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Thank you for your very great patience. I see some of you here this i- evening who were not here last week. Allow me, therefore, to explain what it is exactly we are trying to do. This current series of talks, designed as informal talks, arose out of the weekly Bible study that goes on here in this assembly. And our good Mr. Hamilton was commissioned one week to talk to us about the life and character of the patriarch Abraham, and in his kindness he did a lot of work and produced for us this chart here, in which he indicated the chronology of Abraham's life and put that, uh, here down on the second last row, the chapters of the book of Genesis, and then charted for us the appearances of God to Abraham and the promises that God made to him, along with the trials through which Abraham was sent, some of which he passed with flying colors and others
of which he failed. And in the discussions that ensued, our interest was aroused in these things. And so when I was asked to give some two or three informal talks to the young people of this church, I thought it would be an idea to continue with that theme, the chronology of the life of Abraham. And so last week we began to look at that chronology from the point of view of the New Testament. It is no secret, of course, that the New Testament writers, in their early preaching and exposition of the gospel, laid it down as fundamental to the Christian faith that our Christian gospel is based on and witnessed to by the Old Testament scripture.
For the apostles, Genesis, like all other books of the Old Testament, came to us by the authority of God, and therefore its statements can be and must be used as the authoritative word of God, even over the important matters of our personal salvation and the way that we can be right with God. Tonight we shall consider how Paul uses the book of Genesis to authenticate the Christian gospel, and in particular the relationship of the Christian gospel to the Jewish law.
Now, last week we began our study in that regard by noticing in the Epistle to the Romans that Paul points out and emphasizes that Abraham was justified by faith before he was circumcised, from which Paul deduces that we too can be justified by faith, quite apart from any ritual or ceremony, apart from any work of the law. And then we noticed also how the New Testament discusses in detail the questions of justification by faith on the one hand, and justification by works on the other.
As an illustration of justification by faith, the New Testament quotes us the experience of Abraham when he believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness. When it discusses justification by works, it quotes the experience of Abraham when he offered up his son Isaac upon the altar. And so we spent a little time last week inquiring in the book of Genesis, when exactly did these two things take place? And we found, of course, that Abraham was justified by faith first. That comes in the book of Genesis chapter fifteen.
And then he was justified by works when he offered his son upon the altar, and that comes in Genesis twenty two. Now, in all those things, we noticed that Paul was citing Genesis as case law, as legal precedent, not as typology, but as actual history of an actual man, of his literal experience with God, and how the experience of that patriarch in his day has created for all time a legal historical precedent valid and binding to this present, so that when we look at Abraham's experience and how he was right with God, justified by faith and justified by works, we can take it as the example and precedent for our own experience.
Now, tonight I want to go further. We shall again look at how Saint Paul uses the book of Genesis. This time we shall find that he uses it at another level. In addition to using it as precedent, as case law, he uses it also as prototype. And to help us see that, let us read now some passages from the New Testament first, to be found in the Epistle to the Galatians and chapter uh three. The Epistle to the Galatians and chapter three, And we begin there at verse fifteen.
Brethren, I speak after the manner of men, though it be but a man's covenant, yet when it has been confirmed, no one maketh it void or addeth thereto. Now to Abraham were the promises spoken, and to his seed. He says not and to seeds as of many, but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ. Now this I say, a covenant confirmed beforehand by God, the law which came four hundred and thirty years after, does not disannul so as to make the promise of none effect.
For if the inheritance is of the law, it is no more of promise, but God has granted it to Abraham by promise. What then is the law? It was added because of transgressions till the seed should come, to whom the promise has been made, and it was ordained through angels by the hand of a mediator. Now chapter four, please, and verse 21.
Tell me, you that desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the handmaid and one by the free woman. How be it the son by the handmaid is born after the flesh, but the son by the free woman is born through promise, which things contain an allegory. For these two women are two covenants, one from Mount Sinai, bearing children unto bondage, which is Hagar. Now this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to the Jerusalem that now is, for she is in bondage with her children.
But the Jerusalem that is above is free, which is our mother. For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not, break forth and cry, thou that travellest not, for more are the children of the desolate than of her which hath a husband. Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are children of promise. But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the spirit, even so is it now. How be it, what says the scripture? Cast out the handmaid and her son, for the son of the handmaid shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.
Wherefore, brethren, we are not children of a handmaid, but of a free woman. And one verse besides that, I read from the sister epistle, the epistle to the Romans. The epistle of the Romans, chapter uh eight and verse uh fifteen. Romans eight fifteen. for you received not the spirit of bondage again unto fear, but you received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba Father.
Now here in these passages that we have read together, doubtless there is much that must appear to us at nine o'clock of a Sunday night, rather heavy legal theology. And if you feel in any danger of going to sleep, now is your opportunity to give in your name, and as I see you going to sleep, I will call it out, and then you can wake up. Names, please. Well, it's your fault if you keep awake then. But it must be evident to us at the same time that however heavy and difficult the theology and the legality of these things.
What Paul is contending for is nothing less than our basic spiritual freedom. With freedom did Christ set us free, proclaims the apostle. Stand fast therein and be not entangled again in a yoke of bondage. If in political things the cost of freedom is eternal vigilance, so in spiritual things the key to freedom is to know the solid biblical foundation upon which that spiritual freedom is built.
We in our generation do well to copy those of past centuries who rediscovered their spiritual freedom and broke the bonds of slavish religion. And therefore rejoiced in these great statements of Christian freedom that are the Epistle to the Romans and the Epistle to the Galatians. We need to grasp them. We need to grasp their argumentation, so that we in our generation, if the Lord does not soon come, may pass on that spiritual freedom to our successors, inviolate.
In religion as in politics, it is exceedingly easy to let go true faith and true freedom, and to slip again into the chains of natural religion. So then it is about our freedom that Paul here is talking. And as you see, he backs it home with copious references to the book of Genesis. Let us notice then, first of all, this analogy of Hagar and Ishmael.
He takes, first of all, from chapter sixteen in the book of Genesis, and then finally from chapter twenty one where Ishmael is cast out. Notice, if you will, what it is exactly he is talking about. He says in Galatians chapter three, if the inheritance is of the law, then it is no more of promise. But conversely, if the inheritance is of promise, it is no more of the law. And of course, what he's talking about is primarily the inheritance here in chapter fifteen that God covenanted with Abraham and his seed.
He's talking about chapter fifteen of Genesis. And he makes, first of all, the very simple and serious point that that great inheritance that was given to Abraham was given to him before he was circumcised. The story of his circumcision comes in chapter seventeen. It was given to Abraham, was this promise of inheritance, four hundred years before the law of Moses. And it was promised to Abraham and his seeds, and the promise ratified and guaranteed by a covenant given to him by God, and they're recorded, as I say, in Genesis fifteen.
And therefore, the simple legal point stands that if God promised that covenant, gave that covenant of inheritance to Abraham in Genesis fifteen, a law that comes four hundred and thirty years afterwards cannot add to the conditions of inheritance. It is a simple point. If you have ordered Builder O'Reilly to build you a country cottage for fifty thousand pounds, and you have signed a contract with O'Reilly to build this house to your specifications for fifty thousand pounds, and he signed it and promised that he will deliver the goods at such and such a date.
If when you go to collect the house and pay him the money, he suddenly says to you, oh look, I'm sorry, it's going to cost you a hundred thousand now. You will rightly protest that he said in the covenant and signed the agreement that the house should cost fifty thousand pounds. He cannot therefore suddenly add on some more money to be paid. He must abide by the original agreement, unless knowing O'Reilly has been a bit crafty and has put what they call a break clause in the old covenant, you know, and said that the cost must be adjusted at the time.
So here is the simple thing. Paul is saying God made this in covenant of inheritance with Abraham and his seed before circumcision and before the law of Moses. Therefore, if we would inherit, our inheritance does not depend either on circumcision or keeping the law of Moses. But of course, to a Jew brought up for many long years, believing the law as we believe it too, to be the word of God. To hear Paul say that a man can be justified and can enter into inheritance apart from the deeds of the law, that to a Jew would sound a very shocking thing.
And so to help his fellow Jews see the rightness of the gospel that he preaches, Paul now refers him to the stories that now come after here in the book of Genesis. In chapter sixteen, we read first of Hagar and Ishmael. The story is as follows, that God had made this promise to Abraham that he was going to have a son.
That son will inherit all the great inheritance. Thus far the facts. And for a while now, I invite you to come with me and just rehearse in your memory the facts. Then we can see their significance from the New Testament's point of view. Abraham and Sarah were full, obviously full of this tremendous thing. God had promised them a son, and God had promised them an inheritance. But the weeks went by, and the months went by, and perhaps the years went by.
And Sarah, Abraham's wife, perceived that she was not, in fact, having any child. And so, according to Genesis, uh, sixteen, she came one day to Abraham with that winsome manner that Sarah always used when she was talking to Abraham, and she says, Abraham, dear, the Lord has restrained me from bearing, Abraham. He said, I see that. Do you know what I was thinking, she said? No. Well, I was thinking, wouldn't it be an idea if you took our slave girl?
Which slave girl, said Abram? Well, you know, the one we collected when we were in Egypt. Oh, that one, yes. Hagar, her name is. Wouldn't it be an idea if you took her and got us a son through Hagar. Now, of course, to all respectable Christian women, that sounds an horrific suggestion to come from the mouth of the patriarchess Sarah. Of course it does. But then we're living in nineteen eighty four and she was living who knows how long before Christ. And in those days, it was quite a common thing for people to do.
In well-to-do families, if a man could afford to have a wife and then I don't know how many slave girls. They must have been rich, wasn't they? If he could afford to have a wife who had a lot of slave girls, then it was a common legal thing that if the wife herself couldn't produce the husband a son and heir, then the wife would give her husband one of her slave girls, and the child born from the slave girl would count as mistress's son and become the legal son and heir of her husband.
I say it was a very common device, and that's why it occurred to Hagar, of course, to do what everybody else would have done in her situation. All the women around would have done it. That was the way the world coped with the problem. When a woman couldn't have a son, she would give one of her slave girls to her husband, who would produce a son and heir from her. Seemed the most natural thing in the world. And thus they thought that the great promise of God would be fulfilled. God had promised an inheritance.
He had promised them a son. The question at stake was, how would that promise be fulfilled? A child of promise, an inheritance of promise. How would the promise be fulfilled? Well, as the world says it, God always helps those who help themselves. Don't we have to do our bit and all that? Sarah's suggestion seemed eminently reasonable, judged by ordinary human standards.
And we know that God wouldn't have it. Why wouldn't he have it? Well, you listen to start with anyway. Read your Genesis sixteen again and listen to its simple, naive narrative, but listen to it. Says Sarah, Abraham, the Lord has restrained me from bearing. And you might have thought that was the end of it then. Ah, but she says, but now, Abraham. But now what?
You're not going to suggest ways and means of getting around what the Lord has done, are you, Sarah? The Lord has restrained me, but I think we can get around that. Oh. Now you see in the ancient history the point immediately at stake. God had made a promise. God was going to give them a son. And actually, God had go- was intending to give them a son miraculously. But for the moment, Sarah's faith wavers, and she decides to get this son, not merely as a fulfillment of God's promise in God's way, by God's free gift, she decides she will have to get it by her own ingenuity and human self-help.
God wouldn't have it. When God promised that he was going to give them a son, God intended to keep his promise. When God promised to give them a son, that son was going to be a free gift that didn't require man's own ingenuity and self-help. Ah, but the story goes on. This, uh, girl Hagar, you know, was a slave girl. And in years hitherto, for all I know, for all the story tells us, she was a very well-behaved slave girl.
But you know what it is, and you know what human nature is, don't you? When she saw that she had conceived. Ooh. She began to put on airs and graces. Hm. Go and fetch the water, Hagar. No, I can't. I'm carrying Abram's child. You go and... Ooh. Now I'd like you this morning, uh, to get ready a kit of the goats for dinner.
We've got guests coming along, Abimelech's coming, you know, King Abimelech round the corner, the Philistines. Oh, I can't. Oh, and when the dinner came, here was Hagar. What's all this finery on? Whew. Abram, says Hagar when they got alone that night, I'm not going to stick this. Who does she think she is? Bit of a slave girl, slouch that she is, and giving herself airs and graces, and not doing what I tell her to do. Hm? You can perhaps, uh, begin to visualize the little scenes, as they are euphemistically called, that developed in the home as the slave girl felt she was superior to Sarah.
Why superior? Look, Sarah's no good. I mean, not to put too fine a point on it, but she isn't any good, is she? And I am, you see. By nature, Hagar superior to Sarah. We'll have to send her going. Said Sarah to Abram. And Abram, though he didn't want to do it, but then peace is a valuable thing, isn't it, in the home? And so, presently, Hagar ran off because Sarah tried the heavy hand tactic and tried to put her down and put her in her place.
But she'd got the bit between her teeth, hadn't she? And she wouldn't be put in her place. And instead of submitting to Sarah, she ran off. Well, that was no time for a woman in her state to run off into a wilderness. And God, who loved Hagar, and loved her child to be, and was going to bless him, sent his angel to meet her and told her to go back to Abraham and to Sarah.
So, uh, back Hagar went. And for the next many years lived in Abram's home with Sarah. I don't think every Monday was happy. And there is the added thing, not only was this now personality clash between Hagar and Sarah, there was also the added matter of the character and personality of Hagar's child.
For listen to what the angel of the Lord said about that child before it was born. This is Genesis sixteen and verse eleven. And the angel of the Lord said unto her, Behold, thou art with child, and thou shalt bear a son, and thou shalt call his name Ishmael, because the Lord hath heard thy affliction. Ishmael being interpreted as meaning God has heard. And he shall be a wild ass of a man, a wild ass among men. His hand shall be against every man, and every man's hand against him, and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.
A wild ass of a man. He never got on with anybody, really. On principle. I say again, can you imagine what life in Abraham's home was like? With Hagar the slave girl back, always getting a dig at Sarah, and Sarah struggling to keep on top. With a growing teenager, man growing up into teens, through his childhood, a wild ass of a fellow.
I might quote of him the words of Saint Paul in another place, talking of untamed and untamable human nature, it says the flesh is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. It is as wild and unruly as a wild ass. But thus it continued. Sent back into Abram's home then, all on these intervening years. But let's pass the years and come to chapter twenty one.
And in chapter twenty one we read that in the fullness of time, God visited Sarah, and she gave birth to Isaac, the promised seed at last was born. Now notice how swiftly the narrative in Genesis continues. Why the promised seed was no sooner born, then says the story some three or four years later, perhaps, but it's the next story in the book. Sarah saw the older boy Ishmael mocking and making a fool of and tantalizing the life out of Isaac.
And once more she came to Abram and she said, now this time, Abram, this won't do. You are to cast out this bondwoman and her son. For the son of the bondwoman shall not inherit along with the free. They are incompatible. And it grieved Abraham to have to do it. But when Abraham inquired of the Lord, the Lord came down on Sarah's side and said, yes, Abraham, you are to cast out the son of the bondwoman. Bondwoman's son shall not inherit with the free.
So goes the ancient story. So God, who sent Ishmael, Hagar back and ordained now that Ishmael be born in Abraham's house, now at this point in history, has Ishmael turned out, and Isaac has seen to be the sole and solitary heir. Let's pass on to the subject matter of Genesis. We looked last week at what happens in the rest of that chapter twenty one. we need not repeat it now. It is the story of the Philistine and the covenant that the Philistine made with Abraham.
But see again how swiftly the narrative moves on. Here is the promised seed born. Here is the slave boy cast out. Here the promised seed is taken by his father and offered in sacrifice upon the Mount Moriah. Here in chapter twenty three, Sarah herself dies and is buried. Here in chapter twenty four, Abraham seeks a bride for Isaac and finds her in Rebecca.
So the story. But now to its application. There are those, you know, who would tell us that in Galatians chapter four, Paul is being very rabbinic and using scripture in an unlawful fashion. That this allegory of his is all arbitrary and really doesn't hold water and won't do, and is not an argument, uh, to attach much weight to. It's one of Paul's days off, so to speak. But try at least look what, uh, Paul is saying. He is saying, first of all, there was this bit of history.
Ishmael was in the home and then was cast out. Why? Well, here comes the principle. Bondwoman's servant shall not inherit along with the free. What lesson do I take from that? Well, direct. It concerns my inheritance in Christ. If you like my initial justification by faith, if you like forgiveness of sins, if you like all the blessings of God's Holy Spirit, if you like at length heaven itself and place in the New Jerusalem and an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that faeth not a word.
Pray tell me, sir, on what ground you hope to inherit it. The issue is simply this, is it a free gift of promise? Or is it a something that I must work for. That's the issue. Now, God has given it to us by promise, of course he has. There is an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and it fadeth not away, reserved in heaven, but you're not yet there, are you?
It's all right for you to tell me I've been justified by faith. Well, praise God for that. I was justified by faith, you say, sixty four years ago. Marvelous. And if you were justified by faith then, well, you're justified still by faith tonight. Good. But you're not in heaven yet. And still, and still, the inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that faith has not away, is reserved in heaven for you. It is a promise then. Pray, what does God mean when he promises you the inheritance?
Does he mean that there it is? But of course you will have to merit it. Does he mean there it is? But you mightn't actually, and in fact, get in and enjoy it. Now tell me, think for a moment of that great inheritance, one of the mansions in the Father's many-mansioned house. How seriously do you want to be there?
You say, if I don't get there, I miss everything. You say, if I don't enter into that inheritance at last, it had been better for me that I had never been born. For the only alternative known to God or man and the devil, the only alternative to a mansion in the Father's house is to be cast out into outer darkness, where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth in eternal frustration.
Do you hope to be there? Then pray tell me, on what ground do you hope to come into the promise that is your stake? And I tell you this, that with no less than eternal bliss at stake, with its alternative of eternal perdition. If you thought tonight that that promise depended upon you, and your effort for fulfillment, it would turn you, if you had any sense into your head, into a slave, or else it would turn you into a freak.
In my school I went to, we had a kind of a promise. It took the form that if we behaved, did our prep, didn't blot our copy books, and got a reasonable amount for our sums. Then come the end of the summer term, and some important bigwig would come along and dish out a few prizes. And the first three or four on the list in each form would be asked solemnly to walk up and get the prize. Usually yells clapped like one of them. Now, that phenomenon, I have to report to you, resulted in two different attitudes on the part of the majority of people.
There were those who, fixing their eyes upon that promise of a prize at the end, worked like billy-o, swatted at their Latin, did their English. Wow. Physics, chemistry, goodness me, Saturday mornings, well, they work like bilio to get a prize. And then it was only a three and sixpence knee book out of W. H. Smith's. A good many more said, too, haven't got a hope. So it didn't turn them into slaves.
They saw in no hope whatsoever. They didn't even try. And with the promise of an eternal inheritance, men and women divide like that. There are those that are slaves, aren't they? They try to take it seriously, and they're trying to earn their place in the great inheritance beyond. They make slaves of them. I remember talking in the twilight of an Irish night past 12 o'clock to a woman climbing Kirkpatrick in her bare feet, doing it to try to secure for her mother a place in the father's home, aloft.
Noble woman, if that's the way in. What a slavery. And the multitudes others, they know that if heaven is by works, they haven't a hope. So they give up before they start. But you take it seriously. And we need to know upon what, what exactly does this term promise mean? And it says he's promised us eternal life. What kind of promise is it?
Dependent on my effort, or a promise that depends solely upon his grace and word. The difference is between slavery and freedom. If you think this story here sounds harsh, well, so you must for the moment, but pray see the underlying principle involved. Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the slave shall not inherit with the son of the free. Paul, picking up his Old Testament, says, and we brethren are children of the free woman.
Jerusalem above is the mother of us all, and Jerusalem is free. I'll but come now to his more allegorical part. In chapter three, Paul faces the would-be arguer who says to him, but Paul, look here, this is outrageous. God not by the law. And how can you bid us Jewish folks, when it comes to our inheritance, to put aside our faith in the keeping of God's law and trust only in Christ as you have it?
To comfort their hearts, Paul says like this, well, now what then is that law? Yes, of course God gave it. But now if we investigate why God gave it, then we shall see, says Paul, that it was not given so that we could keep it and earn our inheritance. And already we have seen the first argument. The inheritance was covenanted in Genesis fifteen. The law wasn't introduced until Sinai, four hundred and odd years later.
Having established the actual historical fact and the legal position, now Paul turns to the history and uses it as a prototype. Look at it. And here at long length, in this warm summer night, we've come back to the chronology of the book of Genesis. Inheritance promised. And then when Sarah became independent of God and thought the promise was to be fulfilled by her own wisdom and effort, Hagar, the slave girl, was brought in to his home and sent there by God, sent back by God when she tried to escape, until the promised seed came.
And with the coming of the promised seed forthwith, there came a change. Ishmael cast out. That is historical fact. Paul attributes to it divine authority. He reads it not merely as historical fact, but as divinely given prototype of what God's intention should eventually be. For start with Abraham again. Come along to the time of Moses, four hundred and thirty years later, and the law was added with all its bondage. And the law continued throughout history upon Abraham's seed until the promised seed came, which is Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Now, with the coming of the promised seed, the time had also come for a change in the law. And in that sense, the law for salvation was put away. That is what Paul is talking about. He's not making up stories out of his own head. He's not spinning, uh, arbitrary allegory. He is using this time span and this happening as a prototype of the larger pattern of history.
The law added until the promised seed should come. And if we have learned that clue, then there's nothing to stop us, is there? Because this is a free country, after all. There's nothing to stop us just looking a little bit further into Genesis, its chronology, and its value as prototype. The promised seed born. You say that points me at last to Christ, the seed. And the law cast out. How? Why, see the very next story.
How that the father took the son, laid the wood upon his back, and together walked up Moriah to offer him as a sacrifice to God. Now, those of you who were here last week will bear me witness that last week we read this in its historical context as an example of how a man is justified by works. And we saw it as a supreme lesson in where we may find security in the oath of God, when we have learned to demonstrate that our faith is in God and in God only.
Tonight we take it at another level. For consider now, as the Jewish rabbis would invite you to, consider the son that was sacrificed on that altar. Jewish rabbis are in the habit of pointing out in Talmud and Midrash that Isaac by this time was a grown young man, his father elderly. Therefore, had Isaac chosen, he might easily have resisted the declining strength of his aged father, and when he saw what was afoot, in his natural longing for life, he might have rebelled against his father.
Refused to allow himself to be put upon the altar. But the Jewish rabbis call attention, therefore, to what they call the merit of Isaac, our father. And in humble, courageous obedience to God and his father, he allowed himself to be offered upon that altar. Now will you perceive the relevance of Isaac's obedience to the things that we have been discussing? Where can I, as ass-headed as any Ishmael ever was.
Where can I, born with fallen flesh, the principle of my nature? Finding my efforts to keep God's holy law impossibly futile. I have within me a flesh, the mind of the flesh is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. For me to try to earn my heaven by keeping that holy law would be an indescribable and unfathomable slavery. Where can I find inheritance? Well, not through my obedience.
And therefore the law was added, says Paul, that the transgression might abound. God gave his holy law, not that men should keep it and thus be saved, but men should discover by means of that law the incorrigible nature of their fallen hearts. Until we find what sin has really done to us. How rebellious our flesh is. How incorrigible it is. We might make the state, might make the mistake of thinking that given a little diligence, we could perhaps suppress our worst deeds and thoughts and make ourselves respectable enough to earn a place in a father's home on high.
What a delusion it would be. God gave the law that sin might abound. God gave the law that we should understand it with our minds, try to keep it, and then prove how incorrigible our nature is and the fact we can't keep it. The law might be our schoolmaster slave to bring us to Christ. The law was added that the transgression might abound, says Paul. You imagine, I, I, I pictured it too. Have you, have you forgotten it so soon? The slave girl who got uppish.
The wild ass of a chap. Is she dear in Abram's home? Ooh. How big a stick did Abram have, I wonder? Well, Abram found out, if he hadn't found out before, what the result of self-effort is... an incorrigible rebel and ass. And it might lead us to... Ah, but look at it in the picture. And this tells us this. It tells us of Isaac's obedience unto death.
For as by one man's disobedience, has not Genesis told us the story at the beginning? As by one man's disobedience, the many were constituted sinners, so by the obedience of one shall the many be constituted righteous, and I shall be in heaven at last, and a mansion in the Father's house. I merit not of my obedience, wretched sinner and rebel that I am, but by him who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be on equality with God, but emptied himself, took upon himself the form of a servant, and was found in fashion as a man.
And being man, he humbled himself, became obedient, even unto death, and that the death of the son being offered is a picture of that son's obedience unto death. For tonight, our story is nearly over. But just look on ahead, would you, to chapter twenty four. If you know it so well, I need only call your attention to it, and it will summon up ten thousand sermons on that score and send you home happy.
Ishmael was in the home, slave in the home, until the promised seed came. The law until Christ, the promised seed. And Christ, God's son, was offered by his obedience, we are sanctified. Chapter twenty four. Abram looked around, saw there was necessity for a bride for his son, and secured her through the good offices and faithful service of his servant, Eleazar. All I want to point out to you, because you see the point at once, don't you?
All I want to point out to you is this little thing about the text of Genesis. After that famous story of the offering of Isaac upon the altar, Abraham returns to Beersheba, and there comes a few verses. One told Abraham, saying, you know about Milcah, have you heard about Nahor? It's like dear Irish folks who have gone to America, and from time to time, when it becomes Thanksgiving or some such other great occasion, talk will turn to grandmother and great aunts that still live in county Tipperary.
And so on this occasion, after that tremendous climactic traumatic experience, and they got back again, and somebody told Abram, have you heard recently what's been happening to Milcah Nahor? No, says Abram, news from that far country. Yes. There are various children been born. I suppose that's natural, said Abram. Uh, yes, yes. And among them there is a girl by the name of Rebecca. Oh, said Abram, and went off, you know. But I don't know whether it was that night or two months later. Abram was sitting in his tent. He said to himself, you know, there's there's Isaac, dear man, getting on for seventy. about time he was married. Where shall we get a wife from?
And as he scratched his patriarchal head and stroked his patriarchal beard, where would you get a wife from, from for Isaac? Of course, there's some girls around here, I suppose. Philistines? Mm. Don't like them. Mm. You know, somebody was telling me the other day about my relatives down there in, uh, of Chaldees. There's a Rebecca. Huh. I don't know, though. Could you expect a girl to come all that way?
Of course I did, said Abram. Well, when I lived down there, I was a pagan old gentile. Hmm, wouldn't like a pagan old gentile for Isaac. Hmm. Do you think, though? Says Abram to himself. Do you think that God would do again what he did with me? God appeared to me when I lived among that very same family group, Milcar and Nahor and company, way back there in Padanaram and uh, and he brought me out of the Gentiles.
Do you think God would do the same again? And bring a Gentile girl out of Padanaram, out of Ur of Chaldees or wherever else she's got to, out from the Gentiles, to become a bride for my son. I don't know, says Abram, but it's worth having a go. So he sent his servant, and you know the story. Of course, the servant preached it in glowing colors. Of course, this extraordinary story. My master, God has blessed him, he's everything his hands could, uh, hold and his heart could long for, and his one son, and to him has he given all that he have.
The proposition is, would you care to be the wife of my master's son? And she heard the story. And she decided to leave the Gentiles to go to be the bride of a man she had never seen. Whom having not seen, she loved. In whom, though she still didn't see him, as every foot of every camel went that little bit further, she rejoiced with joy and already tinged with the glory that should be, because she got an earring or two already, and they were tremendous.
And she got a coat or two, and they were glorious. Oof. And if this was the earnest of the inheritance, what would the inheritance itself be? And if these were the gifts, what would the giver be? So the story. And you know how to make the application, don't you? It's the fact that there once were a lot of old Gentiles, and the God of glory appeared to Abram our father and called him out.
And he lived as a patriarch in the land of promise until the seed was born, and the seed was offered. Ah, yes. By these descendants. They eventually again came into the land. They were put under the law until the seed was born. And that seed was offered, the son was offered. And then what happened? Why, there broke out another great movement of the Gentiles. It hasn't stopped yet. Vast multi-millions of Gentiles doing what Abraham once did.
It started at Pentecost. For the God of glory has appeared to them too, and he's brought them out from the Gentiles to be a bride for Abram's seed and God's son. And we've now got back to history. Whether you accept this as a prototype or not, this is history. Abram came out of the Gentiles those thousands of years ago, and the Jewish nation was born, and since Pentecost, since the death and resurrection of Jesus, multi-millions of Gentiles have repeated what Abraham was d- did.
They've learned to love a man they've never seen, and believing in him, have come out of the Gentiles and are on their way to glory, to meet the loved one of their heart. You can tell a genuine five pound note. If you hold it up to the light, you'll see the watermark. You can tell salvation is true. Hold that Old Testament up to the light, and you will see the divinely inspired watermark within the pages of its narrative.
