tend to fail again and again, which the whole,

I think the whole point of that, the way in which God has put together his word is that we keep on looking for the seed.

We keep looking for the human servant who will keep God's covenant and fulfill

God's covenant and not fail so that all the blessings that God promised upon his human servants will come to pass through this faithful servant.

And that faithful servant is Christ. Kept all the conditions of all the covenants where all the other human servants failed.

He kept them all. He kept them all. So the plan for there to be great blessing through Abram and his descendants to all the families of the earth is accomplished in Christ.

Well, verse 18 says, on that day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram saying, or Abram saying, to your descendants, I've given this land from the river of Egypt, as far as the great river, the river

Euphrates, the Kenite and the Kinezite and the Kadmonite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the

Rephaim and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Gergesite and the Jebusite. These are the people groups that the descendants of Abram would encounter, that the sons of Israel would fight against when they crossed over the

Jordan River. And they would fight and they would ultimately be victorious, especially under the auspices of David, because God promised that it would be so.

And they were successful in establishing this empire that God promised would come about.

You know, and you keep on reading and you see the folly and the failures of men.

But God is the one who keeps his covenant and it all comes to pass, just as he said.