Bible Survey - Genesis 12-50
Genesis 12:50 · Vern Peterman · Feb 9, 2014
Bible Survey, No. 06
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926416494317

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

We're stepping into Genesis chapters 12 through 50. And we took something close to a year to cover that when we studied Genesis several years back. And we're going to cover all that this morning in one session. So I'm going to talk really fast, right? Now, one of the things we did when we went through Genesis, and I think it's an eight-word kind of helpful way to get the outline of Genesis, and that you see in the inset at the upper left of your handout there. So anyway, what I have us do is all just repeat the words there and just go through creation, fall, flood, nations, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph. With those eight words, you've got the outline of Genesis. Obviously, much more detail could be filled in, but that at least gives you an initial structure.

Yes, the first four words cover the passage that Randy covered last week, and then the next four words, names actually, cover the portion we're looking at today. And so beginning in Genesis chapter 12, and by the way, Abraham is first mentioned just in a genealogical context. He's mentioned in chapter 11. but it's in chapter 12 that we see this pivotal passage that comes out here. God selects out from among the Gentiles Abram, by chapter 17 he's called Abraham, so a name change, and makes a covenant with him.

So we have the inset there. Now what we have If you look at the on the right hand side, there's a couple of little insets. We have one, the historical timeline of Genesis, which shows God's covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob around the year 2000 B.C. and afterwards with Isaac and Jacob is the timing for that.

The dashed line that you see in the timeline is the time of the Old Testament written from about 1400 to about 400, so a thousand years period of time for the writing and collection of the Old Testament books. And by the way, the book of Psalms was being composed over that thousand year period of time. That's Israel's national hymn book, if you will. Then below that, you'll see the covenants in Genesis, the Edenic covenant, that is the one in Eden, the Adamic covenant when Adam sinned and fell, and then the Noahic covenant, and then the Abrahamic covenant.

And by the way, the references here for the Abrahamic covenant are minimal compared to what we could list, so it's just a sampling. It's the introduction. Now, what you have here is Genesis 12, 1 through 3, is the covenant with Abraham, and that's summarized but double-spaced. So let's walk our way through there. It's double-spaced so that you can make notes if you would like to do so. So now, the Lord said to Abram. So here's this Abram, later on called Abraham. The Lord said to Abram, and the Lord begins by making promises to Abraham, and did Abraham earn or deserve these promises from God?

No. So what's interesting is while in the Garden of Eden, Adam was operating under a principle of law. What's the one law? Do not eat of this tree, of the knowledge of good and evil. So that's the one law Adam was given, he broke it. Abraham here is being promised by God and Abraham, so far as we have any record, did nothing to deserve it or merit it. And so what we find is Abraham is being promised, blessed under a principle of grace. Principle of grace. So the Lord said to Abraham, go forth from your country and from your relatives and from your father's house.

Why those three things? Why did he list three things? From your country, so that's a location, right? Well, and also it's a place where you know how the people talk, you know their culture. That's right. So you're changing your cultural context, and then you're changing your support group, and then you're changing Literally those closest to yes, so it's sort of yeah with a big principle and coming down Yeah, everything you're familiar with and by the way, what's not stated in here is by doing this he was kissing off his inheritance Okay, by by leaving he was saying bye-bye inheritance everything that I could have gotten from my father I'm not getting it. I'm good because I'm leaving my country and my relatives and my father's house and And in the law of the land, that would have meant you're kissing it goodbye.

And the reason that he would do that is God says, I've got something better. I've got something better. So, then to the land which I will show you. And this is key. I want you to kiss off everything you know and everything you think you're going to get for something that I'm going to promise you and you haven't seen it yet. So this is really kind of a wow, this is a big leap. And then verse 2, and I will make you a great nation and I will bless you and I will make your name great so you shall be a blessing By the way, how is he going to bless him?

Physically or spiritually or both? There's actually going to be both. It's both physical and spiritual blessings. And then one of the things I want to point out, and you shall be a blessing sounds like a prophecy. It's actually an imperative verb. You are to be a blessing. You must be a blessing. So that's one thing.

As you go out and kiss off all your inheritance, it is imperative that you not only be blessed, but you be a blessing in return. And I will bless those who bless you. So how someone treats Abraham and his descendants is going to be a determining factor on how that person is going to do in life. Bless those who bless you and the one who curses you I will curse.

I've got to point something else out. Those two words for curse are two different words. So if someone curses you I will bring down the judgment of God upon that person. So, if someone in a human way mistreats you, curses you, treats you badly, I will bring down judgment from God, because it's a different word for curse. So, the one who curses you, the human being who curses you, I, God, will bring down a curse. Judgment from God, yes.

You. Is that like a you group? I don't know if they distinguish between singular, you Abraham, or... Yes. What it is is you, but you as the head of a line. So what we find is Abraham's covenant that you see right here in front of you, these first three verses in chapter 12, those get expanded upon all throughout Abraham's life. up to the very last chapter that Abraham is alive.

Those get expanded upon. God restates them and expands and gives further detail. Because he actually does go to the land that God chose him, right? Additionally, those things are repeated to Isaac and Jacob. So the you is not just, okay, you and it stops with you, but you and it goes on with your line. So you have an initial statement to be expanded upon and then repeated to Isaac and then repeated again to Jacob.

God wanted to make it very clear who he was carrying this out through. Not through Ishmael, not through Esau. So God narrowed down who he was going to carry out this covenant with. To me, it seems like Abraham must have been walking with God before all this happened, because he just walked out and did it.

Kind of like Enoch, except Enoch was translated. But here it's showing that Abraham, there had to be a relationship. Yeah. And let's think about this. Here's Abraham. Is Abraham a Jew? No. He is a Gentile selected out. to be of the line of the Jews, God's chosen people. So here is Abraham, and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed, and so you shall be a blessing. It's imperative that you are a blessing. So Abraham is given this promise. Are we in this promise? Are we in the promise? The promise of grace.

Not in the physical lineage. We're not in the physical lineage, right? Unless somebody's Jewish here and I don't know it. But, yeah, Randy? I was going to say the 3B and in you all the families of the earth are equal. Ah, yes. That sounds pretty crazy. Yeah, now, so let's think about this. When you go to the genealogies in Matthew and Luke, who's in the genealogy? Who's in Jesus' genealogy?

All kinds of people, but Abraham, right? Abraham is in that line. So in you, all the families of the earth will be blessed, and you're going to have the Messiah who will bless people in His first coming and in His second coming, right? His first coming and His second coming. So we're connected there, plus we're sons of Abraham by faith. That's what Galatians makes clear. So we're not of the physical lineage, we're of the spiritual lineage of Abraham. Because by faith, Abraham believed, and it was accounted unto him as righteousness.

Same as us. Yes, that's right. The great hall of faith. So we're included in that. The last line, that's where you and I are included, and it's because Christ came from Abraham, and both in his first and his second coming, Christ will, this will be fulfilled, Christ will be blessing people. Right? Yeah.

So if Abraham wasn't a Jew, who was the first Jew? Yeah, let's think about that. Abraham was not a Jew. He was a Gentile selected out. Isaac was his son. the one of the correct God-select lineage, was Isaac a Jew? No. Not yet, right? Jacob's the head of the family that became known as Abishairoar.

So here's Jacob, and what's Jacob's other name? Israel. Israel. So then you have the people of Israel. So it's Jacob's sons, and Jacob had 12 sons, right? Those were the select ones. It was not Ishmael. By the way, Ishmael had 12 sons. Not Ishmael, not that line. Not through Esau, but through Jacob. But through Jacob.

Alright, so this Abrahamic covenant that you see right here, right in front of you, those three verses continue to impact the whole earth and God's not wrapping everything up here on planet Earth. He's not saying, OK, we're done, and wrapping it up, and wrapping this earth up.

Why? Because His promises to Abraham have to be fulfilled. All the promises to Abraham, and to Isaac, and to Jacob, and even the ones to David, all those promises have yet to be fulfilled. And so God is going to keep things going until those promises are fulfilled. So these three verses set the direction for the rest of the Bible and the rest of this planet and the rest of this universe. Alright, let's take a look over on side two.

God continued to make promises to Abraham throughout his lifetime, reiterating and expanding upon those promises, and God continued to restate those promises to Abraham's son Isaac and to Isaac's son Jacob. who was the head of the Israelite nation, his other name besides Jacob being Israel. So here are the genealogies, and what we're going to do is go through Genesis kind of by some topics. One is genealogies, there are lots of them, we won't go through all of them, but we have one reproduced here, which is the one that shows how the Israelite nation was founded. through Abraham. Here's Abraham and he's promised you're going to be this great nation and the head of, you know, and he says your descendants will be as the stars of the sky.

Right? And so here is this huge promise and then Abraham finally in his old age has a son and God says not that one. And then God says No, I've got another son in mind and so the one that is his son that is God's choice is Isaac. And he has just that one is the select son. Imagine, I mean that's just like you're trying to make a great nation of you and you just barely hang on by a thread. And then what did God say to do with Isaac? Go sacrifice him on the Mount. What? God, you promised. I finally get the one. You say this is the one and now you want me to kill him. So, but Abraham follows through and the Lord says, nope, that's good. Use this ram over in the thicket instead, right? So, then what you see is that then through Isaac, Isaac has two sons and God says, no, not that one, this one. And by the way, was Jacob just a very ethical man? Not so much.

He was a supplanter. Laban pulled tricks on him, and he pulled tricks on Laban, right? So they both pulled tricks on each other. He was the one who tricked Isaac into blessing him as the eldest son, giving the eldest son's blessing. And so now here is Jacob in his last days, having had all these sons. And guess what? Jacob did tricks, right? And so what Jacob's favorite son, Joseph, was also tricked by his brothers. But the Lord used that.

So anyway, you see the genealogy that's presented only includes basically the line of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and Jacob's sons. And you see Ishmael off to the side and Esau off to the side. Okay, now let's take a look at page three. We've got some timelines here. The book of Genesis provides us with not only the genealogies, but the timelines of particular key events in the lives of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And so we see the top one there, Abraham's ages. So Genesis chapters 12 through 25 lay out the key places, people and events in the life of Abraham to the time of his death.

And so what we get is a timeline when Abraham is 75, that's when he leaves Haran. Because remember he left Ur, where he started off and then went to Haran, which is to the north. He left Ur, went to Haran, and then at 75 headed down to the land that God would show him. So finally at age 86, this is 10 years after, 11 years after he leaves Haran, Ishmael is born. And then at age, when he's 100 years old, Isaac is born.

Imagine, God makes you this promise and decades go by and you're thinking, I'm going to, you know, die without any children. How is God going to fulfill this? And God said, nope, we're going to have one. It's going to be a miracle baby and that's all I need. He had already made arrangements with Eliezer, his chief steward.

Hey, I don't have any heirs, and so you're going to inherit all this. Yeah. I mean, wouldn't you think like, hey, you know, I kind of need to keep Ishmael around and, you know, just a kind of a just in case. I mean, there's no backup, right? Yeah. And God says, nope, I have something else in mind. Yeah.

Then, You have at 137 years old, Sarah dies. He negotiates for the cave of Machpelah, which is where Sarah is buried along with several other patriarchs, Abraham included. That's now in the city of Hebron. So at any rate, that cave there holds his remains and those of others.

And then Abraham, after Sarah dies, marries again and has other children, but that's not the select line. And then Abraham dies. What different groups of people are descended physically from Abraham? You've got the Jews and the Arabs, and then there's some others that are kind of halfway among them, but the Jews and the Arabs are of descendants of Abraham, this guy that seemed like he had a hard time having a son.

Yes, you've got some mixtures along some of these lines. You also have, what does the Bible say about the character of Ishmael? He would be a wild man. Yeah, a donkey of a man, right? And so it gives a prediction about the character of Ishmael and the difficulty that the world and Israel would have. And boy, it's being carried out today, right? Okay, now.

Then we see the next chart down, the next gen set, Abraham's, Isaac's, and Jacob's ages. So what we see is Abraham leaves Haran at 75, which we saw before. Isaac is born when Abraham is 100 years old. So then we see that Abraham is still around when Isaac turns 60 and has Jacob. And Esau, right? But Jacob. So it would appear that Jacob knew his grandfather, Abraham, for about 15 years of overlap time there. And then we also see that Jacob outlives his father, Isaac, here by, what is that, 27 years? And so we see the sequence and the length of time.

What about how long people lived? Is that credible? Is that credible that they have such a long lifespan like that? Well, we talked about that last time, that it's certainly less than 950 years. Yeah, when Randy was talking to us, he was telling us about Methuselah, who lived 900 plus, nearly 1,000 years.

And what we see after the flood is that there's a kind of a decay curve phenomenon. And what looks like long life to us here is actually much shorter than what was previously the case. And eventually, I mean, it's not just all of a sudden, here's Abraham, he lived some long life, but we see a pattern when we take these ages and put them together.

And so that's one thing, the Bible is consistent in that pattern. You have about 900 years before the Flood and then tapering off on a decay curve kind of line as you put the ages after the Flood. And you're referencing it in the Psalm when it uses that if a man's life is threescored and ten. Yes.

Yeah, and so what you see is that decay curve breaks down to closer to what we have now, eventually, even before the Old Testament is done. So you have this Abraham, Isaac and Jacob's ages. Putting this together, what you have here is there are actually a few centuries passing over this chapter 12 to chapter 50. A few centuries passing in that chapter 12 to chapter 50. Then let's look down the last one, because we said that the personages are Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and then Joseph. A big emphasis on Joseph. And we have these details of Joseph's life. It starts off with, here's Joseph at 17, sold by his brothers and taken down to Egypt. Why would his brothers do such a thing? Why would his brothers do such a thing? They were tired of him telling them that he was going to be the chief among them.

Both Joseph and Jacob contributed to the problem. Jacob contributed to the problem by expressing, you know, this is my favorite son, and made no hesitation, this is my favorite son. I can remember telling Randy and his brother Ed which one of them was a favorite. I told him, I'm going to tell you which one of you is my favorite. And they both had this, oh no, look, and I went, that one. So anyway, and they were greatly relieved. But Jacob didn't do that. He made it very clear Joseph was a favorite son. That was a problem. And then Joseph would come with these visions and prophecies that he had. and that put him in a place of expressing ahead of time that the rest of the family will bow down to me. Which eventually was true, but boy that even bothered Jacob.

So then Joseph goes through a tough time from age 17 to age 30 when he's made second in rank in all of Egypt. We have the timing there of when the seven years of good crops in Egypt begins and when the seven years of bad begins and ends. And that's at age 44 years. He's done with the seven years of good, seven years of bad. At age 56, Jacob dies. So his father dies. And then at 110, Joseph dies.

Now what does Joseph make the rest of the family, this remaining, promise? that you'll carry my bones back and bury me back in that cave. And what they did is bury me back in the land. And so his grave is in Nablus, right near Jacob's well. Jacob's well was where Jacob dug a well. It's also where Jesus talked to the Samaritan woman. So that's the well. You can go see it today. And his bones are buried right nearby, like within walking distance. there in Nablus.

So we're given quite a bit of detail on Joseph. Why is it that we've got all this detail on Joseph, he gets to be second in command in Egypt and has this very high position. Why is it that Joseph is not the one from whom the Messiah has descended? See, what's really interesting is God doesn't choose on the basis of, oh boy, this guy's a great guy. As a matter of fact, Judah was kind of a scummy guy. Yes, yeah, and so you have, hey wait a minute, did you pick the wrong guy? It isn't the guy we would necessarily pick. God makes his choices, and it isn't the natural ones, it isn't the earthly ones, it isn't the choice we make.

And I think that's something for us to kind of reckon with. Think about it, if you were going to found a church to have the ones that write the New Testament and the ones that go and put the Gospel out there, would you pick the guys that Jesus picked to be the disciples? Yeah, here's a fisherman.

I can imagine, remember when Jesus sent the disciples out two by two? You can imagine him pairing up Matthew the tax collector and Simon the zealot, right? What a combination, right? Or would you like to be the guy that got paired up with Judas? Right?

Okay, so God does in fact make choices and make decisions that are not the ones we would make. Okay, now let's turn to page four. Interesting, he didn't pick the eldest son. He broke tradition, you might say, in a number of cases. Yes, he broke tradition. He didn't pick the one we would choose. Let me take a further look down here. It ends up with Jacob blessing. The people of Israel.

Genesis 1-11 shows the origin of the world and of the nations. Genesis 12 through 50 shows us the origin of the people of Israel. So this is a book of origins, whereas Genesis' very name has a book of beginnings, right? And so it's finely focused on here is the origin of the people of Israel, God's chosen people.

Abraham was not a Jew or an Israelite or a Hebrew. Those are synonyms with slightly different nuance. Let's talk about that. We say the word Jew, where did the word Jew come from? It comes from the tribe of Judah, and the reason it comes from that is because the prominent tribe of the southern kingdom was Judah, that was the prominent tribe.

The only loyal tribe was Benjamin, the tribe of Benjamin, which was Paul's tribe, the Apostle Paul's tribe. So the tribe of Benjamin. So Benjamin and Judah constitute the Southern Kingdom, but what we have is people from the Northern Kingdom at various times when things got bad they would go to the Southern Kingdom. And so they'd go to the kingdom of Judah when things got bad. And so you had all the tribes represented there within the southern kingdom, the kingdom of Judah. And so that's how they got the name Jews, came from that.

The word Hebrew, we don't exactly know the origin of that word. However, it's thought that Abraham's predecessor, Eber, was the root of that name. That's been a speculation. We don't know for sure. Isaac was not a Jew. It was Jacob, also known as Israel, named Israel by God, and his sons that we have the roots of the nation, the people of Israel, who are God's chosen people. Ethnically speaking, yes.

It's not the chief thing here, but isn't it interesting that God's name changed from supplanter to prince? Amazing, huh? So even then, you get the idea of the transformation that God can make. Yes, yeah. And if you think about it, God is in the business of taking things that started off bad and changing them, right? How about the Apostle Paul?

Here's a guy that later on in Acts, he says, every chance I had, I voted for death. He writes to Timothy, And he said, you know, I did the worst, I was a blasphemer, the worst thing you could do, you know, an offense to the Jews. I was a murderer of the church. And he says, and I was guilty against the Greeks. He was a reviler. So he said, I was a bad dude. I was a bad dude. Chief of sinners, yeah. I was one bad dude, and yet God chose me. I think that's something to look at. If you ever think, well, I should discount myself. God says, no, that's not the way I work. You don't earn it. It's not by merit.

So it is those who are the physical inheritors of the promises made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob regarding the land, the seed, and the blessing. the physical inheritors of those who received the promises made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the lamb, seed, and blessing. the Son of God, Jesus Christ.

So we have the ancestry of Christ through Genesis 1, as Randy pointed out last week, the seed of the woman in Genesis 3.15, and of the line of Seth, 4.25, and of the line of Shem, so there's Shem, Ham, and Japheth of those three sons of Noah, so the line of Shem. And from that we get our term Semite, You know, the term often gets used, antisemitic. It's from the line of Shem, actually. And then in Abraham, 12-3. In Isaac, 21-12. And then in Jacob, 25-23. And then in Judah, 49-10.

So the lineage of Christ is given there right through the book of Genesis from chapter 3 all the way into chapter 49. So what we say here is that the Son of God shows up in Genesis in a few different ways. Though it was not revealed in New Testament times, the Son of God was the prime agent for creation described in Genesis chapters 1 and 2.

So this is in Colossians 1.16.

They're, I think, studying that this morning. So that's the first thing. And this also is one of the things that we pointed out early on. The principle of progressive revelation means that things are revealed through time, but we also get revelation later that reflects back, provides additional insights, and this is one of them, additional insights into things back in Genesis. When you read Genesis, you don't get the sense necessarily that the Son of God is the prime agent for creation, but you do get that from Colossians. So that's one way. There's another one.

The lineage through Adam and Eve to Judah is shown in the inset to the left. So what the genealogies in Genesis show on into the time of David and on into the New Testament times, Matthew 1 and Luke 3, is that Christ had a human lineage leading all the way back to the time and line of Adam, but he was born of a woman married by virgin birth. What you see is the lineage back to Abraham is shown in Matthew chapter 1. The lineage back to Adam is shown in Luke chapter 3. The line through Mary. Then we have number 3.

The pre-incarnate Son of God also shows up in Genesis as the angel of the Lord. Now why do we arrive at that conclusion? Let's look at the inset there that's on the left hand side on the bottom of page 4. So why the angel of the Lord is not the same as an angel of the Lord? There's a difference.

So the angel of the Lord speaks as God, doing things that God does. And we see that several passages in Genesis, but on into the book of Zechariah there. So that's part one. As in the account with Hagar, many who see the angel of the Lord say that they have seen God. So we have that additional piece of information that helps us arrive at that conclusion. Since appearances of the angel of the Lord end at Christ's birth, we take him to be the Son of God. No more appearances of the angel of the Lord to, for example, Paul, to John. Alright, then we have number four.

From the time of the animal skins for Adam and Eve, that Randy talked about here, to Abel's sacrifice to those of Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the sacrifices and altars picture God's sacrifice of his son. Abraham's offering of his son Isaac being an illustration of Christ's sacrifice for us. And by the way, did Isaac go willingly on this trip for him to be sacrificed? Yes. Some of the artist drawings I'll see show Isaac as some young fellow. He was about 40. So here he was as a grown man, we would say, and fully able to put two and two together.

Wait a minute, we're going to this place and we've got some wood and where's the sacrifice? Dad, what's going on here? So he willingly came along, knowing full well, we've got everything prepared for sacrifice, but where's the sacrifice? Where's the animal for that?

And then item 5, Christ was to be a priest forever of the order of Melchizedek, and Melchizedek is revealed to us in Genesis 14. 17-24 and then we give the subsequent passages in Psalms 110-4 and Hebrews 5-6-7-17. So this is the role that began after he ascended. So we have that recorded in Acts. So we have five different ways and by the way I don't claim to be exhausted. Can anybody think of some other way that I've missed? Five different ways that Jesus, or the Son of God, shows up in the book of Genesis.

Some have made other comparisons, I'll bring them up, that Joseph in some ways was very Christ-like, and it was through him that his family was saved. Joshua later, yeah. So that would be one. Some have also pointed to the Ark of Noah as the means by which the eight people were saved and the animals that were on the Ark were saved, and that that being a picture of Christ's salvation.

So anyway, those are some others that people have brought up. Grab the color handout that you've got. On one side we've got the path where Abraham traveled. on a map, starting at Ur of the Chaldees. And by the way, when they went into the first Gulf War, when they left Kuwait, they went immediately in and they set up a military station there at Ur. And so I was very interested to see that. And then Haran, which is the next one farther to the north, where Abraham stayed for a time.

And by the way, where did Isaac's and Jacob's spouses come from? Where did Isaac's and Jacob's spouses come from? What location? Remember, Abraham said, do not, do not take a Canaanite woman, which by the way, that's what Esau did, but do not take a Canaanite woman for my son. Go back to my relatives and get one there. So here's Sarah, who's a half-sister, and basically Isaac and Jacob, both married relatives. They went back to Iran because they didn't want to have a Canaanite woman be the mother in either case, the wife and the mother. So then the rest of the time, other than a short trip into Egypt for Abraham and eventually ending up in Egypt, the rest of the time is spent here in this land that God said He would show Abraham.

Okay, flip side. And here's the interesting part. Remember this is the land that I will show you? This map is the map that will be Israel's kingdom, the land, during the Millennial Kingdom. And notice where it starts. Do you see off on the lower right-hand side of the map? Where does it start? Ur. It starts there right next to Ur, and it goes up the Euphrates River, which Abraham basically followed when he went to Haran, right? And then down.

So this shows the area. So Genesis 15, 18-21 describes this area. So that's the land that I will show you ultimately is not just little tiny Israel, but this entire land. You're going to walk it. And then in Ezekiel 48 we have Israel's land by tribe.

So what's interesting is there were assignments by tribe for when they first went in to Israel under Joshua. This tribe is going to take this land, and this tribe is going to take this land, and this tribe is going to take this land. And those were the assignments by tribe then. But in the Millennial Kingdom, the assignments by tribe will be these stripes that are going across this much larger territory. So this is the, remember the promises are land, seed, and blessing. So this is the land fulfillment and how it will show up. And what's amazing to think about is that this could be as soon as seven years from now. Could be as soon as seven years from now, that this is the configuration of Israel.

Is God being focused on non-spiritual things by promising this land and descendants? Was God's promise to Abraham non-spiritual? I think it was actually both. I mean, it's kind of a condition and position situation. He promised him the land, which is a physical thing on this earth, but it's also going to turn out to be the millennial kingdom and Christ ruling and the spiritual aspect of it as well.

We make a particular emphasis here at Holly Hills that Our blessings are spiritual. We make a particular emphasis on what the Bible teaches about spiritual things, and that's as it ought to be. But one of the things to keep in mind here is what God is setting up with Abraham is really blessing in the physical realm and in the spiritual realm.

For us, we get the spiritual side blessings. For the Jews, their blessings are physical. But it's not non-spiritual. It's not non-spiritual and it does have a spiritual element to it as well. And the promise God made to Abraham is both physical and spiritual. Like we said there in verse 3 of chapter 12. There is spiritual blessing promised to be coming from Abraham as well.

And of those physical and spiritual blessings, we in the Church, being a heavenly spiritual body and not ethnically defined, we in the Church have the spiritual blessings and we have a heavenly seating and we have a heavenly citizenship. Our blessings are not earthly. Our blessings are spiritual and heavenly. And that's the part of it that we as the Church receive. And we are also sons of Abraham, spiritually. Spiritually sons of Abraham. So this promise to Abraham, does it fit us? Yes it does.

But it's the spiritual aspect of it. This is Christ speaking to the Pharisees. He says, therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it. That has the kingdom of God in it. It has a nation in it. Ultimately, it's the promise to Abraham that's even the source of what Jesus is saying there, and the fact that he's talking to Jews, and here's Jesus who's a part of that fulfillment. So what we see is that this promise to Abraham, although it starts off with just three verses, is huge, and the rest of this planet, and the rest of eternity, is impacted by the promise God made to Abraham in these three verses. I thought the kingdom of God belonged to Israel when he says it's going to be taken away from Israel and given to someone who bears the truth. somebody else has received the kingdom of God, which is taken away from them.

We're getting off into a question that's probably, it's big, and it ends up being a sidetrack. So I'll have to defer that one maybe to private conversation. Maybe part of that is Paul talking about the nation of Israel is cast aside for a while for the time of the Gentiles to come in, but the final destiny of Israel is to be restored to God. Yes. It wasn't a rejection of Israel outright, but Israel is set aside for a time. Israel is set aside for a time, but ultimately there will be a restoration of Israel. You're rejected and permanently rejected and gone. Yeah, you had a question.

I was going to ask, on this map of the land that they're going to receive by tribe, I presume that little blue dot up there above the Dead Sea has to be the Sea of Capernaumon. Well, there's the Dead Sea and then this little blue one up above it that's in the land of Judah, that stripe, the Sea of Galilee.

Does that also include Nazareth and Bethlehem in that area? Yes, well let's see. Nazareth is off from the Sea of Galilee in the southwestern quadrant. So that would include Nazareth. Bethlehem will be down, I'd have to look at it real carefully, but probably in the tribe of Benjamin Stripe there. Oh, really? Is it that far down? Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Yeah.

And by the way, there are two Bethlehems. There's another Bethlehem close to Nazareth, but this one, that's why Micah spells out which Bethlehem it is. Micah 5.2. It's that Bethlehem, not the other one. That's why I thought it was up there close. Yes, Bethlehem and Ephrathah, not the other Bethlehem that's next to Nazareth.

Any other thoughts, questions? What is amazing here in this book of Genesis, I look at it and it's just astounding to me. It's the seedbed of all kinds of things as you look at the book. What God's going to do with the rest of the time on this planet, what God's going to do in eternity, how is God going to carry out his salvation and through whom. And God chose out this one Gentile Abraham, and made this promise, and it's going to impact all of eternity.

I mean, you can imagine Abraham just kind of mind-blown, not really knowing, wow, what kind of promise is this? What does this mean? And frankly, he only had part of an understanding, right? Because that's what we talk about, the principle of progressive revelation.

What did Abraham know, and what did he not know? He didn't know a lot of things, but he walked in faith in what God revealed to him at that point in time. Even Jacob and Jacob's sons and all that. It was a matter of God had revealed certain things, but not everything. It's written of Abraham that he believed God and that was counted to him for righteousness. Yeah, he believed God for what God had revealed to him at that point.

What is amazing is that God has completed His biblical revelation to us. God has fulfilled of the about 10,000 prophecies in the Bible, He has fulfilled 5,000 of them. 5,000 have yet to be fulfilled and they're mostly based on promises made to Abraham. The 5,000 prophecies yet to be fulfilled are based on the promises made to Abraham in great part.

Okay, anything else? Okay, let's pray. Lord, we thank you. You have laid out for us here in Genesis some amazing things. And we see that those few verses that you started off with, promising to Abraham, are still impacting us. It is through the promises you made to Abraham. that we are saved. It's through the promises made to Abraham that we have the Word of God revealed mostly through descendants of Abraham. And we are just astounded and amazed at what you're doing and what you're going to do forever based on that promise you made to this one Gentile who otherwise would have, I'm sure, been anonymous except for that choice. And we just thank you for your amazing grace, your grace shown to Abraham and to us. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.