But anyway, one of the elements of that promise
that God makes to Abraham is that he will be a
blessing to all of the nations.
What I would suggest is that somewhere between
Genesis and Isaiah, Israel had kind of lost
track of its calling.
And there are some temptations. When you read
the book of Exodus, a little bit of this is
about being holy, about being set apart and distinctive.
It's very easy to kind of lose track that God
was calling us to be alive.
He's not calling us to be set apart and
distinct so that we can be all by ourselves and
not share with anybody else, to build a wall
between us and anybody else.
We've got to be set apart to be a city upon a
hill to be alive.
We've got to find a balance in our own lives,
having with our lives that we're not alive to
the world, but we still are in the world and
we're still alive to the world.
So I have one projection that we can make here
as well.
It's also interesting that when you take us
over into the New Testament, you can look at
Matthew 28 to the verse 19.
What did Jesus say to his disciples?
He said, go out and baptize and make a cycle.
Where? All nations.
So you see this all nations kind of thing that
runs throughout the Bible.
I'm talking about unfinished business, which is
the theme of this lecture.
We do have unfinished business that we are to
be about making disciples of all nations and
that is an ongoing business that is always unfinished.
We could pray and hope for the restoration, the
recreation of the entire world, like Paul does
for the Israelites in Romans.
But nevertheless, there is a task for you to
make disciples of all nations.
And if you go to Acts 1:8 & 9, Jesus says, what?
To his disciples, bear witness of me.
Now, I got kind of fudged here and I guess Paul
Parker over here, we kind of looked on this a
little bit.
There is to bear witness, technically, it says
to the ends of the earth.
But that is another way of saying all the
nations were to the end of the earth.
And so I want to tie what we do in this class
to the overall theme of the lecture.
And to see as our principal business of
continuing this line of thought that God has had.
Let's get all about this.
OK, hopefully I won't trip.
Is it on and everything?
Ready to go.
Ready to go, OK.
So I can just go.
Repeat button?
Well, we've got Genesis 12, three, Isaiah 49,
six, Matthew 28:19, and Acts 1, eight through nine,
which I think encourages us to be about the
business of the Lord and that our business is
not quite finished.
However, I do want to say that there is a sense
in which some biblical passages suggest that
some tasks,
some projects, some works have been completed.
That there is this word finished that occurs, I
think occurs at very interesting points in the Bible.
Turn, if you will, and do I have people who are
brave and bold and don't mind reading aloud?
Do I have some folks like that in this class?
Turn to Genesis 2.
I'm going to have to watch myself.
I'm a wanderer.
This is not going to work out too well for me.
I like to wander around when I teach.
Read the first two verses, first two or three verses.
Who's got the first couple of verses of Genesis?
Thus the heavens and the earth were completed
in all their vast array.
By the seventh day God finished the work he had
been doing,
so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.
And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy,
because on that seventh day he rested from all
the work of creating that he had done.
All right, very good.
So there's a sense in which in Genesis 2, one,
and two we're just told that God's creative work,
his act of creating the world is finished.
Genesis 2, one, and two, and the word finished
is used there.
Who has the book of Exodus nearby?
Anybody got the book of Exodus in their Bibles?
Turn over to chapter 39.
Look at verse 32, 39 and 32.
Now I'm reading from the New International Version.
Exodus 39:32.
We're going to put this up here.
Who can read that for us real quick?
Well, I'll write it up on the board for everybody.
In Hebrew it's the same word, that you can talk
about completed and finished.
So it's the same word.
Then you drop down to verse 42.
The Israelites had done all the work just as
the Lord had commanded Moses.
Moses inspected the work, saw that they had
done it just as the Lord had commanded.
You think that's important in this little
section here, as the Lord commands?
So Moses blessed them.
What did God do after he finished creating the world?
He blessed creation.
What does Moses do after the Israelites
complete or finish all the tabernacle preparations?
He blesses them.
Turn to chapter 40, verse 33.
Moses is the one who erects the tabernacle itself.
Then Moses set up the courtyard around the
tabernacle, an altar,
and put up the curtain at the entrance to the courtyard.
So Moses finished the work.
See all these passages here coupled here at the
end of the book of Exodus?
Once again it tags onto this theme of finishing
the work.
Turn to 1 Kings 7.
1 Kings 6.
1 Kings 6:38.
In the 11th year in the month of Buhl, the 8th
month, the temple was finished
in all its details according to its specifications.
He had spent seven years building it.
I don't think it's an accident that the temple
took seven years to build.
How long did it take God to create the world?
Seven days.
That number seven is highly, highly significant.
There is a way in which the building of the
temple kind of corresponds
to God's creative activity in Genesis 1.
The same word keeps getting used over and over again.
So Solomon takes seven years to build the temple,
as God took seven days to create the world.
There is a connection here that I think is
taking place.
Look at chapter 7, verse 51.
When all the work King Solomon had done for the
temple of the Lord was finished,
he brought in the things his father David had dedicated.
Chapter 8, verse 54, when Solomon had finished
all these prayers
and supplications to the Lord, he rose from
before the altar of the Lord,
where he had been kneeling with his hands
spread out toward Heaven.
And then finally, chapter 9, verse 1, when
Solomon had finished
building the temple of the Lord in the royal place
and achieved all he had desired to do.
So there is a sense that there are some tasks,
some projects,
that do get finished in the Bible.
And they often have to do with creating.
And the temple, in a sense, is kind of like a
microcosm of creation as a whole.
It becomes the center of the universe.
It is where God is.
And the prayers that Solomon had prayed there,
since he had finished his prayers, he is
praying for YHWH
to allow his presence to come to the temple.
It's God's choice.
God can choose not to allow his presence to
come to the temple.
Solomon prays that he will.
And when he finishes the prayer, God will, in
chapter 9, agree to do so.
But it is conditional. If you will obey my
commandments, statutes, and ordinances,
then I will abide in your presence.
But if you do not, then you can forget it.
So that's 1 Kings, chapters 6-8,
dealing with the temple and the creative
activity that goes on there.
Now, I want you to look at one more passage.
If I turn to the Gospel of John, chapter 19,
verse 30.
Actually, pick up a couple of verses earlier
than that.
Thirty is the focus, but I don't want to leave
out the preceding verses.
Who will begin in verse 28?
Read verses 28-30. Alright.
Just as the creative work of God is done and it
is finished,
and God rests from all the work that he had done,
now the principle redemptive work of God, as in
the Bible,
the most important act of redemption throughout
history is finished.
The act itself is done. It is finished.
Notice how it is the fulfillment of Scripture,
how things have come to an end,
how the Passover lamb, and John is the one who
makes a very, very careful point
that we pick up on a theme that the time Jesus crucified
is the time that they're slaughtering the lambs
for the Passover.
That is no accident.
Jesus is our Passover lamb. He's the last one
we'll ever need.
That's the point. We will never need another
Passover lamb,
another sacrificial lamb. He is the perfect sacrifice.
If you don't believe that, go read the book of Hebrews.
That's the point that is being made in the book
of Hebrews,
that we don't need another sacrifice. It's all done.
Jesus, the perfect sacrifice, has been
sacrificed. It is finished.
That's a little phrase to finish. Our theme is
unfinished business,
but there are some aspects of the business of
God that have been finished.
I want to point that out before we push on here
to some things
that are unfinished in the Bible as well.
I do want you to kind of see these passages together.
The creative activity of God in creation, the
creative activity, I think,
of Israel in the construction of the tabernacle
and Temple,
places of worship, holy places. Why are they holy?
Because God's presence descends upon them. That
makes them holy.
God's presence is there, therefore it is holy.
What makes us holy? God's presence is in us.
Therefore, Paul uses the term that our bodies
are temples.
Why? God's presence. That's the only thing that
makes anything holy,
is God's presence. If God's presence isn't
there, it's not holy.
That's the point. Now, the reason why God is in us
is because of the redemptive activity of Jesus Christ.
It is finished. But in the Bible, there are
also certain themes
and pasts and ideas that remain unfinished.
Go into the book of Genesis. How does the book
of Genesis end?
Anybody know off the top of your head, how does
it end?
Joseph dies, alright, and actually chapter 50,
the whole chapter, Jacob has just died.
We go very quickly from the death of Jacob to
the death of Joseph
as far as passages are concerned.
It doesn't take very long to get from one to
the other.
Jacob is buried, but he dies in Egypt, and so
does Joseph.
Both of them die in Egypt. We are told the
story about how
Jacob's body is taken to Canaan, or to Israel,
and buried there.
We'll learn later how Joseph's bones are
brought up to Israel
by the Israelites a little bit later on.
But the point that I want to make is that God,
back in Genesis 12,
promised the land to Abraham and his descendants.
However, the book of Genesis ends with his
descendants in Egypt.
It's unfinished. The promise in Genesis 12,
the book of Genesis ends in an unfinished fashion.
What about the book of Deuteronomy?
The end of the Torah, the Pentateuch, the five
books of Israel,
these holy books, these five books of Moses.
How does the book of Deuteronomy end?
The death of Moses and the Israelites are on
the wrong side of the river
still, aren't they? They have not crossed over
the river,
which becomes a very important point here, and
that is up to Joshua.
By the way, in Jack Reese's sermon on Monday night,
he made an interesting point talking about the
angel's appearance to Mary,
and that you're going to name this child what?
What are you going to name this child? Yeshua.
That's the Hebrew slash Aramaic type of pronunciation.
Or Yesus, or how we pronounce it, Joshua.
What we tend to do with Yeshua is to
transliterate it as Joshua.
Sometimes it is Yahshua instead of Yeshua.
Something along these lines, so that's how we
get it there.
It's kind of interesting to think about how the
book of Deuteronomy ends
with the death of Moses. You have an unfinished bit.
Moses does not get to complete the task, does
he? It's unfinished.
The promise made to Abraham is that the
Israelites will inherit the land, Canaan.
You look to the north, south, East, and West,
but it's always in Canaan
that Abraham looks to the north, South, East,
and West.
They're not there yet. They're not in the
promised land yet.
And Moses dies, unable to complete or to finish
the task.
It is Joshua, Yeshua, Jesus, who finishes the task.
I would suggest, both in the book of Joshua
and in the Gospel of Matthew and Luke,
where you have his name being referred to and
why he's given the name.
I don't want to deny the significance of the
meaning Savior or salvation
that is associated with Jesus, but I also think
there's a connection
that just as Moses did not complete the task,
and Joshua had to do it back in those days,
in the same sense, Jesus completes the
unfinished business of God.
One who is greater than Moses is here.
Once again, I'd refer you to the book of Hebrews.
Jesus is greater than Moses. That's the point
that's being made.
Moses didn't complete the task.
Moses was close with God, spoke to God face to face.
Not everybody gets to do that. That's a special privilege.
But Moses is never called the Son of God.
That refers to Jesus.
So in that way, Jesus is greater than Moses.
Jesus is completing the task.
He is finishing the task that began way back when.
How are we going to be a blessing to all nations?
I think through Scripture, through the whole
entire canon,
we've learned that it is Jesus.
Jesus Christ is the way in which all the
nations will be blessed.
That goes back to Genesis 12:1-3.
So Genesis and Deuteronomy kind of leave you hanging.
And the Israelites don't cross the land.
They don't inherit the land until the book of Joshua.
Joshua 1-12 talks about the conquest of Canaan.
So they're in the land. Things ought to be great.
Hunky-dory, all these kind of things.
But that's not the case, is it?
They continue to sin. They worship idols.
And eventually, they are kicked out.
So if you go to 2 Kings, does anybody know how
2 Kings ends?
The story that Joshua judges 1 and 2 Samuel, 1
and 2 Kings,
all about life in Israel for the Israelites.
How do 2 Kings end? Does anybody know?
There's a king by the name of Jehoiakim,
who ends with the fall of Jerusalem, doesn't it?
That king of Israel is not in Jerusalem.
The king of Judah, actually, to be technical
about it.
That king of Judah is not in Jerusalem.
That's the problem. He's not in Jerusalem.
He is in Babylon.
So this history of the Israelites that begins
with Joshua and goes through 2 Kings,
it ends, once again, with the Israelites, or
the Jews, outside the land.
And so what begins to emerge is this
expectation of a Messiah,
a descendant of David, who will restore the
borders of Israel,
who will make Israel what it once was back in
the glory days of David and Solomon.
He will extend their borders. He will bring
peace to the world.
All these kinds of expectations begin to emerge.
So you get the prophetic literature and all
that kind of stuff,
which always is talking about these kinds of
things of Messiah.
Go to the end of Malachi, the book of Malachi,
the last book of the Old Testament.
How does the book of Malachi end?
Think of verse 1. How does it begin?
The last chapter of the Old Testament.
Talk about your unfinished business.
How does it begin? Who's got chapter 4:1?
Craig, you got it? Go ahead.
Keep on going.
There is unfinished business at the end of Malachi.
The day has not yet come.
When you read Malachi, in the time of Malachi,
when he's writing and prophesying here at this point,
that day has not come yet.
The Elijah has not come when Malachi ends.
You've got to turn the page, so to speak,
and enter into the Gospel of Matthew to start
figuring out this day that has come.
This Elijah who was to come in the form of John
the Baptist,
this Messiah that everybody who is looking for
in Israel has come.
So there is a sense, just as there is finished
business in the Old Testament,
there is also this unfinished business that
continues on.
How does the book of Revelation end, by the way?
Anybody ever know how that?
What's the little phrase that ends the entire Bible?
What now?
Come quickly. O Lord, come quickly.
Has he come yet? No.
So, in a sense, the Bible ends with unfinished business.
Yes, the redemptive work, the redemptive act
has been done.
It is finished, but there is also this sense of
unfinished business.
The Lord has not returned yet.
So we are living in an era of unfinished business.
And the Bible points to that.
Can I use this word? Can I make up a word?
There is a sense of unfinishedness about the Bible.
And I think it's good for us to know.
I want to get down to an individual level now,
and we're going to look at Abraham very, very quickly,
kind of in an overview kind of fashion here,
and hopefully learn something about faith today
from Abraham.
Then we're going to look a little more
carefully at Jacob and Joseph
as we go through the day here.
But there is an unfinished aspect to us as well.
Turn to the book of Philippians, chapter 1,
verse 6.
Are you saying that Jesus is the fulfillment of
the promise
made to Abraham that to him all nations would
be glad?
I think so.
I think there is a direct connection.
And so when Jesus says it is finished,
I think he is tying back to all these things.
And he tells his disciples to be witnesses to
all nations,
to the ends of the baked disciples.
I think he is hearkening back to these kind of
passages here.
And that in John, well, in all the Gospels, not
just John,
but John uses the phrase it is finished.
He's the only one of the four Gospels that uses
that term.
Am I getting all tangled up?
I knew this was going to happen to me.
I think Jesus is the fulfillment of the promise
to Abraham.
Now, our Jewish friends would beg to differ.
I understand that.
But I think Jesus is the fulfillment of the promise.
Now, what does Philippians 1:6 say?
Be confident of this, that he who began a good
work in you
will carry it on to completion until the day of
Christ's day.
There's all that language we've been talking
about, isn't it?
He began a good work.
How is creation described in Genesis 2?
Works of God. He has done these things.
He's begun a good work in you.
And what's he going to do?
He's going to see it to its completion.
But what's the point?
That's the point to the Philippians.
We are works in progress.
We are ourselves in the sense of unfinished business.
We're not done yet.
Look at Philippians.
Philippians 3.
You're still there?
Let me turn over there as well with you.
Philippians 3.
I think beginning in verse 12.
Notice what it says.
Not that I have already obtained all this,
talking about perfection
and all things that he wants to be and be like,
or have already been made perfect,
but I press on to take hold of that for which
Christ Jesus took hold of me.
Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have
taken hold of it,
but one thing I do.
Forgetting what is behind and straining toward
what is ahead,
I press on toward the goal to win the prize
for which God has called me heavenward in
Christ Jesus.
There is that sense of unfinished business.
We are pressing on.
We are looking forward.
We have not already obtained everything that we
want to obtain.
We are not with God in Heaven yet, but we're
pressing on.
Now, turn to Hebrews 11.
Hebrews 11.
We're about to get back to the book of Genesis here,
and this is going to be our link back to Genesis.
Hebrews 11.
What is Hebrews 11 about?
How many of you are familiar with this chapter?
What's it about?
Go ahead.
The great cloud of witnesses, the faithful, and
the fathers of the faithful.
The fathers of the faithful.
You know, preachers are good about coming with
a little...
I've heard of the Hall of Fame of Faith.
I guess that helps you kind of think of it, put
that in memory there,
but it's a list, all right, of characters from
the Old Testament,
people from the Old Testament.
Notice what it has to say about them in verse
13 of chapter 11.
We're not going to read the entire chapter 11.
We are going to focus on...
It does deal with Abraham.
We're going to look at that passage.
Hebrews 11:13.
All these people were still living by faith
when they died.
They did not receive the things promised.
They only saw them and welcomed them from a distance,
and they admitted that they were aliens and
strangers on earth.
People who say such things show that they are
looking for a country of their own.
If they had been thinking of the country they
had left,
they would have had opportunity to return.
Instead, they were longing for a better
country, a heavenly one.
Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called
their God,
for he has prepared a city for them.
Now, the point, I think, in the book of Hebrews,
and a point for us today is we are like those ancestors.
We are like Abraham and Sarah.
We are like Isaac and Rebekah.
We are like Jacob and Rachel and Leah.
We are like Joseph and Asenath.
We are like them in that there are some things
to the promise of God
that have not been completely fulfilled yet.
But we can say, like Paul, I know whom I have
believed, all right,
that he is able to keep that which I have
entrusted or committed to him
against that day or until that day.
And so what I want to talk about, let me go
back to the prophets or the ancestors,
the patriarchs, excuse me, get this cord around
this so I can move that.
Paul, can you move that off to the side there?
I'm not going to use it anyway.
Is a tension that all of us find ourselves in.
That tension is we know that God has made a promise.
God has made promises to us.
We are going to be with him forever, in
eternity, Heaven, all right.
We have that as a promise.
Have we fully experienced that yet? No.
We are still here.
It has not yet been completely fulfilled.
And just like the patriarchs, all right, there
is this gap between promise and fulfillment.
And this gap is full of tension.
Is God going to keep his promise?
Are we going to be faithful to our calling?
That's where the tension lies. That's where we
are right now.
Look at Colossians 3. Who has Colossians 3?
I've got to keep an eye on where my Bible is
there. Colossians 3:1-4.
Especially, let's look at verse 4. We've got
time constraints here.
Who's got Colossians 3:4?
If I had known they wouldn't have a cord here,
I would have got this room arranged a little differently.
Colossians 3:4.
Christ will our life be revealed, then you will
also be revealed with him.
Hey, then you will also.
If you go up in the preceding verses, there is
a sense in which we are already experiencing
the salvation of God.
That there is an already sense to our salvation.
But there's also a not yet sense to our
salvation as well.
This tension of already but not yet.
I think it's a good way of talking about
promise and fulfillment.
And we're living between the worlds. We're
living in this time of tension.
So that, if you turn to Genesis 12, we're going
to begin our story of Abraham at this point in time.
If you look at Genesis 12:1-3, there is a
promise that is made to Abraham.
And that promise has three elements.
The first element of the promise to Abraham is posterity.
You will become a nation.
The second element of that promise is a divine
human relationship.
I will be with you is the common expression to
describe that.
I will be with you.
When Moses dies, one of the ways in which God
reassures Joshua.
He's following big shoes to fill here.
If Moses had just died, who's Joshua to step in
the place of Moses?
Do we got any coaches in here? Any ex-coaches?
The advice to a coach is never follow a legend.
I mean, pity the fool that has to follow a
legendary coach.
And try to measure up to what that coach has done.
You know, you look at UCLA basketball. John Wooden.
Have you ever heard John Wooden?
When all those national titles in UCLA since
then has just not been,
how many coaches have they gone through trying
to find the next John Wooden
or the next Bear Bryant at Alabama?
It's just you never follow a legend.
That's what Joshua's facing.
How do you follow Moses?
I mean, boy, those are big sandals.
Moses took off the sandals. I know it's burning bush,
but they're still big sandals to fill.
But God says, don't worry about that.
It's not about following Moses.
It's about me being with you. Fear not.
Take courage. Do not be afraid.
I'm with you. I'll take care of you.
It's divine presence that's going to be with
them throughout.
And then finally, the third element of the promise,
the one that causes all the political tensions today
and all the wars in the Middle East, land.
Repeatedly, Abraham has shown that the land of Canaan,
as it will be referred to at this time, which
will become Israel or Palestine,
whatever term you want to use to call that land.
It's hard to be politically neutral when you're
trying to name that land there as well.
That land is going to belong to Abraham and his descendants.
That's the promise.
Now, is it fulfilled in the days of Abraham?
No. No. It is not.
The story of Abraham takes place from Genesis
12 through chapter 25.
A lot of things happen.
This promise is one of the big things that happen.
In chapter 15, you have a covenant that is renewed.
Chapter 15 is an interesting little chapter.
Abraham kind of challenges God a little bit
there in chapter 15 of Genesis.
Remembering this promise.
Oh, God, you promised me all kinds of descendants.
You said, look up to the stars of the heavens.
Can you count those?
Well, that's what your descendants are going to
be like.
They'll be just the easiest kind of stars.
Go to the seashore. Can you count the sand in
the seashore? God.
A little reminder here.
I have, at this stage of the game, it's rather
easy to count my children.
It doesn't take any time at all.
I have Zilch.
Now, does anybody happen to know how old
Abraham was when he was first called,
when he was Abram and called to Canaan to leave
his homeland and to go?
Seventy-five years old.
Now, they're not living to 900 years old anymore.
So that kind of time frame is gone.
He's getting old.
And Abram suggests, all right, God, see, I
don't have any kids,
but you said I would have all...
My head or chief servant, Eliezer.
Oh, that's how you're going to fulfill your promise.
Oh, I see.
What is God's response to Abraham's suggestion?
No. No.
From your own seed, your own issue, you will
have a child.
Still don't have any kids.
Maybe the problem is not Abraham, but maybe
it's Sarah who's old.
If Abraham's old, she's kind of old too.
Maybe she's the problem.
She can't have any children.
So we see in this tension between promise and
fulfillment that the
threat to posterity, and these are threats down
here that,
will it be fulfilled or not, is the barrenness.
Have you ever read the book of Genesis and
noticed how,
and kind of scratched your head, can any of
these women have any children?
Have you ever noticed that?
They all seem to have a hitch here in having kids.
Well, there's a level where that's what makes
it so interesting.
Is Sarah ever going to have a child?
She kind of gives up on the idea, doesn't she?
What's her big suggestion?
I've got a handmaiden.
I've got a servant girl.
It was a custom because of how they did their wills.
When the father dies, if the woman, the wife,
cannot have a child,
and you have a servant girl, then you can have
a child through her.
She is taken from the servant girl, placed upon
the knees of the mother.
When the mother will name the child, it becomes
her child.
I guess this is what God must mean,
that we're going to have to find my servant girl,
and you'll have to have a child through her.
Is that what God meant?
No. No.
Hagar does have a child.
That child's name is Ishmael, but that's not
the child of promise.
That's not it.
You're going to have a bunch of descendants.
Abraham, I'm already 75 years old to begin with.
Now years are coming along here, and Sarah
still doesn't have a child.
What happens in chapter 17?
God appears again to Abraham and gives him the
sign of the covenant.
Circumcision will be the sign of the covenant
that I have made with you.
Covenant is enacted in chapter 15.
Chapter 12, technically, is a promise.
Chapter 15 is the covenant that is made between
God and Abraham.
Chapter 17, God says the sign of this covenant
is going to be circumcision.
Ishmael is brought up into conversation,
and God once again talks to Abraham about being
a father of a whole bunch of people,
and Abraham says to God,
Well, look favorably upon Ishmael.
May Ishmael be blessed in your eyes.
Look favorably upon him.
He's the child of God.
Can I have descendants through him?
I think Abraham honestly,
and I think you read through Abraham's
narrative there, honestly loves Ishmael.
Now I don't think there's any question about that.
Abraham loved Ishmael.
Here's Ishmael. Isn't he good enough?
What does God say? No.
Sarah, your wife,
will bear the child of promise.
Sarah will bear that child.
What's Abraham, who now is Abraham, I can
really call him Abraham now,
what is Abraham's dignified response?
That's a good one, God.
I'm sure it wasn't quite like that, but he laughs.
He laughs, which is what the name Isaac means,
if you don't know that.
It's laughter.
God laughs. Abraham laughs at God.
I've had health 101.
I had all that kind of stuff, and it's not
going to work.
Chapter 18, Abraham and Sarah entertain these
three visitors.
All kinds of questions about who these three
visitors are,
especially one of those three visitors.
I know we can get off into all that. We're not
going to in this class.
Three visitors come.
Once again, they tell Abraham that this time
next year,
Sarah's going to have a son.
Dinner's been laid out.
Back in those days, the men conducted business,
had those kind of talks.
Sarah's back in the tent making the brownies
for dessert for the visitors.
Over here is the conversation.
What does Sarah do?
She laughs.
She gets called on the carpet, too, doesn't she?
A speaker said, yes, because she counts on her walker.
I always have her kind of stir in a brownie mix.
Anyway, one of those things is kind of, yeah,
how on earth?
That's the point, isn't it?
No way on earth.
No way it's humanly possible for her to have a child.
That's the point.
Through God, all is possible.
They know it can't happen.
It cannot humanly happen for her to have a child.
God says, you're going to have a child.
I'm a God who works wonders.
I'm a God who does miracles.
Don't put me in a little box.
Don't limit me to this human realm.
All right, let me work.
Let me be free to work.
Don't try to control me.
Don't try to control your own fate, any of
those things.
You let me do my job.
I also like the last half of chapter 18.
Does anybody know what happens in the last half
of chapter 18
after the two angels go on down to the city of
Sodom and Gomorrah?
Because that's the other part of the business.
One part of the business is to tell Abraham
he's going to have a child this time next year.
The other part of the business is to take care
of a matter that's going on down in Sodom and Gomorrah.
All right?
That's the other thing that has given rise to
this little visit.
And they stop off to visit Abraham on their way
to Sodom and Gomorrah, really,
is what is kind of going on here.
But it's kind of interesting how God talks to
Abraham, isn't it?
He kind of says, you know, should we let
Abraham in on what we're about to do?
And, you know, kind of God's almost reasoning
with him.
I take it to be God, the Lord, that is here.
So I kind of tip my hand on how I interpret it.
I think it's the Lord.
You know, we need to tell Abraham what we're
about to do.
And so the Lord tells Abraham about the
wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah
that has ascended to the heavens and how
they're going to respond to that.
And what does Abraham do?
This person of faith, how does he respond?
Let's make a deal. Yeah.
Will you destroy the righteous with the wicked?
Far be it from you, God.
You're a good and just God.
Good and just God can't destroy the righteous
right alongside the wicked.
The problem with Abraham's rationale is there's
not any righteous to destroy
alongside the wicked, just about.
I mean, you got to look, Paul.
And so he says, listen, God, will you spare
Sodom and Gomorrah
if you can find 50 righteous folks?
Hey, God says I do it.
40, 30, 20, and it just goes down the list.
Abraham, I can always picture Abraham when I
read this passage,
kind of, okay, there's Lot and there's his wife.
Okay, we'll count her and there's his daughters.
That's four.
Just trying to get that number down as low as
he possibly can,
because how about 10?
I got four.
I can't get it down any lower, though.
God leaves.
Sodom and Gomorrah is destroyed.
One of the things is in this tension point here
when we're living
kind of between the times of promise and fulfillment
that we can learn from Abraham is
God listens.
Sometimes I think we need to kind of sacrifice
our view of God.
I was talking to one of our resident
theologians here on the campus
and we were talking about this passage.
And he says, you know, this passage kind of
flies in the face
of our omni-thinking of God, omni-present, omniscient,
all these kinds of omni-terms that we use about God.
Here is a God who sits back and is willing to listen,
genuinely listens, is willing to have his mind changed.
You got a good case?
I'm here.
I'm listening.
It's not pretend listening.
He is genuinely listening to Abraham.
You think I should spare the righteous with the wicked?
What kind of deal do you want?
If I find 50, I'll spare them.
40, 30, 20, 10, I'll spare them.
God really listens.
I think we sometimes need to really think through
and even perhaps sacrifice some of our
preconceptions of God.
We really need to be reading our Bibles, seeing
what God does.
There's a powerful, powerful passage in the
book of Jeremiah, Chapter 18.
Wonderful little passage.
It's about God taking Jeremiah to the potter's house.
Is anybody familiar with that passage in
Jeremiah, Chapter 18?
Wonderful little passage.
Why does he take him to the potter's house?
Because how do potters work?
Well, they're in there and I don't know the
technical terms
for all their little instruments, but they sit
at their chair
and they've got their little wheels spinning around
and they take their clay and they make things,
don't they?
And he takes Jeremiah to the potter's house and
he says,
we watched the potter work.
The potters are working and what happens if
what he's making doesn't work out?
It's not exactly what he wanted there.
What does he do?
Starts over.
God says, I'm a lot like that potter.
I may have a message of condemnation,
destruction for a people,
but if that people will repent, I'll relent.
I may have a message of hope for this people,
but if they persist in wickedness, I don't have
to bless.
I can change my mind and do something else.
I'm like a potter working with clay.
Same thing back here with Abraham.
I think there is a genuine, genuine
conversation going on between God and Abraham.
And I think that's why we need to be about the
business of intercessory prayer.
We need to be praying on behalf of folks.
We need to be lifting them up to God,
because one thing I'll guarantee you from a
passage like Genesis 18,
beginning in verse 15, God will listen to your prayer.
And not only will he listen to it, he'll
consider it.
He will genuinely consider what you have to say.
If you want another example, you can go to Exodus.
Moses has to talk God out of destroying the
Israelites, doesn't he?
Moses intercedes on behalf of the Israelites.
Same thing happens in Amos 7.
Amos intercedes on the Israelites so that God
won't destroy them.
In Amos 7:1-6, you have an intercessory prayer
that takes place.
I want to encourage you that as we live between
the times,
that we sacrifice our understanding of God.
It says he's up there, he's high, he's remote,
God knows everything.
I'm not arguing with all that, but what I want
to say is this.
God will listen, and God will consider.
And Abraham teaches us that.
The story goes on past Sodom and Gomorrah to
chapter 21,
the birth of this promised son, this birth of Isaac.
There's jealousy between Sarah and Hagar,
between Isaac and Ishmael.
This time Hagar is expelled from the camp for good.
Ishmael will be raised in the deserts of
Arabia, that kind of stuff there.
He will get an Egyptian wife.
Hagar was Egyptian as well.
He will live his own life separate and apart.
Isaac is the Chosen One, he is the blessed one.
And what is Sarah's response when Isaac is born?
What is her response?
The grin comes back, doesn't it?
Here she is, this old woman.
And I mean, it's a humiliation for a woman back
in those days
not to be able to have a child.
And I'm going to say it, it's not nice to say
this anymore,
but to not have a son.
I mean, that's just where your self-esteem
comes from.
I'm going to talk about Leah and Rachel going
to the grocery store a little bit later on.
But if you don't have a son, there's no good.
But here she is in her old age, past the age of childbearing.
She's got a son.
And the corners of the mouth kind of turn up.
God has brought laughter into her life at this
way old age.
Wonderful thing.
Blessed her in her old age.
But then you turn the chapter, don't you?
Chapter 22.
How does chapter 22 begin?
God decides He's going to test Abraham.
How old was Abraham when he entered the land
or when he was first called back in Genesis 12?
He's 85 years old.
We're told that he's 100 years old when Isaac
is born.
He had to wait 25 years.
All right?
Sometimes when we're talking about our faith
and our spiritual development,
we've got to sacrifice our conception of time
and allow God to work according to His time.
How many of you would wait 25 years for a
promise to be fulfilled?
How many of you are not even 25 years old?
You got anybody under 25?
More than your lifetime.
How patient are you?
Not that.
25 years.
Now Isaac is older.
Now if Isaac is getting older,
that also means Abraham and Sarah are getting
older, right?
Think about this.
God made a promise.
Isaac is the fulfillment of that promise.
Things are good.
Tension's over.
Got a child.
Everything's wonderful.
Thumbs up on life.
What is that test?
Test of faith.
What is the specifics to the test?
How is it a test of faith?
It is a test of faith.
Sacrifice that child.
That vehicle through whom I have fulfilled my promise.
Sacrifice that child.
Now have you ever tried to imagine
what Abraham's thoughts must have been?
Does Isaac ask a little question?
What does Isaac say that just tears your heart
in two?
We've got the wood.
We've got the little fire,
probably a little fire and a stone
that they kind of keep with them
or maybe a fire.
We've got the wood.
We've got the fire.
Where's the sacrifice?
Eventually Abraham binds him.
The binding of Isaac binds him
and places him on the altar,
on top of the wood to be sacrificed.
What is Abraham's response to Isaac's question?
The Lord will provide.
Now when I read through it,
I have a son who's about to be nine years old.
And I'm sure many of you have children.
And just to place yourself in that circumstance
and to do what God has asked you to do,
something like that.
I don't know if I could even utter those words.
Even if I believed them,
I don't know how I could get them out.
The Lord will provide.
What's this place they're going to, by the way?
Mount Moriah.
Interesting little word, Moriah.
I want to give this to you here real quickly.
I know we've got about five minutes here.
People try to determine where Moriah is,
where it comes from,
as far as the meaning of the word,
and all that kind of stuff.
Some say that it comes from the word Yara,
which is kind of spelled,
we'll spell it in this class,
for like a Y-A-R-A,
which means to see, God sees.
It is a high hill that you can see from a distance.
Perhaps that's what it means.
It's a place you can see far away.
What is Abraham going to see?
He's going to see a ram in the thicket.
It's kind of another interesting connection here,
that when he's about,
he's got his hand up there,
the knife is poised,
he's ready,
God stops him.
An angel of the Lord,
a messenger comes down quickly and says,
do not stretch out your hand against the son,
the boy,
because I know.
I know.
That's interesting.
But nevertheless, then God, then Abraham sees a
ram in the thicket.
Another possibility for the meaning of this word
that I think is interesting and for us to think about,
it comes from the word Yara,
but it also may come from the word Ra'ah,
which means,
I'm sorry, I got these backwards here.
Ra'ah is to see.
The other word is Yara,
which I'm talking about right now.
I just got it backwards in my head here,
which means to fear, to fear, to worship.
That's one of the words that you kind of use
in connection with worship sometimes as well.
What does God say to Abraham?
Now I know that you fear the Lord.
Ra'ah is to see.
Yara here is to fear.
Now I know that you fear Yara,
Yara the Lord.
That was the test.
Third possible meaning that is sometimes ascribed
to this Moriah word here
is Y-A-R-A-H, Yara.
This is the verb from which we get the noun Torah.
The noun is derived off this verb Yara,
which means teaching, instruction.
The mount of instruction.
Abraham learned something,
and I would suggest that God learned something too.
Interesting little thing.
Was this a real test?
If it's a real test,
then I think that suggests that God did not know
or chose not to know how it would turn out.
He chose not to know.
Is Abraham really faithful or not?
Will he sacrifice this child?
This fulfillment of the promise.
Kind of interesting to think about.
I think it is.
I think it is a genuine test,
and I think if it's a genuine test,
then what that suggests is that God did not know
for sure how Abraham would respond.
Because God Himself says,
now I know.
To take God at His word means
He might not have known before.
Now I know that you fear the Lord,
because you would not withhold from Me your Son,
your only Son.
Fascinating little story.
I know we're about out of time here.
Fascinating little story.
But I think there's a metaphor for us.
When we're talking about faith development,
spiritual formation,
when we see ourselves in this time of tension
between the promise and the fulfillment,
that sometimes we've got to sacrifice our faith.
Because I would imagine that Abraham's faith
was in that Son,
because that Son was the fulfillment of the promise.
That's how God fulfilled His promise.
To take away Isaac means the promise is no
longer fulfilled.
But somehow, someway,
Abraham sacrificed not just Isaac.
I know literally he didn't,
but there's a real sense in which he sacrificed Isaac.
He put him up on that altar.
He had the knife poised.
He really sacrificed him.
In his heart, he had made the sacrifice.
He had given him up to God.
The actual act is stopped, I know.
But in his heart, the sacrifice had been made.
But he believed.
Hebrews 11
gives us a little clue
that Abraham believed
that God was capable of raising the dead.
He was willing to sacrifice his faith.
And that involves trust.
And that's the word that I want.
If there's nothing else you leave with,
our three classes are over with today.
The one word that I want you to take away with you
from this class is the word trust.
That's right.
He believed.
It is.
It is a wonderful thing.
And you make a wonderful point
that he has the confidence that somehow, someway,
can't explain it,
and it may be the dead son,
but we're going to come back. Yes.
The way he raised Isaac, he thought it was right.
That's right.
When Abraham died, he had had children.
That's right.
And so now he's alive.
In a very real sense, Isaac was raised from the dead.
You are exactly right.
You are right.
And I think for this that we've got to
sometimes sacrifice
our faith as well.
I don't know what it is for you.
I don't know what your Isaac is in your life.
But if you're going to completely trust God,
sometimes you've got to sacrifice your faith.
You do.
I know it's time.
Probably about a minute or two over.
11:00, I think, is the next session.
And enjoy it.
We'll talk about Jacob and wrestling with your faith.
And how it plays in our development as well.