Abraham: The Father of the Faithful (Hebrews 11:7-19)

Kootenai Church

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Hebrews chapter 11. I'll give you a moment to turn there and then we'll open with prayer.

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All right, let's bow our heads. Father, You have been so gracious to give us Your Word, and in it we see the redemptive plan that You have ordained from before the foundation of the world to save a people for Yourself, to do so through covenants, to do so through men whom

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You have chosen. And we are grateful for Your work in history, which has brought us to the present and has now brought salvation to us.

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And we cannot rightly thank You for Your work in the present without understanding and knowing how You have worked in the past and the ways in which

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You have made promises and kept promises. For our certainty that we shall stand in Your presence, faultless and blameless, with exceeding joy, righteous in Your sight, all rests upon Your willingness and Your ability to keep

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Your promises. And so we thank You that You are a promise -keeping God, and we pray that You would encourage our hearts with that truth and remind us again of how gracious You are, how perfect You are today.

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We ask this in Christ's name, amen. Well, when we talk about certain subjects or certain themes, it's very often that there's usually one name or one place or one part of that subject that sort of rises to the surface as being an exceptional example of whatever you're talking about.

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For instance, you cannot really discuss the subject of basketball, the history of basketball or the game of basketball without the name

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Michael Jordan sort of bubbling to the surface at some point in that conversation. Michael Jordan, though he's not the only basketball player who has ever been great, he certainly stands as a star amongst all the rest and shines brighter.

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His pure athleticism, his skill, his character, his talent, his leadership ability, all of those make him stand out among all the rest of them.

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When you talk about preachers and preaching and the history of preaching, there's one name that is right in the middle of that room, one name that shines above and beyond all of them, and that's

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Charles Haddon Spurgeon. He's called the Prince of Preachers for a reason. And though there are other great preachers like Whitefield and Calvin and Luther and Jonathan Edwards and in our own day,

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John MacArthur, those are other great men, when you talk about influence and when you talk about that subject, it's just Charles Spurgeon is right there.

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He's the elephant in the room. He is the most shining example of what you mean, an example in that area, the most shining one that you could possibly name.

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And in the area of faith, when we start listing the heroes of faith and going through Hebrews chapter 11, there's one name that bubbles to the top.

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There's one example who outshines them all, one example that is most stunning, most stellar, whose name has to be mentioned in that discussion, and that is

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Abraham. We've talked about Abel and Enoch and Noah now, but I would dare say that Abraham outshines all of them, and he is our subject here today and for the next,

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I'm not even going to try and guess how many weeks here in Hebrews chapter 11, because there is a lot in Abraham that we have to unpack and unfold.

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Now to say that Abraham is the example of what we mean by faith is not to say that Abraham is flawless or that he is without fault or that he is without sin.

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There are times when Abraham did not live up to his faith. There are times when he was in fear, where he doubted, where he did things that he should not have done.

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Abraham left and fled to Egypt in fear. In fear, he said that Sarah was not his wife. In fear, he eventually took…well, because he feared that God wasn't going to fulfill his promise, he eventually took

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Sarah's handmaid and made her his wife and bore a son through her, trying to fulfill

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God's promise in his own way and in his own time. And there have been 4 ,000 years of horrific ramifications because of that one fault.

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So we know that Abraham's faults are plain as day. They're visible for us to see. We know what they are, and so is his faith.

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And I'm certain that if we had as much material given to us about Enoch and Abel as we have about Abraham, that we would probably know a lot more of Enoch and Abel's faults.

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Because we read through Hebrews 11, and we see Abel and we see Enoch, and we think, okay, these are men of whom nothing in Scripture, sinful -wise, or their failings are recorded, nothing at all.

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Well, it's because there's almost nothing in Scripture recorded of them compared to Abraham. If we had…

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I mean, we have Abraham in Genesis 12 through Genesis 25, into Genesis 25, that's 13 chapters of Abraham's life covering basically a little more than a century of time.

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And if we had that much material written about Abel and Enoch and Noah, we would know a lot more about those men's faults, wouldn't we?

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So there's plenty to look at in Abraham's life where he failed to measure up, but there's also plenty to see in his life where he was a perfect example of the kind of faith that the author of Hebrews 11 is talking about.

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The centrality of Abraham in biblical history is difficult to overstate. It's difficult to overstate.

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Without Abraham, you have no Moses, you have no David, you have no covenant, you have no Israel, you have no nation, you have none of the rest of the

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Old Testament. If there is no Abraham, then our Bible ends with Genesis 11. I know that that's not possible, but you know what

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I mean? He's just a central figure for all of the Old Testament. Everything in the Old Testament revolves around him.

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You cannot explain the existence of the nation of Israel, either back then or today, without referring to Abraham and the promises that God made to Abraham.

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You cannot understand the redemptive flow of God's plan and the covenant that He made with David and a kingdom and a land and a nation and the

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Exodus and Moses and all of the feasts and all of the covenant of Moses without reference to Abraham.

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He's central in all of that. And you can't understand how it is that God has fulfilled His promise to bring salvation to the

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Gentiles without coming back to Jesus Christ who, guess what, is a descendant of Abraham and a fulfillment of the promises, some of the promises that God gave to Abraham.

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So the centrality of him in our Bible is difficult to overstate, and so it is going to be necessary for us to have a good understanding of who

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Abraham was, why his faith was such an example, and what we can learn from the life of Abraham.

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Now if you're somebody, if you're a Christian who thinks that because Jesus has come and He has secured these spiritual blessings for us, and therefore we can focus on our

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New Testament and our spiritual realities in Jesus Christ, and that we can just unhitch our faith from Abraham and we don't have to pay attention to him or anything that went on back then,

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I am here to tell you that that is a woefully mistaken idea. Because things that are going to happen to you in the future are going to happen to you in the future because of what

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God said to Abraham almost 4 ,000 years ago. So whether you are a premillennialist, a postmillennialist, or an amillennialist is going to be in large part determined by how you understand the promises that God gave to Abraham.

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Your eschatology, your view of the end times is going to be determined by how it is that you interpret the promises given to Abraham.

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And that's not the only thing that is going to determine your eschatology, but it's going to play a very large role in how you view what is going to happen in the future.

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Now, just because you might be a postmillennialist does not mean that you're going to have a postmillennial future, right?

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And the amillennialists are going to have an amillennial future, and the premillennialists are going to have a premillennial future. Whatever is going to happen, however that's going to unfold, it's going to unfold and all of us, pre, post, and all, all of those prefixes, we're all going to be carried along with whatever happens.

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In other words, if my premillennial eschatology is correct, it doesn't matter if you're a postmillennialist or amillennialist, you're going to experience the same things that I am.

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But guess what? We're all going to experience that because of something that God said to Abraham back in the book of Genesis.

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So his centrality in this cannot be overstated. Really this comes down to the questions, what is the covenant that God made with Abraham?

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Was it conditional or was it unconditional? Will it be fulfilled literally or spiritually? Who are the recipients of the promises that God gave to Abraham?

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To whom were those promises made and whom are those promises for? Those are some of the key questions that we have to answer when we're talking about when it's going to happen to us in the future.

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So we can't avoid these subjects, we're not trying to avoid these subjects, I actually don't even want to avoid these subjects because I love these subjects.

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So that's what we're going to dive into because that issue of the land and the promises made to Abraham, that comes in here in Hebrews chapter 11.

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So of all of the people that we have been looking at here in Hebrews chapter 11, Abraham takes a center stage. More time, more text is given to Abraham than any of the other examples.

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There's mention of Abel, there's mention of Enoch, a verse on Noah, but then as the author fast forwards through 2 ,000 years of history to the time of Abraham, then he just hits the brakes and we are with Abraham from chapter 12 of Genesis all the way through chapter 24 of Genesis.

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And here in Hebrews 11, we have Abraham from verse 8 all the way through the end of verse 19.

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This is all about Abraham. The author of Hebrews 11 devotes more time and attention to Abraham than any of the other examples.

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The second one is Moses. And we don't get to Moses until down in, I don't know what it is. You'll see it.

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We'll get to Moses down later on in the text. But as if the author, even after Abraham, well, verse 19, you'll look at it.

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Verse 19, that's speaking of Abraham. Verse 20, Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau.

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Verse 21, by faith Jacob, as he was dying, blessed each of the sons, and Joseph in worship leaning on top of the staff. Then verse 22, then

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Joseph. So he goes from Abraham to Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and his 12 sons, and then he parks on Moses again in verse 23.

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And then we get a long discussion of Moses from verse 23 to 29. So the bulk of this chapter is taken up with Abraham.

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Second on the list in terms of amount of text and explanation is Moses. Why these two men? I think these two men are significant.

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These two men are significant because they are the two predominant figures of the

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Old Testament. The two most well -known, the two, I would say, most significant figures of the

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Old Testament are Abraham and Moses. Abraham being the founder of the nation, the forefather of all the Jews, every

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Jew could trace his lineage back to Abraham, and they rightly honored Abraham. He is the central figure of the

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Old Testament, without which there is no Old Testament. But then second to him you have Moses. Moses was the giver of the law.

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He was the redeemer of Israel. He brought them out of Egypt in fulfillment to God's promise. He was a lawgiver. He was a prophet.

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And his role in Israel is also difficult to overstate, just in terms of the covenant that God made with the nation in the presence of Moses, Moses being one of the mediators of that covenant.

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So we have really, between these two men, Abraham and Moses, we have two covenants, the Abrahamic covenant and the

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Mosaic covenant. These are two different covenants. There are two different terms to the covenant. They're made with different emphasis and for different purposes.

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But these two figures, Abraham with the Abrahamic covenant, Moses with the Mosaic covenant, these two men stand almost singularly above the rest in all of the

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Old Testament. And it's interesting to me, and I don't know even what to make of this, but the author of Hebrews 11 doesn't mention

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David. I don't think there's any significance to that other than he just gets done with Moses and he's like, time's going to prohibit me to tell of all the other people.

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There's obviously a list of other people that he could name. But the two most significant and founding forefathers of the

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Jewish nation were Abraham and Moses. So we're going to read now, beginning at verse 8, and we're going to read through verse 19.

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I want you to look for two subjects that the author handles and he deals with as he highlights the episodes from Abraham's life.

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He's going to talk about two specific promises, the promises of land and the promise of a son or a descendant.

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Those are the two promises, land and son. These are the two things that the author focuses on in verses 8 through 19.

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First of all, beginning at verse 8, notice that this, verses 8 through 10, has to do with the land.

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Verse 8, by faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed, going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance, and he went out not knowing where he was going.

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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

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God. So this is the promise of land. Abraham is told to go out, God would take him out of one land and put him in another land.

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That's the promise of land. Verse 11, this is the promise of a son. By faith even Sarah herself received ability to conceive even beyond the proper time of life since she considered him faithful who had promised.

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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.

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This is the promise of a son. By faith Sarah conceived, and a son was born. But now the author in verse 13 returns to the promise of land.

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All these, that is Abraham and Sarah and the ones he's mentioned thus far, 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.

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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 opportunity to return.

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But as it is, they desired a better country, that is a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their

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God, for He has prepared a city for them. Notice that that whole section there has to do with the promise of land and Abraham dwelling in the land still is an alien and a stranger.

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Then in verse 17, the author returns back to the promise of the son. By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son.

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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, from which he also received him back as a type."

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Now do you notice the pattern? The promise of the land, the promise of a son, back to the promise of the land, and then the promise of the son.

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There's a pattern there, land, son, land, son. But there's something that happens as the author works his way through that progression.

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There is an escalation that takes place. Now maybe you'll notice it when I say it this way.

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In the first section, verses 8 through 10, in that first section the author is talking about the promise of land, but he's simply, he's referencing the fact that God said to Abraham, I'm going to take you out of this land, go to that land, and Abraham went.

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So he went into the land, he obeyed God, and God settled him, put him into that land.

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But then he talks about the promise of a son, and it's just the conception of the son. But then when he returns back to the promise of the land in verse 13 to 16, he is describing the fact that Abraham dwelt in that land as a stranger and an alien, even knowing that he would never possess that land in his own lifetime.

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Then he moves on to the promise of a son, and there it is not the promise of conception, the bearing of the son that is mentioned, but Abraham offering

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Isaac up on an altar. Now do you see the escalation that takes place? I'll give you a land. It's one thing to believe that God will take you in one place and put you in another place.

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That's faith. I can believe God for that. That's easy. But then to turn around and come to the next level and say, you're going to dwell in that land as an alien and a stranger, and you will never actually possess it in your lifetime.

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Do not go back to the previous land. You stay here because I'm giving it to your descendants after you. That's next level faith, right?

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To just say go from A to B, okay, I can believe God from that, but then to say once you get to B, you're never actually going to possess

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B in your lifetime, giving it to your descendants. Then you're believing God for something beyond just moving from A to B, aren't you?

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Same thing with the son. I'm going to give you a descendant. By faith, Sarah conceived and she bore a son.

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I can believe God for a conception. That's relatively easy. That happens all the time, right?

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Happens all the time. But then to take that promised seed, that promised son, and put him up on an altar, to tie him down, and to raise the sacrificial knife over his chest and be willing to sacrifice him, that's next level faith, is it not?

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There's an escalation that takes place. It's one thing to believe God for a conception. It's another thing to believe God for a resurrection, and that's the point that the author is making.

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Abraham believed God. He got the promised seed, but then he was willing to sacrifice that son on an altar.

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That's next level faith. That's user achievement unlocked. You get characters. You get extra things in the video game for that.

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I don't know. I don't play the video games, but that's a whole other level of faith when you're willing to believe God for that. So there's an escalation that takes place, and a progression here, even in how the author develops this.

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And that just shows us that Abraham's faith was one that progressed over the course of his life. And you're going to see here in a moment that Abraham was not told everything right at the beginning.

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He was given more and more information, and Abraham believed God and progressed in his faith more and more as time went on over the course of his life.

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Now, in keeping with the way that we're surveying these heroes of the faith in Hebrews chapter 11, we're going to go back and we're going to get the context of Abraham's life.

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So jump back now with me to Genesis chapter 12, please. Genesis chapter 12.

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Today, we're going to look at Genesis 12, Genesis 13, Genesis 15, and Genesis 17. And I smell the same food that you do, and I am as anxious for this sermon to be over more so than you are, so don't be panicked by that.

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We are going to go through these three chapters. We're just going to be looking at these promises that God gave to Abraham and how they were fulfilled.

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Back to Genesis chapter 12. We have, now remember the story of Noah ends with Genesis 9, that's the flood.

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You get into Genesis chapter 10, and that gives us the descendants of Noah, it traces the lineage of Noah.

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You get the feeling that the purpose of Moses in writing Genesis was not just to give us quirky things about the history of the world.

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The purpose of Moses in writing Genesis was really to give us the history of Abraham, because he's just fast -forwarding through history, and he gets to Abraham, hits the brakes and stops.

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He says, okay, then the rest of the book, chapter 12 through the end of the book is Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and his 12 sons, and they land in Egypt.

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That is what the author wants us to see. It is the unfolding of these promises. That's not to say that nothing else before Genesis 11 was actual history or there was allegory or anything like that.

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It's all literal truth, and that happened just as it was explained to us. But it is to say that the point of Moses is to get us up to Abraham, to give us the background, and that's what the genealogies do.

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So you read in Genesis chapter 11, verse 10, you have in chapter 11, the beginning of chapter 11, the dispersion of the peoples at the

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Tower of Babel. Then you have the descendants of Shem in Genesis 11. Look at Genesis 11, verse 10.

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These are the records of the generations of Shem. Shem was 100 years old and became the father of Arpachstad two years after the flood.

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And so like Genesis chapter 5, in Genesis 11, you can take the lifespans of these patriarchs and you can overlap them according to how old they were when they had a son and then how long they lived after they had that son and how long that son lived before he had a son, et cetera.

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You can overlap the lifespans there, and you can see who was a contemporary with whom. And you'll notice if you were to compare, and we're not going to do this this morning,

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Genesis 11 with Genesis chapter 5, you would notice that you get into Genesis chapter 11 and the lifespans of those patriarchs drop off precipitously.

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You go from Noah living 350 years after the flood to Abraham a few generations later only living 175 years old permanently.

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Now that is not because the environmental factors of the world had changed after the flood. They had, and that may have had some impact on lifespans.

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But it's my belief and my contestation that those decreased lifespans have to do more with the genetic bottleneck that took place at the flood.

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So that before the flood happened, you had people being able to intermingle and intermarry all over the place, and the genetic mutations that were happening with reproduction before the flood, all of a sudden that was bottlenecked down so that after the flood you had basically first cousins marrying first cousins again, and there was a concentration of mutations, genetically harmful mutations, because there are no genetically beneficial mutations, genetically harmful mutations that have warped and corrupted and made us all mutants.

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We're all intellectual and physical mutants compared to people who lived before the flood. And not the good kind of mutants that put wings out their back and have laser vision and all that nonsense that you see.

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We are genetic mutants. And so this is a decrease in the lifespans that just immediately drops off in the seven or eight generations right after the flood.

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So you can see how some of these lifespans overlap, and all of this is just to set up Abraham again. Noah lived 350 years after the flood.

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Noah was alive during the lifespan of everyone in Genesis chapter 11 except Abraham.

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Noah died three years before Abraham was born. Noah's lifespan overlapped Abraham's father,

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Terah, by 136 years. Now whether they knew each other or spoke to each other or ever met, that is an entirely different issue.

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Scripture doesn't give us any indication as to yes or no, either direction. But the lifespan of Noah and the lifespan of Abraham's father,

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Terah, they overlapped by 136 years. Noah died, as I said, three years before Abraham was born.

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And Abraham's life and Shem, Noah's son, their lives overlapped by 150 years. Noah's son,

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Shem, died 25 years before Abraham died. So there's a constant, and after the flood you would have had this massive explosion of population right after the flood.

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So by the time we get to the point of Abraham, we again have hundreds of thousands, probably millions of people alive on the face of the planet.

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Now where was Abraham located? He was in Ur of the Chaldees. So let's pick up the story in chapter 11. I lied to you.

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We're not starting in chapter 12. We're going to start in chapter 11. I forgot that. I should have reread through this before I got up here to preach it.

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Genesis chapter 11, beginning of verse 27, now these are the records of the generations of Terah. Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

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Abram, for those of you who may not know, Abram and Abraham are the same person. Later on God changes his name to Abraham. Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran, and Haran became the father of Lot.

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So Lot was Abram's nephew. Haran died in the presence of his father Terah in the land of his birth in Ur of the

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Chaldeans. Abram and Nahor took wives for themselves. The name of Abram's wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor's wife was

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Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah and Eschah. Sarah was barren. She had no child. Terah took

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Abram, his son, and Lot, the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarah, his daughter -in -law, his son Abraham's wife, and they went out together from Ur of the

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Chaldeans in order to enter the land of Canaan. And they went out as far as Haran and settled there. The days of Terah were 205 years, and Terah died in Haran.

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They would have traveled northwest along the Euphrates River. Ur of the Chaldeans is north of the Persian Gulf, northwest of the

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Persian Gulf, along the Euphrates River, so basically north of Kuwait. And they settled there in Haran.

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That's where Terah died. And that is where God revealed himself to Abraham when he was settled in Teran.

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Now when God revealed himself to Abraham, Abraham was not a Yahweh worshiper. He was not a worshiper of the one true

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God. He was not familiar with God. There's no reason to believe that. In fact, there's reason to believe that Abraham came from an idolatrous family because Joshua says in Joshua 24, verse 2,

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Joshua said to all the people, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, from ancient times your fathers lived beyond the river, namely

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Terah the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor, and they served other gods.

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So when God revealed himself, made himself known to Abraham, Abraham was an idol worshiper in Ur of the

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Chaldeans. Now turning from idols to serve the living and true God, that is what salvation is.

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All of us are idol worshipers before we are saved. So it shouldn't surprise us if Abraham was also an idol worshiper. And this just demonstrates to us a couple of things.

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Number one, God's grace to Abraham was no more deserved than his grace to you and I is. God made himself known to Abraham while Abraham was an idol worshiper, and Abraham obeyed

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God or obeyed Yahweh when Yahweh made himself known to him. And this makes the faith of Abraham even more significant and it stands out even more when we realize that when

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God revealed himself to Abraham and Abraham obeyed him, Abraham did not have a history of worshiping this

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God. He didn't have years of obeying to get used to worshiping this God. When God made himself known to Abraham, he turned him from his idols, turned him to know and understand who the true and living

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God is, and Abraham obeyed and Abraham believed that God. Now look at the call, chapter 12, verse 1.

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Now the Lord said to Abraham, go forth from your country and from your relatives and from your father's house to the land which I will show you, and I will make you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great so you shall be a blessing.

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And I will bless those who bless you and the one who curses you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.

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Now that is the beginnings of the Abrahamic covenant. There is the rough outline of what God promised to Abraham. Later on in chapter 13,

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God's going to add some more details to it. Then again in chapter 15, he's going to add even more details to it. And then in chapter 17, even more details to it.

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But the basic outline of what God promised to Abraham is contained in verses 1 through 3.

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There are three promises. Promise of a land, verse 1, he was to go to the land which

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God would show him. There's promise that Abraham would become a great nation, that's verse 2, I will make of you a great nation.

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And then there is the promise, which is enigmatic at this point, that in him all the families of the earth would be blessed.

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Now I would say that that is the promise of eventually the messiah would come through Abraham and because of that descendant, the greater son of David, the

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Lord Jesus Christ, he has brought salvation to all the nations and in him furthermore, in an even greater scale in the future, all the nations will be blessed as well.

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So there's the promise of physical land, physical seed, and then blessings of some unspecified sort to all of the nations of the earth.

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Those are the three promises of the Abrahamic covenant. Now all of this was given to Abraham before he had ever entered into the land.

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It was given to Abraham before he had ever seen the land. In fact, from Haran, he would have to travel another 700 miles before he would be in the land of what we call today

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Israel. And I want you to notice there is scant detail, more is coming, and I also want you to notice that there is no promise here explicitly stated of spiritual salvation for Abraham's descendants.

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In other words, what Abraham was promised was not that God would save all of his physical descendants, but rather that God would give certain physical blessings to those physical descendants.

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And though the Abrahamic covenant anticipates the gospel, in other words, without that covenant, the gospel is not possible, that covenant obviously lays the groundwork for the gospel, that gospel proclamation and the salvation promised in that gospel is not explicitly laid out in the

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Abrahamic covenant because we are not talking about strictly spiritual blessings.

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We are talking about physical blessings that were promised to Abraham, physical land, physical nations and then some sort of a blessing, maybe physical, maybe spiritual, we are undetermined at this point of all the nations of the earth.

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Now verse 4, so in obedience, Abraham went forth as the Lord had spoken to him and Lot went with him. Now Abraham was,

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Abram, I keep saying Abraham, I'm sorry, Abram was 75 years old when he departed from Haran. Abram took Sarai, his wife, and Lot, his nephew, and all their possessions which they had accumulated and the persons which they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan.

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Thus they came to the land of Canaan. Abram passed through the land as far as the site of Shechem to the oak of Morah.

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Now the Canaanite was in the land. The Lord appeared to Abram and said, To your descendants, I will give this land.

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I just want you to notice the Lord is reiterating what he had said to Abram, but it's just a simple statement that includes two promises and what are they?

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The promise of a land and the promise of a son. To your descendants, I will give this land.

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Land promise, descendant promise. Verse eight, or sorry, verse seven. So he built an altar there to the

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Lord who had appeared to him. Then he proceeded from there to the mountain on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent. With Bethel on the west and Ai on the east, and there he built an altar to the

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Lord and called upon the name of the Lord. Abram journeyed on, continuing toward the Negev. Now God reiterated the promise there to Abraham when he was 75 years old.

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Now look at chapter 13. Here are the promises reiterated. Abraham, at the end of chapter 12 and into chapter 13,

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Abraham went into Egypt, he feared because of a famine, so he went down to Egypt and that was the whole thing where he said

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Sarah was his sister so that the king wouldn't kill Abraham because Sarah was apparently not hard on the eyes and he didn't want to lose her.

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So he lied about that and then he left and went back up into the land. When he got back up into the land, that's where he split with Lot.

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They had plenty of livestock. Abraham was a wealthy man, so was Lot. Both of them were wealthy and the land in one location could not sustain all of their tribe and the herds that they had, servants and animals, et cetera.

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So they split up. Lot went down to Sodom and Gomorrah. That's another story for another time. It's a good one. Lot went down towards Sodom and Gomorrah and lived in the land there and Abraham stayed up where he was at.

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Chapter 13, verse 14, the Lord said to Abram after Lot had separated from him, now lift up your eyes and look from the place which you are northward and southward and eastward and westward for all the land which you see,

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I will give it to you and to your descendants forever. I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth so that if anyone can number the dust of the earth, then your descendants can also be numbered.

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Arise, walk about the land through its length and breadth for I will give it to you. Then Abraham moved his tent and came and dwelt by the oaks of Mamre which are in Hebron and there he built an altar to the

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Lord. Notice verse 15, there's the promise of land and there's the promise of descendants for verse 15 says, all the land which you see,

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I will give to you and to your descendants forever. Now I ask you, does forever include today?

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I think it does. I mean I've done the math, it works out on the initial run through. Forever does include today.

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Does forever include tomorrow? Does forever include ten years from now? Does forever include forever or is forever too much to include in forever?

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Forever is what? It's forever. This is forever. And there are people who get all upset when you suggest that Israel has a right to the land today.

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They weren't there for 1 ,900 years and it wouldn't matter to me if they weren't there for 19 ,000 years. That is irrelevant. God said, to you and to your descendants,

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I am giving this land forever, right? Not until you disobey me, not until you reject the

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Messiah, but how long? Forever. That is Israel's land. It's Israel's land today, it is

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Israel's land from the beginning of Genesis chapter 12. And it always will be. How do

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I know? Because God said he would give it to them forever. Some of you are catching on, that's right.

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Verse 15, sorry, chapter 15, flip over to chapter 15. Now we get to Genesis chapter 15 and he still has no son.

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Still no son. Genesis chapter 15 verse 1, after these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision saying do not fear

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Abram, I am a shield to you, your reward shall be very great. Some translations have that because it can also be translated,

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I am a shield to you and your very great reward. In other words, what God was offering to Abram was not just land, but it is

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God himself, he was giving himself to Abram. Verse 2, Abram said, O Lord God, what will you give me since I am childless and the heir of my house is

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Eliezer of Damascus? He was a servant that was born in Abraham's house. And Abraham said, since you have given no offspring to me, one born in my house is my heir.

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Legally that was true. Abraham didn't have a son to give all of his wealth to, so he's asking the Lord, who am I going to give this to?

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You promised me a son, I have no son, here I am, still an old man and still without a son.

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Who do I give this to? Eliezer, the first born servant in his house. Then behold, verse 4, 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.

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Is he talking about physical descendants or spiritual descendants? In verse 4, physical descendants.

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Don't worry, Abraham, as old as you are, you still will have a physical descendant who will come forth from your own body. He shall be the one who will inherit all of this and all of the blessings that I am promising you.

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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, we could say physical descendants, be.

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Now still, Abraham had no heir and God promised him a physical descendant. Verse 6, Abraham went out, of course, he saw the stars in the heaven,

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God promised him, so shall your descendants be. Verse 6, then he believed in the Lord and he reckoned it to him as righteousness. That's what we have quoted in Genesis, sorry,

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Romans chapter 4 and Galatians chapter 3 and James chapter 2. Abraham believed God and God said, you're righteous, not because Abraham had done anything.

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We're still two chapters away from circumcision. This was the point that Paul made in Romans chapter 4. Did Abraham believe and become righteous because he was circumcised?

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No, it was without circumcision, it was before circumcision. One's righteousness has no bearing at all upon the obedience of one to the law or being circumcised.

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Being circumcised doesn't make you righteous. Even if you become a physical Jew outwardly, that doesn't make you righteous. Abraham believed

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God and God credited to him as righteousness. And again, we've seen earlier in Hebrews chapter 11 that the righteousness which these

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Old Testament saints were credited is the righteousness of Jesus Christ. He's the only one who has that righteousness. Verse 7, and he said to him,

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I am the Lord who brought you up out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess it. He said, oh Lord God, how may

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I know that I will possess it? He's asking for the Lord to assure this, to guarantee this. Still it is, though Abraham is believing

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God and it is credited to him as righteousness, Abraham is still questioning how am I going to know this, a son.

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He wants some sort of assurance. Verse 9, so he said to him, bring me a three -year -old heifer and a three -year -old female.

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Now what is about to follow is going to seem very odd to you until I explain it, but just bear with me through the end of verse 12. A three -year -old female, goat, and three -year -old ram, and a turtle dove, and a young pigeon.

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Then he brought all these to him, cut them in two, and laid each half opposite the other. But he did not cut the birds.

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The birds of the prey came down upon the carcasses, and Abraham drove them away. Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abraham, and behold, terror and great darkness fell upon him.

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Now what's going on? This is the ancient practice of cutting a covenant. They would take a number of animals, they would cut the animals in two, lay them opposite one another, and then the two parties who were entering into an agreement with one another, they would walk amongst the midst of these slain animals on each side.

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They would walk between the parts of the animals while they recited the terms of the covenant that they were making.

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So as they would walk with each other between these slaughtered animals, they would say,

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I will promise to do X, Y, and Z. And the other person would say, I will promise to do

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X, Y, and Z. This was the cutting of a covenant that they made. So this was the point of this.

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They put the animals opposite one another, and in ancient times, they would walk between those because it was a way of saying and affirming to one another in the presence of anybody who was watching, it was a way of them saying, if I fail to meet the terms of this covenant, this is what should happen to me.

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I should be slaughtered and killed. This is what I deserve. I deserve this death. This was the cutting of a covenant.

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Now we call marriage the cutting of a covenant, and it's true, but we don't slaughter animals. So if you've ever wondered how we do marriages here, that's not how we do them here.

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You don't slaughter animals for this. But this is where the idea of a covenant comes. You're pledging to one another something until death do us part.

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That's the point of that covenant. Right? It's the cutting of a covenant. Now, here is what is significant. A deep sleep fell upon Abram.

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Don't miss this. This is not just an incidental, you know, he got tired. And so since he was tired,

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God kind of whispered, so as not to wake Abraham up, look, here's what this covenant is going to look like. That's not what's going on at all.

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This is an unconditional covenant. Abraham was asleep and great fear fell upon him. Abraham was not aware of what was going on.

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Abraham is not pledging anything. Abraham is not walking up and down amongst the carcasses pledging to do anything.

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You know why? Because Abraham was asleep. There were no terms for Abraham to meet. It is an unconditional covenant.

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This is not Abraham saying he's going to do something in order to receive these blessings. This is Abraham falling asleep.

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God put him to sleep. And then God walked amongst the animals and said, this is what I am pledging to do for you and to your descendants.

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Abraham makes no pledges. Abraham has no side of this covenant. It is an unconditional covenant.

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This is God himself sovereignly saying alone to Abraham, here is what

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I am going to do. Abraham doesn't have to pledge his obedience. Abraham doesn't have terms to meet. It's an unconditional covenant.

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Abraham didn't pledge anything because Abraham was asleep. This is God's promise of his intentions. Verse 13,

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God said to Abraham, know for certain, there's a little bit more details added to the covenant, right? We're in the talk of this covenant.

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The Abrahamic covenant, we started back in chapter 12. We saw it in chapter 13. Here in chapter 15, here's some more detail.

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Verse 13, God said to Abraham, 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 afterward they will come out with many possessions.

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As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace. You will be buried at a good old age. Then in the fourth generation, they will return here for the iniquity of the

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Amorite is not yet complete. Now, there's a lot of terms there, right? Your descendants are going to be strangers in a land that is not theirs.

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What land was that? It was Egypt. Then they will be enslaved and oppressed. Did that happen literally or spiritually?

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Literal oppression. For 400 years, is that 400 years just a symbol of a long period of time or was it a literal 400 years?

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It was a literal 400 years. But I will also judge the nation that they will serve and afterward they will come out with many possessions.

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Was that fulfilled spiritually or literally? Literally. Ten plagues brought them out. Israel plundered the

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Egyptians because they asked gold and silver of them and the Egyptians gave them a bunch of gold and silver and Israel plundered the

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Egyptians on their way out of that. Verse 15, as for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace. That means you're going to die and you're going to be buried at a good old age.

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Was that fulfilled literally or spiritually? Literally. Verse 16, then in the fourth generation, does that just mean a long period of time or is that four literal generations?

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That's four literal generations. They will return here for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete. Verse 17, and 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.

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On that day, the Lord made a covenant with Abraham saying, now this is God himself, the torch, the oven, these are the physical manifestations of God's presence.

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He and he alone are passing between these pieces of the animal. Verse 18, saying to your descendants,

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I have given this land from the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river of Euphrates, the

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Kenite and the Kenizite and the Kadmonite and the Hittite and the Perizite and the Rephaim and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the

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Girgashite and the Jebusite. You always say those names quickly so that if you mispronounce them, nobody can catch it because they're always trying to keep up with where you're at when you're reading them.

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Now I sense a theme here in all of these promises, that God promised to Abraham that he was going to give a land and a son.

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God has reiterated that promise of a physical land and a physical son to Abraham so many times up to this point that it is almost nauseating in its repetition.

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It is difficult for us to avoid the conclusion that what God has in mind is not spiritual descendants,

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He has in mind physical descendants, and He doesn't have in mind the land as an allegory for some metaphor heaven or whatever it is, but a physical land.

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In fact, you'll notice that God gives the parameters of the land from the river Egypt as far as the great river, the river of Euphrates.

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Now I was asked this last week as I was talking about the promised land to somebody, are you going to show slides, pictures so we can all see? Now remember

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I said back when we were in chapter 7, 8 of Hebrews what it was and went through the temple and I put the big slide show up here,

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I said this is the first time I've done that in 25 years of preaching, where I put slides on the slide projector. This is the second time that I'm going to do this in 25 years of preaching, and I want you to know this is not an indication of a deterioration in how we do things around here, okay, so it's not like next week we have a movie clip and after that we're just watching movies of my sermons, movies instead of my sermons.

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I'm going to show you a little bit of the physical land and the boundaries, I think this is how

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I do it, go back, all right.

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This is Ur of the Chaldeans right here, this is the Persian Gulf, this is Ur of the Chaldeans, this is the river

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Euphrates that goes up here, comes out of Turkey basically, the mountains that are just south of Turkey, and here's

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Haran where Abram first settled with Teran before Teran died, and then that's where Genesis chapter 12 picks up.

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Now you'll see that the map here has, probably you can't see that even the front row, but it says Ur of the Chaldeans right here, question mark.

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Some people have, there's an Ur down here and it's also suggested that this is Ur of the Chaldeans, maybe it's this whole

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Mesopotamian Crescent Valley was the Ur of the Chaldeans at the time, but there's two different locations that are indicated as Ur here.

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Right down here is Kuwait basically and this is modern day Iran right here. When Abram got this call, he went from Haran up here all the way down into what we today call

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Israel, this is Jerusalem right here, here's the Dead Sea right here next to Jerusalem and this is the Sea of Galilee up here, the northern end of Israel is right up in here today and it goes down this

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Jordan River and then they fight over everything along the Jordan River and pieces inside Israel today. So Abram went from, where we at,

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Ur of the Chaldeans over here all the way up here, settled there and then came down here. If Abram, you say why doesn't Abram just go across here, this is a thousand miles from where he was started at here over to in the land of Israel, that would have been a thousand mile journey.

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You don't do that across the Arabian Desert with your servants and your people and it would take months and there's no way you can carry enough water.

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So he would have gone up the Euphrates River where it's lush and green and followed that up to Haran, settled there and then

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God said go, Abram went down into the land of Israel. So here's a modern day map, here's

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Ur of the Chaldeans right here, here's the Persian Gulf just to the south of that, here's the Ur where Abram would have started out, so you're talking about Kuwait, Iran, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon is up here, this is

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Egypt, Saudi Arabian Peninsula down here, this is Turkey up here, modern day Turkey, Abraham went from here all the way up to here and then down into Israel, Israel the borders of that are right basically right here today, it's this little sliver of land.

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If you're wondering how big Israel is to put that into perspective, the state of Israel is about the size of the Idaho Panhandle, from the south end of Lake Coeur d 'Alene all the way up to the

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Idaho, the Canadian border and about as wide, that's basically the state of Israel, almost the same geographic area.

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Okay, so don't miss, here's the river Euphrates and over here, here's the river

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Egypt. God promised to Abraham this piece of land, did you know that?

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I didn't know that, when I read that, I thought I should probably explain where this is at to everybody and I started looking for the river

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Euphrates and I had to start scrolling to the east on my screen to find the river Euphrates, Israel the

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Jews have never occupied anything but a sliver of what was promised to them, never, not yet to this day, barely occupied a sliver.

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Now, in the days of David and Solomon, what is modern day Israel, they occupied most of that, little stuff beyond the

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Jordan because there was a tribe that settled east of the Jordan River, you remember, the half tribe of Manassas settled over there. During the days of Solomon, Solomon was paid tribute by a lot of these nations that were around there, probably for his military protection, but Solomon was paid tribute by those lands but the

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Jews never possessed it, though it says that Solomon reigned over it, he reigned over it in the sense that he was paid tribute by nations around there, but the

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Jews have never possessed that. What God gave Abraham in bringing Moses in there was just a sliver that's basically everything to the east or the west of the

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Jordan River out to the Mediterranean. The Jews to this day have never occupied anything but a sliver of what

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God promised. So now the question, before we move on to chapter 17, the question I have for you is, did

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God fail to give to Abraham what he promised or do you think it's possible that there is still more to be fulfilled in that promise?

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The promised land is enormous, I can do that, the promised land is enormous.

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It includes most of Iraq, part of Saudi Arabia, part of Egypt, Kuwait, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the

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Sinai Peninsula, and part of Turkey, and Israel has never possessed it all. In Genesis chapter 16,

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Abraham took Hagar and he beget Ishmael, that was basically the father of the

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Arabs and the Arab nations and a lot of nations that were around Israel, caused them problems for all of their existence, all the way up until today, the children of Ishmael are still at war with the children of Isaac.

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Genesis chapter 17, turn to Genesis chapter 17, here the covenant is affirmed again, yet this time still

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Abraham is without a son by Sarah, he is now 99 years old. Genesis 17 verse 1, now when

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Abraham was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to him and said to him, I am God Almighty, walk before me, be blameless, I will establish my covenant between me and you and I will multiply you exceedingly.

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Abram fell on his face and God talked with him saying, as for me, behold, my covenant is with you and you will be the father of a multitude of nations, no longer shall your name be called

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Abram, but you shall be 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.

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I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant to be

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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

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God. So this is an everlasting covenant, which means it's still in existence today. God is still honoring this covenant today and He is promising them an everlasting possession.

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Now I ask you, does everlasting include today? It does, right? And next week and next year and a long time from now, in fact, everlasting includes everlasting.

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Because it's an eternal and everlasting covenant, they have been given a land that they will enjoy as an everlasting possession.

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Now the fulfillment of these promises, and there have been a number of them, Abraham had a son by Sarah, nations came from him,

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Isaac had the nation of Israel, and from Isaac came Jacob and Esau. Esau had his own nation, so even from Abram's grandson there is multiple nations coming there.

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And then also Abram had nations or kings that came from him from Ishmael, and then after Sarah died,

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Abram took Keturah as a wife and he had more sons and daughters, most and many of those also became entire nations.

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So nations did come from Abram, literally, kings have come from Abraham, God financially blessed

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Abraham, those who have blessed Abraham have been blessed, and those who have cursed Abraham have been cursed, that's still going on today.

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And listen, the nation that abandons Israel will be punished, it is no coincidence that as our nation gets further and further away from a

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Christian worldview and a Christian morality, the more and more we turn against the nation of Israel, it's happening in our own day right before our very eyes.

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And the nation that curses Israel will be cursed, why? Because this is an everlasting covenant, that's what God promised Abraham, this is going to go on as long as there are people, this is going to be the reality.

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Those who bless you will be blessed, those who curse you will be cursed, literally. His name has been made great amongst the

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Arabs and the Christians and the Jews, he has had innumerable descendants, innumerable. Abraham was a prolific begetter of children in his own day, and then his children have become prolific begetters of children, multitudes have come from Abraham.

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His descendants were strangers in Egypt, they were enslaved for 400 years, God judged Egypt, he brought them out, gave them possessions, they plundered the

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Egyptians, Abraham died before any of these things happened, and Abraham died actually before all of the terms of the covenant were fulfilled.

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In fact, Abraham saw a son, but you know which of those two promises, the son and the land

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Abraham never saw the fulfillment of in his own day? The land. In fact, his son never possessed the land, his grandson never possessed the land, his great grandchildren never possessed the land, 400 years before they ever walked into that land and possessed even a sliver of it.

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Now I ask you, if what has already come to pass has been fulfilled exactly, literally, as it was promised, then

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I would submit to you that what is yet to be fulfilled in the Abrahamic covenant will be fulfilled exactly, literally, as it was promised.

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You say everything from Egypt to the Euphrates? Everything from Egypt to the Euphrates, they will possess it.

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All the land that was promised will eventually belong to the Jews, from the river of Egypt to the river of Euphrates, and Abraham himself will possess it, and he will dwell in it, he will walk in it, and he will call it his own.

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I'll explain to you in a moment how that is possible. Now if everything so far that has been predicted in the terms of the

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Abrahamic covenant has been fulfilled literally, why should I, this is a serious question, and I understand that there are amillennialists and postmillennialists in this body,

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I love you, some of you are church members, I'm fine with that, we have a difference on eschatology, but listen to me carefully. As much as I love you, this is my serious question to those who would disagree with me on eschatology as an amillennialist or postmillennialist, my question to you is this, why should

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I switch my hermeneutic, my interpretation of scripture, in the middle of the Abrahamic covenant?

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As I'm reading a sentence, why should I say, this was fulfilled literally, literally, literally, literally, literally, literally, all these things, all the way until I get to the very last and then say, but the promise of land, and the promise of a kingdom, and the promise of that seed, that's spiritual fulfillment.

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I don't think that that's legitimate. That is why I am a premillennialist. It's a consistent hermeneutic.

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I can't get from A to B, I can't get from literal fulfillment to a spiritual fulfillment. I can't walk down that road, and so I must be then a premillennialist.

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If Abraham had the faith, listen carefully, if Abraham had the faith to believe that the death of Isaac would not be a hurdle to God fulfilling the promise to give him descendants as of the sands of the seashore, then why should

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Abraham believe that his death would be a hurdle for God to give him the land? Do you follow that?

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If Abraham did not believe that the death of Isaac, he put him up on an altar to sacrifice him, if Abraham did not believe that his death would be a hurdle to God fulfilling his promises, why would

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Abraham believe that his death would be a hurdle to God fulfilling his promises? Abraham didn't believe this, and this is the point of Hebrews chapter 11.

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God said, go from A to B, I'll take you out of this land and put you into this land. Now I want you to live in this land, and guess what?

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You're going to die in this land, never seeing the fulfillment of the promises. And Abraham said, I will obey, I will go, and I will die there, even though me, my child, my grandchild, my great -grandchildren, even down to the fourth generation are not going to see the fulfillment of the promises.

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Why? Because Abraham believed in the God of resurrection, and here's how the Abrahamic covenant is going to be fulfilled. At the end of time, when

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Christ comes back, he is going to resurrect Old Testament saints, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David. He's going to resurrect the

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New Testament church, and all of us will enter into the land of Israel, and everything that I showed you up on the map there will be the land of Israel.

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All of that possession will be given to Abraham, and Abraham will walk in that land. He will live in that land.

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He will call that land his, because God promised it to him as an everlasting possession forever.

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And his children will dwell in that, and for a thousand years, Jesus Christ will reign in Jerusalem, and he will reign and rule over all of the nations, so that through the seed of Abraham, the

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Lord Jesus Christ, all of the nations will be blessed. All of the nations are being blessed right now as we preach the gospel and gather in God's elect into his church, but listen, there is going to be physical and spiritual and national blessings that will be poured out eschatologically on Israel in the end times, and through Jesus Christ, through his rule of perfect justice, perfect peace, and perfect prosperity, for a thousand years, all of the nations of the earth will be blessed, because Jesus Christ will be their king.

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That is how all of it's going to unfold. You see, all of these blessings that we've been reading through in Genesis, these things will yet be fulfilled to Abraham, and I don't mean to suggest that all millennialists or the post -millennialists are calling

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God a liar, but this is a black and white thing for me, personally. Either God fulfills those promises to Abraham, or I do not believe that God has kept his word to Abraham, and I do not think that you can make the claim that God fulfilled the promise of physical land and physical descendants to Abraham by giving spiritual blessings to people who were not his descendants.

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That is not a fulfillment. If I promise one of my children something, and then I say, well, I fulfilled that when I gave that person something entirely different, that's not fulfilling those promises.

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These blessings will be fulfilled to Abraham. He will dwell and walk in this land, because Abraham did not believe that his death was going to be the hurdle of him possessing that land.

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He trusted God, and he was willing to die not seeing the fulfillment of the promises, because he believed that he would rise again.

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That is the hope of Old Testament saints, and that is our hope as well. Now all of that just lays the foundation of a promise and a land and a seed to Abraham, and now next week we'll go back in and look at how the author of Hebrews deals with those issues.

52:15

Let's pray together. Father, we are so thankful for the blessed hope that we have in Jesus Christ.

52:20

Again, you have lavished upon us spiritual blessings because of what you have promised to Abraham, and you will lavish upon us physical blessings, a kingdom that is to come, and eternal new heavens and a new earth, dwelling in a resurrected land and a resurrected creation and resurrected bodies.

52:35

All of that is ours because of your great grace. We love you, and we pray that you would comfort and encourage our hearts together with these truths.

52:42

May we, like Abraham, believe you and rest in your promises, rest in that truth, for most of us here may likely die before we ever see ourselves in that kingdom.

52:52

But we will be raised again, and like Abraham, we can trust in a God who raises the dead. We thank you in Christ's name, amen.