Audio restored with Diffio. Diffio processed the original archive recording to reduce noise and produce a cleaner listening version; the original stays available.
Speech quality score (model-estimated, SCOREQ): before 1.80 → restored 4.46
Use the player's Original switch to compare.How Diffio restores old speech recordings
Somewhere in the notes that you have been given, there is a page with the Roman numeral four at the top of the page, meaning that here is a prospectus of the fourth major part, as I understand it, of the book of Genesis. Therefore, the title is The Rise of the Hebrew Nation from Among the Gentiles. In the actual text, this is, uh, preceded by the announcement, these are the generation of the sons of Noah, and then of Shem. And then at eleven twenty seven, these are the generations of Terah, who was the father of Abraham.
Whereupon, against the background of the Gentile nations and the great cities that began to be built at that time, we have the story of the calling of Abram out from among the nations to start a new nation. So now the Holy Spirit of God is telling us what happened to the new world that emerged after the flood. The progress of the great Gentile nations with their mighty cities and their very advanced civilizations, that is advanced for that particular time in human history.
But dismissing them with a very few verses, it comes now to the long chapters to d- describe the beginning of this new phenomenon in history, the rise of a special nation called at this time the Hebrew nation, and a nation destined to play a dramatic role in the course of history of the world, right down to this present time. That special feature about this special nation, therefore, that is with us still with all the problems in the Middle East that involves eventually the history of all the world.
That nation specially distinct, not only for the moral law proclaimed from God through Moses at Mount Sinai, but for this above all, that this is the nation of whom came Jesus the Christ according to the flesh. Because this nation is so special, it is important, therefore, to trace by Genesis its rise, its beginnings, and they are to be found in Terah, and more particularly in his son Abraham. The rise of this new nation is significant in the first place for this.
The Hebrew nation was a comparatively latecomer in history. There had been big nations and big empires before they even started. It started with God's call of one man, and it was God intervening in history to ri- raise up a protest against the idolatrous interpretation of the universe that had now become predominant among the Gentile nations. The God of glory appeared to Abraham, says, uh, Stephen, the Christian martyr, when he dwelt still among the pagans and said, get out.
For I repeat, in Abram, God began a nation that was God's protest against the idolatrous interpretations of the universe common in the other nations. And if you ask what I mean by that, let me refer you to the Epistle to the Romans in chapter one, How that all men originally knew the one true God, but did not like to retain God in their knowledge. Notice the preference, the bias, the prejudice.
It is a prejudice that still exists, ladies and gentlemen, in some quarters. Not all scientists are like the one I am about to quote. Far from it. The one I'm about to quote is an extremist. His name is Lewin Tom. American Marxist atheist. And in an article he wrote, he s- uh, explains, he writing it in honor of his deceased colleague Sagan, explains why scientists like him devise such processes as they do and come up with results that he says are counterintuitive and sometimes apparent nonsense.
He says we do it because with us materialism is absolutely basic. Materialism in its philosophical sense, the belief that there is nothing but matter in the universe. There is no spirit, there is no God. We form our experiments in order to prove that point. But if you form experiments to prove a point, you're liable to prove it to your own satisfaction, of course. And then he adds, why do we do it? We do it, says he, because we cannot allow a divine foot in the door.
There's one scientist determined to keep God out. He has his reasons for not allowing a divine foot in the door. Now, I repeat, not all scientists are like him, not even in their science. Open-minded, many of them, or most of them perhaps. But it is the fact, according to Romans chapter one, that the nations originally knew God, but for their own reasons did not, were not willing to retain God in their knowledge. And what happened then?
Well, it's an interesting thing, ladies and gentlemen, when men stop believing in God, they don't start believing in nothing. You'll find it's very difficult to do, to believe in nothing. I nearly said have a go, but don't really, but it's quite difficult. Well, people get rid of God because they, uh, don't like this idea of some omnipotent being controlling them and breathing down their necks and telling them what to do. Man needs to be free, as Karl Marx said. So get rid of God, and then you're free. Are you really? When men get rid of God in their thinking, they then turn around and observe that they themselves didn't create the universe, which is a elementary observation, isn't it?
But it remains true. And they wake up to the fact that they don't control the universe either. So what does control the universe? Where did it come from? And if there's no God, well, what is it that made our universe and then eventually produced us? And then one day will unproduce us. And for that answer, the modern atheist, unlike the old idolater, he doesn't keep images of gods in his drawing room or study, you know, but he might as well.
For the ancient, uh, people, when they rejected the idea of God, proceeded to deify the forces of nature. And they worshipped the sun as a sun god, and the moon god, and the storm god, and fertility god. They worshiped sex, of course, called her in Greece Aphrodite. They worshiped psycho- their own psychological, uh, feelings. They worshiped, uh, the god of pugnacious war, Mars, you see. They talked about the god of panic, and of course the god of fertility. In other words, getting rid of the one true god, they now find themselves under the power of the forces of nature, which they proceeded to deify and became slaves of them.
And the modern atheist does precisely the same thing. He gets rid of God. If you ask an atheist, well, what are then, tell me, what are the ultimate powers that control us human beings? They will reply like the ancient pagans did, only use the different terms. They will say the forces of nature, of course. The weak atomic power, the strong atomic power, electromagnetism, gravity, anti-gravity, if there is such a thing, you'll see. Biology and this, that, and other. Mindless forces, but great forces, but according to the atheists produced us, one day will destroy us.
And we do our best to try and manipulate them, and when we can't manipulate them, we try to appease them, but get rid of God, you don't find freedom in the universe. Now, man with all his intelligence becomes the prisoner of mindless, material, impersonal forces. And early in history, God raised up Abraham and from him the Hebrew nation to be God's appointed protest against this idolatrous interpretation of the universe.
That God might establish on earth one nation at least, that pointed to the one true God creator, and the freedoms that are obtained by those who believe in and serve and worship him. That doctrine of monotheism didn't evolve, ladies and gentlemen, peace be to social anthropologists. But the theory that the monotheism in Israel evolved, and everybody in this u- uh, on this planet, first of all, started by believing in animism, and then evolved till they believed in, uh, uh, polytheism, and that evolved to hentheism, that's one god per nation, and eventually evolved from that to monotheism, that's one God over the whole universe, and then evolved to atheism, do you see?
Ha. That has been proved historically incorrect anyway. There is no, uh, final evidence that it ever happened. And certainly Israel didn't get their monotheism by evolution, as you can see from the plain straightforward history of their own Bible, they were forever departing from monotheism and going off and, uh, compromising with Gentile idolatry and having to be pulled back by the roots of their hair by their sundry prophets like Isaiah and company. In fact, so persistent was their habit of compromising with idolatry, that in the end God sent them off to Babylon, world's center of idolatry in their day, in order to cure them of the thing.
And finally and at last, after centuries, when they came back from their exile in Babylon, Israel, you will remember historically, had largely been cured of idolatry. So that when our Lord Jesus arrived, there were no idolatrous statues in the temple, nor temple prostitutes either. Israel had least been cured of idolatry. Remained cured in Orthodox Judaism till this day, thank God. And why would God wait that long before sending his son? Well, what would be the use of sending the son of God into the world and saying to everybody, this is the son of God, if people didn't know who God was?
And thought God was another version of Zeus or Baal or Osiris or On or something. God was going to make himself known to man through the son of God. God must first spend centuries establishing who God was, which was the role of Israel, the Hebrew nation, and thus of Israel through the centuries. We are reading, therefore, in Genesis of the beginnings of this tremendously important and historically significant movement. With Abram now, God made four promises, and these will help us, if we can gather them, to see how the subsequent story in Genesis proceeds.
He made four promises to give Abram the land of Canaan. He'd come out not knowing whether he went, but when he arrived in Canaan, God informed him, this is the land I'm going to give you. Then he promised him seed, that is descendants. It's no good inheriting a land if you're an old, old boy like Abram was and you haven't any children, what can one man do with a whole country to inherit it? And Abram made the point to God and said, you've given me all this, but you've given me no seed. And God said, yes, Abram, I'm going to give you seed. And thus a covenant was made with Abram and his seed to give them the land, which involved giving Abram seed.
So the early chapters are going to tell you of the birth of that seed that eventually should inherit the land. Then God promised Abram, I will bless you. Of course, he blessed Abraham. But when you come to the story of Isaac, the fifth part of the book of Exodus, you will find the great emphasis of the fifth part of, uh, Genesis turns on God's blessing, God's blessing on Isaac, and then the blessing that Isaac pronounced upon Jacob, and the blessing of God as Jacob experienced it. Finally, God promised Abram that in thee and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.
That finally was fulfilled at the first level, in the final part of Genesis, part six, wherein Abram's seed, by name Joseph, not only was the great world empire of Egypt at that time blessed and saved from starvation, but all the surrounding little nations were blessed likewise through the wisdom granted to Abram's seed, that was Joseph. The four promises of God that now are developed and fulfilled at the first level in the course of this history. Then again, we might take a bird's eye view and notice that with Abraham there began this great movement out of the Gentiles, of Abraham and his nation to form a new nation.
But when you come to the climax of Abram's experience on Mount, uh, Moriah and the sacrifice of the son, let us look, if we will, to chapter twenty two and what is said immediately after that experience. Chapter twenty two is the record of the sacrifice of the seed, the sacrifice of Isaac, son of Abraham. And when it was over, Abram came, says verse nineteen, unto his young men, and they rose up and went together to Beersheba, and Abram dwelt at Beersheba, the well of the earth.
Now notice what the historian has done. It came to pass after these things that it was told Abram, saying, Behold, Milcah, she also has borne children unto thy brother Nahor, Uz his firstborn, and Uz his brother, and Kemuel the father of Aram, and Kettas and Hadzo and Pildash and Jidlaf and Bethuel, and Bethuel begat Rebekah. Ha. These eight did Milcah bear to Nahor, Abram's brother. So at this dramatic point in the unfolding of the story of Abram, come to this, uh, a point of the sacrifice of the son. The historian says that, um, it was told Abram about his relatives, his Gentile relatives, who he had left behind him when Abram was called out of the Gentiles.
And at that point, Abram began to think, dear old boy. Ha. His son Isaac was getting, the time he was married, you know, parents like to see their sons married before they die, you see? I mean, before the parents die, of course. Ah. They told Abraham about his relatives, and he got an idea into his head. And in chapter twenty four, he said to his servant, now, promise me that you will not take a wife for my son Isaac out of these nations around me, horrible lot, but go down to my relatives and find a bride for my dear Isaac.
And you know the lovely story, how he went and came across the girl and gave her all sorts of presents, earrings and things such as go of love, and uh, two of the, and beautiful dresses and things. And then uh, the question was put. My master, said the servant, is blessed of God, and he has camels, and he has cows, and he has sheep, and he's got silver and gold, and goodness knows what else. And he's got one son that he loves, and he's given everything into his hand, my dear. Would you be willing to become his wife?
And the question was put to the family, and the family said, let the girl speak for herself. Will you go with this man, they said, talking about the servant. And she said, I will go. And thus began the second big movement out of the Gentiles in the prototype of Genesis. As a Gentile bride came out of the Gentiles to be joined to the heir of Abram, the son of Abram. You'll allow an old man to step aside from serious exposition, won't you, and just indulge his fancy. But when I read of that story, I can't help thinking of the proposal made by the serpent to the woman, and then contrasting it with the proposal made by Abram's servant to another woman.
The serpent said to the woman, my dear, you must grab all you get, for God wants to keep you down. And she believed the lie and discovered along with her a- a- with uh Adam that they were naked. They'd fallen to the level of the animal. But Genesis is only halfway through when God in picture form has his answer to that. Against the proposal made by the serpent to the woman, here comes the proposal of the servant, of the servant to the woman. My master is rich, and he has one son, and he's given to his son all that he has.
Would you be the bride of my husband, my master's son? What a lovely picture it is, isn't it? That's God's answer to the lie. My dear, he doesn't want to keep you down. The gospel is not just forgiveness. The gospel is an invitation to humanity to rise in the universe and become queen to God's king, to become the loved bride of the Father's Son, of whom it is written that the Father loveth the Son and hath given all things into his hand. I no wonder Paul says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel, have you?
What a message it is. From the atheism that tells you that when the mindless, purposeless forces that made you have destroyed you, that's the end of you forever. To the gospel that says, you shall reign with the Father's son for all eternity. What a gospel we do have. Yeah. Anyway, we come now to, uh, think of Abraham for a while, prototypically, and the rest of Genesis prototypically.
You say, what do you mean by that big long word? Well, you know, if you hear that some firm or other in Canada is building a super, super, super duper jet, able to carry five hundred passengers at once, if it doesn't crash, and you go to the factory to see this thing, and there it's beginning to be built, and it's a mass of metal and wires and wheels and move, can't make any tale of it. This is the big thing that the designers had in mind, and it's in process of being made. So what they'll do is to say, well, it's easier perhaps for you, we bring you and show you a model.
And they've made a model to be a prototype. Let's look at this thing here, do we? And looking at the model, of course it's not a real thing, it's only a model, but this will help you grasp the big real thing, eh? Show you what to look for. And Old Testament history is like that, you know. God, who had knew the end from the beginning, knew what he was going to do in Christ. He has given us here in history prototypes, early fulfillments at the lowly level of things that one day would be fulfilled at the highest level.
And looking at the prototypes, the models, you can be find help to understand the great reality. So in the second half of, uh, Genesis from Abram onwards, there are three main parts, of course, three, four, five, and six. In each of them you have a patriarch. In the first one, Abram is the patriarch, and the promised seed is Isaac. In the fifth section, Jacob is the patriarch, I'm sorry, Isaac is the patriarch, and the promised seed is Jacob. In the sixth and final part of the book, Jacob is the patriarch, and the promised seed are all twelve sons, and in particular, Judah and Joseph.
It is a very interesting study, therefore, in the, uh, parts four, five, and six, to ask yourself, in those successive parts of Genesis, what happens to the promised seed? You get the question? Different patriarch in each section. Abraham, the first one, the patriarch, Isaac, the promised seed. The next lot, number five, Isaac the patriarch, Jacob the promised seed. The final one, Jacob the patriarch and the promised seed, all twelve brothers, particularly Judah and Joseph.
Interest being what happens in that historical development to the promised seed. You know what happened to Isaac, don't you? Isaac was sacrificed on the altar to God. Mm. And what happened to the under the next patriarch? When Isaac became patriarch, what happened to the promisee, Jacob? Well, he started off in the land, and then had to run away and went to the Gentiles. And there he lived among the Gentiles, until the Gentiles got heartily sick of him, and they kicked him out, or he ran away, and he came back to the Promised Land.
Ah. And back in the Promised Land, he faced all kinds of difficulties. His sons created an absolute scandal by their atrocities inflicted upon the Gentile tribes around them, to the name of Jacob Stank in the world, after the promised seed had come back to the land. What happened to the promised seed in the final, the sixth section? Well, look at Joseph particularly. And in Joseph, all the nations of the world were blessed, and the sons of Jacob and Jacob himself discovered that the Joseph they thought was long since dead was still alive.
And the Gentiles believed in him, and he had become the administrator of the then known world. How interesting that is, isn't it? Do you see any sort of prototypical hints? Oh, I think I could. For the promised seed is Christ, isn't it? In the reality, the promised seed is Christ. And the promised seed under Abraham was brought by the Father and laid on the altar. What a story that is. What happened after Christ was crucified, risen from the dead, and Israel refused to repent?
They were scattered among the nations, weren't they? As our Lord said they would be. And they're away from their homeland for centuries. But Jacob, eventually being disliked for the Je- by the Gentiles, had to run back, and he only had one place to go, so he came back to the promised land. You say he was now restored, and it was all marvelous? No, it wasn't. Create an absolute scandal amongst the, uh, nations using religion as an excuse for atrocities committed upon the local tribes. Sorry business that was.
Israel that were scattered have have now, particularly since forty eight, come back, haven't they? But the land was promised to Abraham and his seed. And according to Galatians chapter three, the seed is Christ. The title deeds to the land is vested in Christ. And Israel cannot put their thumbs to their noses against Jesus the Christ and tell God, we will not have your son, and then claim that God has given them the title deeds to the land.
The land is Christ. They are back in the land, they're largely not yet restored, are they? What will their restoration depend on? Oh, the last part of Genesis, you know. Poor old Jacob now become the patriarch, and his boys that had sold Joseph to the Gentiles pitched Jacob a lie and came back with his clothes all stained in blood and persuaded Jacob. I wonder if he really ever believed it. That Joseph was dead, and his dreams come to nothing.
Shall he rule over a spot? We shall see what will become of his dream. Israel, Jacob, that is Israel, lived to see the day when he discovered my son Joseph is still alive. I will go and see him before I die. And Israel discovered that God appointed deliver in his son, appointed to reign and to rule over the house of Israel, and found him received by the Gentiles and with a Gentile bride. Cool. If you weren't careful, you'd start to think all sorts of things, wouldn't you?
When you read that. For the day is coming when Israel, after all her trials and tribulations, shall be brought to realize that the great promised seed is alive, master administrator of the world. And I cite these things. I have little time, so I cite them to provoke your interest if you've not quite thought along that line before. Because Genesis is a book of history, but a book full of prototype. And the prototypes are interesting because they are early versions, early models, fulfillments at a lowly level of the great reality that is fulfilled at the higher level.
The coming of the Promised Seed, his death at Calvary, the scattering of Israel among the nations, and then their return. Still in unbelief. And finally, Israel's reconciliation to their greater than Joseph, and coming to realize he is not only their savior, but the savior of the world. You'd almost dance, but please don't get me into trouble and dance, not here, not here this morning. You see, that is a marvelous story, is the watermark of inspiration in Holy Scripture. But with that now, we must come to Genesis story about Abram, literal Abram, biographically, you'll see.
If you like to turn the pages, you will eventually come across all your sheets that you have, a much clearer outline of the fourth section of Genesis. And it points to five elements in the story of Abraham, his biography, so to speak. And now we're coming to plain, straightforward history, the biography of Abraham. There is, in the first part, the background to Abraham's call out of the Gentiles. Then the first major period, the second major period, and the third major period, and then the sequel, the winning of wife for Isaac, Abraham's other wives, and Abraham's death and burial.
Abraham's biography, therefore. I want now to concentrate on the first major, the second major, and the third major period, taken biographically. In each of those things, you will see Master Abram behaving in a wrong way towards his wife Hagar. Some husbands do, but of course I'm not thinking of you, gentlemen. Uh, but there is the record. In, uh, the first major period, he denies his wife Sarah, and the result is that Pharaoh takes her into his harim, and only the grace of God delivered her.
In the second major period, he despairs of having a son by his wife Sarah and takes the slave girl Hagar, admittedly at Sarah's suggestion. There were some sorry results of that. In the third major period, once more Abram denies his wife Sarah, the result being that she's taken by a Philistine king, and apart from God's intervention, the paternity of the promised seed would at that stage have been cast in doubt unless God had intervened. In those three periods of Abraham's biography, certain very big issues had to be faced.
In the first one, the main issue was the comparative value of goods, possessions, substance, as distinct from life. In the second major period, the main issue was, where is security to be found? In man or in God? In each of these three major periods, a major theological doctrine comes to light and is taught.
The first major period is justification by faith. In the second major period, the doctrine of justification by faith, apart from the works of the law. And in the third major period, we have the doctrine of justification by works. Therefore, we need to pay attention to these biographical details of Abraham's life, for we shall find them expounded and quoted in support and explanation of the basic Christian doctrines of the gospel, particularly by Paul in his epistle to the Romans and epistle to Galatians, and by the author of Hebrews.
The issue then in the first major period is going to be justification by faith and the inheritance by faith. The great doctrine, Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness, enunciated in Genesis fifteen and repeated all through the New Testament. But not only justification by faith, the inheritance by faith. But the lead up to that story is this other big issue, goods versus life. To put it in a nutshell, if Abram and his seed were one day to be given vast inheritance by God, including large territory in the Middle East, as their possession, before they were entrusted with owning it, this vast wealth.
They better be taught the value of things. That in the ultimate accountancy, life is far more important than goods. And if that's a lesson that Abram had to be taught, we too need to be taught it, don't we? Uh, we too have a great inheritance, incorruptible and undefiled. And the fate is not in my. My, you are going to be wealthy when you get to heaven. Ha.
Before we get there, to make it safe for God to take us to heaven and give us this eternal inheritance with its incalculable wealth. We have to be taught, like Abraham, what are life's true values, and that in the end, life is more important than good. Let me rehearse the story as it comes in chapter twelve onward with Abraham. There came a famine in the land, and Abraham went down to Egypt.
And when he got, uh, uh, to the borders, one morning he was looking very, very intensively to, um, at Sarah, and he said, Sarah, you are beautiful. You are really beautiful. And Sarah was then rejoicing at the news, but then Adam added, you know, you are so beautiful that when we come to Egypt, Pharaoh might desire you, and he might kill me to get you. So I'll tell you what, Sarah, if you don't mind. When I come to Egypt, I'll say you're my sister. And then Pharaoh will take you, see, and he won't kill me.
And what is more, I might get a lot of money. I don't know what Sarah thought of that bit. Well, that's what happened. When he got to Egypt, they said, who's this beautiful woman? He says, that's my sister. That was only half the truth, of course. She was his sister, but a half sister. And they reported to Pharaoh, and he took Sarah. And he gave Abram, so the story says, you read it, gave him wealth, flocks, money, poof. Abram's saying, marvelous. Very good bargain, this. And then, uh, Pharaoh found out. The story will tell you how.
And when he found out this lie, they got hold of Ab- Abram and Lot, his nephew, and Sarah, and a whole lot of them, with all their accumulated wealth, and he had his guards take them to the border and boot them out of the land. He was so disgusted. Never mind, said Abram, for now, uh, in chapter, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, thirteen, you'll see. Came out of Egypt, and he had tremendous goods, you'll see. He was very rich in cattle, in silver and in gold. And Lot also, which went with Abram, had flocks and herds and tents, and the land was not able to bear them that they might toil together, for their substance.
That is the English translation of the word for goods. For their substance was great, so that they could not dwell together. Now they had all this wealth. Got so much cattle that they couldn't all dwell together, there wasn't enough enough grass. So Abraham very magnanimously offered Lot the first choice. We'll have to part, he said, but now you choose where you'd like to go. And Lot, dear man, he looked towards around, and he looked towards Sodom and the, and the cities of the plain, and there was a lot of grass in those days before Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed. And Lot was a sensible chap, down to earth, feet on the ground man. And if you've got a lot of cattle, you have to have grass, there's no denying it.
And you can't live without milk, can you now? And grow cornflakes and things. So you have to have cows, and you have to have grass. You cannot be so heavenly minded with no earthly good. So Lot moved towards the plains, you see. It was a business consideration, sensible business consideration, but he had a snag. The men of the city were wicked exceedingly. And though Lot came through the temptation, so much so that the New Testament calls him righteous Lot. He moved into the city amidst all that perversion.
And he lost his children, didn't he? And the man who had set out with Abram looking for the city that has the foundations ended life as a cave man. Living like a caveman with a caveman's morals. Business is a very important thing, and we must always face it seriously as stood. But when it comes to life, it could never be the final and ultimate consideration, can it? We make it the sole compass bearing in our decisions.
We run big risks. What a marvelous writer of stories is the inspired author of Genesis, isn't he? The very order of that list is copying the order of priorities in their mind brought back the goods and Lot and the goods and the women. Now Abram was going to face a very big test. The king of Sodom was going to come out to Abram and say, Abram, we're very grateful to you for what you've done.
Now, Abram, I propose to reward you, my man. You give me the people and take the goods. Which would he choose? Take the goods and hand back the people, the lives? Because of the seriousness of the temptation, in Abram's training, God in his mercy sent forth the great priest, King Melchizedek, before the temptation assailed Abram. And he came and he brought forth bread and wine, and he blessed Abram by the Lord God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth.
A marvelous experience that, as that high priest spoke not merely words, but awaked in Abraham's mind, spirit, and imagination, the sense of the reality of God, who God is, the supreme creator and possessor of heaven and earth. And made the wealth of God so real to Abraham. When the tempter came and said, Abraham, you take the goods, but give me the life. Abraham replied, I have lift up mine hand unto the Lord God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth.
I will not take a thread nor a shoe latches nor aught that is thine, lest thou should say I have made Abram rich. Save only that which the young men have eaten, and the portion of the men that went with me, Aner, Estol, and Mamre, let them take their portion. God's merciful education of Abram, his servant, to get his proportions right in life. Life is more than goods. People are more valuable than things. It's not that God is asking us forever to go without, but the wealth that God will give us in our inheritance is so vast.
I repeat that before we get home to heaven, we too need to be taught comparative value. Good and necessary are as good as our goods. Life, people are far more important. What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? We are taught by no less than our Lord himself, that in that sense, if we try to keep our soul in this life, our life in this life, we shall lose it.
We're prepared to lose it for Christ's sake, we shall keep it. In view of what? In view of the coming kingdom of God. We live in this world, we must have its necessities, but our goal is the world to come, the age to come, and therefore in our decisions, our prior consideration must be people, life, the kingdom of God and its righteousness. Lest we spend ourselves too much on things that are passing away and will eventually perish.
Abraham came through his test, and God came to him in chapter fifteen and said, I'm your shield and exceeding great reward. Abram, practical minded as ever, said, thank you very much, Lord. He says, but incidentally, you see, you've given me a lot of wealth, but I've no son, you see, Lord, he said. What's the good of that to me, all this wealth, when I've got no one to leave it to, you see? Ha. And when I die, my steward here will be my heir. And God said, no, he shan't. Look at the stars and see if you can count them. I'm going to give you descendants as many and more than the stars.
And Abraham believed God, believed in the Lord, and it was counted to him for righteousness. Seminal verse, that. It's a verse that is repeated again and again in the epistles of Paul, in Romans and Galatians. Here is laid down the terms of our justification. It is by faith in God and not by our works. You know the story, so I need not emphasize it. But on that occasion, there was more promised to Abram than justification. He was justified.
More than the promise of seed. That day God made a covenant with Abraham and with his seed to give him as a possession the land promised in that part of the Middle East. And when God said, I'm going to give it to you and your seed, Abraham, Abraham, sensible man he was, he said, thank you, Lord, but tell me, how shall I... how shall I know I shall inherit it? Because if somebody promised you a million pounds, you'll say, thank you very much. How can I be sure I'm going to get it, wouldn't you? Like to be sure. What, what account are you going to put it in the bank? My account number is this. Uh, can I tell my bank manager it's going to come?
Yeah. Well, that's a sensible response, isn't it, to a promise like that. When God said, I'm going to give you this vast inheritance of you and your seed, Abraham said, thank you very much, and how shall I know I'm going to inherit it? And that day God made a covenant with Abraham, says chapter sixteen. And the covenant sacrifice was prepared, and the presence of God walked between the pieces as he made that covenant with Abraham. It was a one-party covenant to give to Abraham and his seed the great inheritance. It was an event in history. But when we come to Galatians chapter three, Paul calls our attention to this event.
For Paul is arguing that justification is by faith and not by the works of the law. And he quotes Abraham's experience. Abraham believed the Lord, and it was counted to him for righteousness. And was Abram circumcised before he was justified? No. For if he'd been circumcised before he was justified, you might have argued that justification was necessary for justification. No, says Paul. Read the history. Abram wasn't circumcised till after he was justified. Praise the Lord. And that shows that, uh, the works of the law are not necessary for salvation, and we Gentiles can be saved the exact same way as Abraham was justified.
Praise the Lord and hallelujah. But then Paul goes on to argue, doesn't he, in Galatians chapter three. it's not only justification that is by faith, it's the inheritance and the blessing of Abraham and the promise, and the covenant. They're all on the same ground, says Paul. For when you trust God and you are justified, along with your justification, you get what? Well, you get the promise, and you get the inheritance, and you get the covenant. Say, what covenant?
Well, the covenant God made with Abraham and his. You say, what's that got to do with me? Well, in the first place, nothing. Uh, do you see? The seed, when God said to Abraham, to thee and thy seed have I given it, says Paul, was Christ. Is Christ. The majority of Abraham's descendants never did inherit the land, and those that did only inherited it for a few years and century. The seed that God meant to give the inheritance to was Christ. Ha! And God made the covenant with Abraham, and says Paul, you know, the law which came four hundred and thirty years afterwards cannot alter that, can it?
In human experience, once a covenant has been made, signed, sealed, and settled, it can't be changed. Do you see? If you go to a builder and you say, oh builder old boy, I'd like you to build me a house. And he says, what kind of a house? You say, well, small thing, you know, five bedrooms, six bathrooms, two garages, uh, and all those things, you see. And he says, okay. Uh, he says, but I shall have to charge you two million dollars or something. Then you sign an agreement. Once he signed it, he can't add extra conditions, can he?
Can't come along and say, I really meant that, not two million dollars, but seven million or something. And God, having made a covenant with Abram to give the inheritance to Abram and to his seed, signed it and sealed it and settled it. The law which came four hundred and thirty years afterwards cannot be added to it as a condition of fulfillment. It was given to Abraham and his seed by one party unconditional covenant and the promise of God. You say, hallelujah, Christ is going to inherit it. Of course he will. That region in the Middle East, and along with that some more acres as well, and the whole world will be given to him.
You say, what's that got to do with me? You cannot add things to it. Take a will, for instance. Your great uncle Sam dies, and you as members of the family, go to hear the lawyer read the will. And the lawyer looks at the will and he reads it out, and your great uncle has left Tommy his house, and Wendy his two cars, and Johnny his sta- s- uh, stocks and shares, and uh, Sylvia his antique furniture, and so on and so forth, and comes to the end of the list.
And you haven't been mentioned. You say, half a minute, uh, you haven't mentioned me. He says, who are you? I'm Gwendolen, you say. I'm sure my uncle would have let me, left me something. I mean, I was his favorite Denise. So he said, I can't see anything here. Well, you say you read it again. So he reads it again. Sorry, he says, no Gwendolyn here. That can't be true, she says. I'm sure my uncle would have left it. Well, he's not said so. Well, write my name in then. But no lawyer would do it, however big the fee. Once a covenant has been made, you can't add people's names in.
Well, if God made a covenant with Abraham to give him this great inheritance and to his seed, and the seed is Christ, what's that got to do with us? Oh, says Paul as he comes to the end of Galatians three, I tell you a lovely thing. You see, as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ, like a man puts on a garment. You are in Christ, and you are Christ. Contain your joy if you can, because if you are Christ, then you are Abram's seed, aren't you? And all the promises that were made by God to Abram's seed and sealed by the covenant, when they come to Christ, then come to you.
Now, are you Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise? Cool, if that's true. Well, it is true, isn't it? Not only justified, sanctified in Christ, but listen to the holy word. Heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ for all eternity, and all that the Son inherits is yours by faith because you have been placed in Christ. Shout hallelujah, do, and to God be the glory.
But you see how important it is, isn't it, to get this basic question right, the comparative value between earthly goods and life and people and eternal life at the end. Let's make off our study there and commend ourselves to the Lord before we go to our break. Our Father, we thank thee for these vivid lessons from thy word, and for the realism that shows us that Abram was a man like as we are, subject to the same tests.
For the way these stories are true to life, we thank thee. And pray thy grace now. Help us, Lord, make real to us the glorious salvation we have in Christ, the wonder of the inheritance of which we already have the earnest. And help us, Lord, in the affairs of life, that this may weigh heavily in our decisions, that we may be good stewards of the riches, earthly riches that thou dost give us, but ever and again make the eternal life, the eternal children of God, and thine affairs and those of thy son our chief values, the more important element in all our decisions, for his name's sake.
Amen.
