In Genesis chapter 11, we're
introduced to the man named Abram, or Abraham, eventually, who would
be called Abraham. And he's such an important figure
in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. And so we're
gonna look at Genesis chapter 12. I've actually entitled the
lesson, I took the title from Romans chapter four. because
that's one of the New Testament passages that speaks of Abraham
as a prime example of how God justifies the ungodly, and that's
how I entitled the lesson, God Justifies the Ungodly. And we
need to keep that in mind as we look at the life of Abraham,
how God dealt with him. In the New Testament, there's
several prominent passages of scripture that really tell us
about Abraham and how he is significant for believers today. One would
be John chapter eight, and I've cited that in this lesson. Another
one would be Romans chapter four. And then another one would be,
for example, Galatians chapter three. These passages are cited
in your lesson today. But again, now we need to understand
how Abraham is a prime example of how God saves sinners, how
God justifies sinners in salvation by his free and sovereign grace
in and by the Lord Jesus Christ and based on Christ's righteousness
imputed and received by God-given faith. Abraham was a man of faith. Sometimes he's called the father
of the faithful. In what sense? Well, Abraham's
not the source of faith, he's not the source of blessing, he's
not the source of salvation, God is. But Abraham was a prime
example of a believer, a prime example of one whom God has justified. And many of the unbelieving Jews,
think about it this way, the unbelieving Jews basically had
three things that they boasted in. as far as making them children
of God and having a right relationship with God. And the number one
thing was their physical connection to Abraham. In John chapter eight,
they told the Lord, they said, we be Abraham's seed. What are
you talking about? You know, that's when he said,
the truth will set you free. And they said, well, we've never
been in bondage to any man, which was a lie because at that time
they were under the Roman boot, the Roman empire. They said,
we've never been in bondage to anybody. And they said, we're
Abraham's seed. And of course, Christ told them
that your physical connection with Abraham means absolutely
nothing when it comes to salvation, a right relationship with God,
righteousness, eternal life and glory. Just because you're born
of that pedigree. You know, Paul in Philippians
three, he said, I'm a Hebrew of Hebrews. in essence, that's
what he's saying of the tribe of Benjamin. I think he's saying
that physical connection means nothing as far as a salvation,
being justified, being right with God. That physical connection
by which God gave you physical life will not give you spiritual
life. It's not of blood, nor of the
works of the flesh, nor the will of man. So If you could prove
that your heritage physically was connected with Abraham, what
good would that do you if you don't have Christ? If you don't
have God's grace and God's power? Nothing. And the other two things
they'd boast in is number two, their circumcision, which God
gave them through Abraham. And of course, it's explained
that circumcision, a veil of nothing. Whether you're a Jew
or a Gentile, whether you're uncircumcised or circumcised,
it avails nothing but a new creation. That's the only thing that avails
anything, and who's the author of the new creation? God is,
for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto, not because
of, but unto good works, which God hath before ordained that
we should walk in them. And then the third thing they
would boast in was they would claim to have kept the law of
Moses. Well, first of all, they didn't
keep it. They failed miserably, like all of us would, and have,
as far as attempting to obey God. We're sinners. We all come
short, and they did too. But they would say, well, we
have Moses. And you remember in John chapter
five, Christ told him, he said, Moses will be your judge. The
very thing that you're boasting in as proving your salvation
will be your downfall. because that law can only condemn
sinners based on their best efforts to keep the law. By deeds of
law shall no flesh be justified in God's sight. And so that's
what happened in the gospel ministry and why many or most of the unbelieving
Jews hated the gospel so much. It exposed their deeds as being
evil. To claim that you have a right
relationship with God because you were born physically from
Abraham or anybody else is an evil deed. To claim that you
have a right relationship with God or you've achieved righteousness
because you were circumcised, that's an evil deed. To claim
that you are righteous because you've kept the law of Moses,
that's evil in the sight of God because it doesn't glorify God,
it denies God. It denies Christ. What Paul's
saying in Galatians chapter two, he said, if righteousness come
by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. If you can be saved,
if you can be righteous, if you can be right with God based upon
your obedience, then your living testimony is you're saying Christ
didn't have to come and die. All that he did was for nothing
because he's the end of the law for righteousness to everyone
that believeth. Well, Christ showed the unbelieving
Jews that were listening to him, the Pharisees mainly, that Abraham's
faith was in him, was in Christ. Abraham looked forward according
to the promise of God to the Messiah to come. And you remember
he said, Abraham rejoiced to see by day and he saw it and
he was glad. So Abraham, a sinner saved by
grace. Now look at verse one of Genesis
12. It says, now the Lord had said unto Abram, get thee out
of thy country and from thy kindred and from thy father's house unto
a land that I will show thee. Now when God called Abraham,
where was he? Ur of the Chaldees, that's modern
day Iraq, isn't it? It's Iraq, somewhere around there. And the significance of that
is that Abraham, he just like all, all of us by nature, we
fell in Adam, so did Abraham. When Adam fell, we all fell,
didn't we, into sin and death. and were born spiritually dead
in trespasses. You can't make Abraham an exception
here. He was born just like we are.
And he started out life as an idolater. I've heard people,
listen, I heard people, several preachers preach that Abraham,
even though he was in a land of idolatry, he himself was not
an idolater. Joshua in Joshua 24 in verse
two speaks of him as an idolater. What are we by nature, even though
we're born in America? By nature, we don't know God,
scripture says. By nature, we don't serve God.
By nature, in Ephesians 2, it says that we're no different
than the children of wrath. By nature, now, as we are naturally
born, we may be religious, we may be dedicated, we may be sincere,
but all our religion, before God brings us to a knowledge
of the gospel in Christ and faith in Christ, all of our religion
is idolatry. Most people don't want to admit
that. I was raised in religion, like most of you all, raised
in a church where I didn't hear any gospel. I thought the problem
was me, and I was the problem, but when I went back and talked
to people, I found out, no, I never heard it there. It wasn't there. And what was, I was worshiping
a God that cannot save. That's what Isaiah spoke of.
They have no knowledge that set up the graven images. Now, we
didn't set up graven images. In our minds we did. I had an
image of God that was not according to the testimony of God. Well,
that's Abraham. And so when he was called, he
was called out of Ur of the Chaldees. He was called out of idolatry.
We learn that God had chosen Abraham just like he chose all
of his people before the foundation of the world and gave him to
Christ. And he sent Christ into the world to die for Abraham's
sin. And Abraham looked at that and
believed that because of the promise that God made. that was sure and certain, just
like David. You remember David said, God
has made a covenant with me that is ordered in all things and
sure. Who ordered it? God did, before
the foundation. Who made it sure? Christ did.
All the promises of God in Christ are yea, and in him, amen. So
Abraham's calling, here he's called to leave his home. And
we know, we find out later, his father went with him, and look
at chapter 11, verse 31. It said, and Terah took Abram
and his son, and Lot the son of Haran, and his son's sons,
and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram's wife, and they
went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees to go into the
land of Canaan, and they came unto Haran and dwelt there. Abraham's
father went with him. Now, we don't know what Abraham's
father believed. Maybe he just went for love of
his son. I don't know. We don't know because the Bible
doesn't tell us. But when Abraham was called, when God revealed
himself to Abraham, to Abram, Abram was an idolater. He was
a sinner without hope until God brought him that hope. And he
was called to leave his home. and get out of that country,
leave the land of idolatry. That's a picture of faith in
Christ and repentance of dead works. When God calls his people
unto himself, we gotta leave our natural habitat. We gotta
leave our idolatry behind and follow Christ. Well, look at
verse two. He says, now God, here's where
God begins to make a covenant with Abraham. And this is really
significant because the covenant you're going to see is a unilateral
covenant, one-sided, not a bilateral covenant. Remember I explained
how you got a bilateral covenant made between two parties who
must agree on certain conditions before the covenant is enforced.
This is not that kind of covenant. It's not God saying, Abraham,
I'll do this if you'll do that. But it's a unilateral covenant.
God says, this is what I'm gonna do. And God does it. And so listen
to what he says in verse two. He says, I will make of thee
a great nation, and I will bless thee and make thy name great,
and thou shalt be a blessing. He says that to Abraham. A great
nation. Make his name great. Make him
a blessing to others. Now this is essentially God telling
Abraham, you're going to be the father of many children. You're gonna have a seed, an
offspring. But there was a big problem,
and it had to do with Abraham's wife, who was called Sarai at
that time, but as eventually was called Sarah. Look back up
in Genesis 11 and verse 30, but Sarai was barren. She had no
child. Somebody said that Abraham was
about 75 years old when he left Ur of the Chaldees, give or take. And Sarai was just a little younger
than Abraham. But she couldn't have children.
It was physically impossible for her to have children. She
was barren. And here God says, now I'm gonna make of you, Abraham,
a great nation. I'm gonna make your name great.
I'm gonna make you a blessing to others. Well, how's this going
to happen? Well, it's obvious that it's
going to have to be the work of God. And that's a great picture of
us by nature. We're barren. We're spiritually
dead, just like Sarah's womb was dead. That's us by nature,
isn't it? And if we're going to have any
life, if there's going to be any conception of life within
us, it's got to be God alone. We were talking about that this
morning, about Lazarus. Christ didn't stand at the foot
of that tomb and say, Lazarus, I'll raise you from the dead
if you'll come forth. No. He just said, Lazarus, come
forth. I heard a false preacher the
other day, when he went through his message. I didn't listen
to the whole message, but he didn't preach Christ. It was just the
power of positive thinking. But at the end of the message,
he said, now, if you'll accept Jesus as your savior, blah, blah,
blah. And he said, pray this prayer with me. And he prayed
a prayer. And he looked up and he said, now, if you prayed that
prayer, I believe you're born again then. You'll be born again. Well, the new birth doesn't come
from us praying a prayer. The new birth doesn't come from
us doing anything or deciding anything. It comes from God.
And that's the way God is. It's life from the dead. And
Abraham is a prime example of that. His wife could not have
children. She was barren. So it's clear that this promise
that God is making here could not be conditioned on Abraham.
It had to be the work of God. And this covenant that God makes
with Abraham is reflective of the everlasting covenant of grace
in the salvation of his people. We're chosen before the foundation
of the world in Christ. We're given to him, he's our
surety. And again, it's a unilateral
covenant. It's not God will do this if
we will do that. What did God say in Jeremiah
and Ezekiel? I'll give them a new heart, I'll
give them a new spirit. I'll cause them to walk in my
statutes. They'll be my people and I'll
be their God. This is the way it's gonna be.
And it's all the work of God unilaterally. So understand that's
what Abraham is an example of. Consider this, and we'll see
this more when we get up into the Old Testament and get into
Moses and the children of Israel under the Old Covenant. The Old
Covenant that was made between God and the children of Israel
through Moses was subservient to the covenant that God made
with Abraham. mainly in the giving of a land,
the land of promise. We'll see that in just a moment.
Their obtaining that land was unconditional towards them. I know they had to wander in
the wilderness 40 years before they occupied it, but God was
gonna give them that land, no matter what, because of the promise
he made to Abraham, an unconditional promise. But their prosperity
in that land was conditioned on their obedience. It was a
bilateral covenant. That's where you get passages
like that's popular among false religions, 2 Chronicles 7, 14. If my people who are called by
my name will humble themselves and do this and I will heal their
land, and they apply that to America, to which it does not
apply. That was a conditional covenant
in that sense. But it failed. It was a failure. Why? Because it was a bad covenant? No, because of the sins of the
people. And I always make sure we say this, you know, people
today actually, they actually think that if they were living
back then, they could have done better, but we couldn't have
done any better. We're all sinners. Why was that covenant given?
To show them their sin and their depravity and their need of God's
grace. So understand this, these bilateral,
even the covenant that God made with Adam, he didn't make it
with a sinful man, but he made it with a man who is mutable. And that's why our salvation
is conditioned on Christ, who's the same yesterday, today, and
forever. He's immutable. It's based upon
the righteousness that He established that cannot be contaminated,
cannot be corrupted, cannot be taken away, you see. Our salvation
is sure. Our eternal life is sure because
of Christ, whom to know is life eternal. If it were conditioned
on us, what would it be? It'd be a failure. Somebody say,
well, God says He'll do this if we'll do that. Well, we won't
do it. Whatever it is. So understand that. Now, later
on, God promises Abraham that he'd be the father of many nations,
that he would be exceeding fruitful, and even kings would come out
of him. And he promises that over in
Genesis 17. The covenant with Abraham begins
here in Genesis 12. He reaffirms it in Genesis 15
and Genesis 17 and gives more information. But here's the point. I read a book several years ago
called Abraham's Four Seeds. Now listen to this and see if
you don't agree with it. Abraham is the father of many
nations, first of all, in a natural sense, but also in a spiritual
sense. His natural descendants, his
natural seed, are both the Israelites and the Arabs. You knew the Arabs
came from Abraham, too, don't you? You remember Isaac? The Israelites came from Isaac. And Ishmael. He was Abraham's
son, too. So Abraham had a physical seed,
a physical offspring of many nations. And you could talk about
the Israelites, the Jews, and the Arabs, all right? And God
made a lot of promises to Abraham. Some of those promises were temporal,
physical, and only had to do with Abraham's physical seed.
Most of those temporal promises were given to the Jews, who you
could call, rightfully, Abraham's special physical seed, because
it was through the Jews, through the Israelites, that God was
going to bless many nations spiritually. God chose Israel to be the human
instrument through which the sinless humanity of the Messiah
would come. So they're kind of like Abraham's
special. Physical seed you see that and
God gave them that land didn't give it to the Arabs He gave
it that the land of promise. He gave it to the Jews He gave
it to the to the physical seed of Abraham through Isaac who's
called the child of promise now Abraham has a physical seed Jew
and Arab he has a special physical seed the Jews Through which he
was going to work with them keep them together and Not because
they were better or more numerous or more powerful than other nations.
Remember in Deuteronomy chapter seven, God tells me, I didn't
choose you because of anything in you. Why did God choose the
Israelites and not the Arabs? It seemed good in his sight.
It was his sovereign will. That's the only answer we have.
He didn't look down through time. He said, well, you know, those
Israelites, they seem like they're a nice people or something. had
nothing to do with that. In fact, Deuteronomy 7 says that
they were fewer than any other nation. They were weaker. They
were worse. You might say it that way. That's
how God works. He takes what to man seems to
be the most pitiful and the worst, and he uses it for his glory.
So he had that physical seed, Jews and Arabs, and kings did
come out of Abraham. They had kings. But then he had
a special physical seed, the Jews, through whom he promised
that the Messiah would come. And so Abraham has also a spiritual
seed. Now what is Abraham's spiritual
seed? Well, that's God's chosen people.
That's God's elect out of every tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation,
Jew and Gentile, whom God chose and gave to Christ before the
foundation of the world, whom he sent Christ into the world
to die and satisfy justice for him, and that he sends the Spirit
to call out by giving them life and revealing himself to them
in the gospel of God's righteousness in Christ. All believers are
Abraham's spiritual seed. Now you can see that, I've got
quoted here. Look over in the book of Galatians and look at chapter three. In verse 26. He says, for you are all the
children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. Now he's talking to believing
Jews and believing Gentiles. There's no doubt about that.
Believing Jews and believing Gentiles. And he says in verse
27, for as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have
put on Christ. As many of you has been united
to Christ, you put him on. Now, the biblical way of understanding
putting on Christ is having faith in him. You believe in him, you
trust him. He is your salvation, he is your
righteousness. And so he said, in Christ, you
put on Christ, verse 28, there's neither Jew nor Greek, there's
neither bond nor free, there's neither male nor female, for
you are all one in Christ Jesus. See, the physical distinctions,
Jew and Greek, bond or free, male or female, That has nothing
to do with a right relationship with God, with salvation, with
being righteous. Verse 29, and if you be Christ,
now that's a possessive, it'd be like saying if you belong
to Christ, then are you Abraham's seed. You see it? Then you're
Abraham's offspring. In what sense? Did Abraham give
me life? No. in the sense that I'm spiritually
connected with Abraham in the fellowship of faith, and he says,
and heirs according to the promise. The same promise that God made
to Abraham is made to the people of God. Now what is that promise? Now this is key, and especially
if you read Romans chapter four, talking about Abraham believed
God and it was imputed to him for righteousness. Well, what
was imputed to him? Not Abraham's faith, not Abraham's
act of believing. It was what God had promised
Abraham. His faith was what he believed, what God had promised
him. Well, he says here that if you're
a believer in Christ, you are an heir of the promise, just
like Abraham. Now, God never promised to give
any Gentile that land over in Palestine. Isn't that right? That's not our land. If you go
over and try to claim it based upon a connection with Abraham,
you're just fooling yourself. God never promised us any of
the physical blessings that he promised Israel under that covenant.
But what did God promise? He's talking about the gospel.
He's talking about our salvation, our protection and preservation. By God's grace in the Lord Jesus
Christ, that's what connects us spiritually with Abraham.
Abraham is our brother in Christ. And he's a prime example of how
God justifies the ungodly. How God justified Abraham, that's
how he justified me. That's how he justified you. How he saved Abraham, the same
way, me. That's how we're connected. Now
up there, and that's Abraham's spiritual seed. And then over
there in Galatians 3, if you look a little further back, listen
to this in verse 18. No, let's go back to, yeah, verse
16, rather. I've got this listed in your
lesson, or cited in your lesson. He says, now to Abraham and his
seed were the promises made, All right, he saith not unto
seeds as of many, but as one, and to thy seed, which is Christ.
Abraham is called the seed, Christ is called the seed of Abraham.
He might be what you call Abraham's special seed. because it was
through the promise of God to send Christ into the world that
the whole salvation of all of his chosen people, Jew and Gentile,
would be confirmed, established, and made sure. It's all in Christ. So go back to Genesis 12 now.
And you'll see that all through the New Testament, it speaks
of that. The Bible speaks of spiritual
Israel, Being a spiritual Jew, Romans 2, 28, 29. He is not a
Jew, which is one outwardly, but he is one which is one inwardly,
and circumcision is not of the flesh, but of the heart. See,
that's the whole thing. Abraham, I've got Hebrews 2,
verses 10 through 18 cited here. You can read that on your own.
That's where he's talking about how Christ had to be made like
unto his brethren. In other words, he had to become
a man without sin God man, in order to save us from our sins,
in order to, he was made of a woman, made under the law to redeem
them that were under the law. And it says there in Hebrews
chapter two, that he was made like unto the seed of Abraham. Well, he's talking about his
elect, Jew and Gentile. So if you want to, here's Abraham's
four seeds, Abraham's physical seed, Jews and Arabs, Abraham's
special physical seed, the Israelites, through whom Christ would come.
Then Abraham's spiritual seed, which is all the elect of God,
Jew and Gentile, for whom Christ died, who justified in Christ,
washed in his blood, clothed in his righteousness, and brought
to faith in Christ. And then that special seed, which
is Christ himself. I think it makes sense. You may
not want to divide it up like that, but there is a difference
between all the physical promises made to Abraham and the spiritual
promises that apply to us. in Christ, and I think that's
very significant. That's how all the families of
the earth would be blessed through Abraham. All the families of
the earth. And that's spiritual Israel.
And you know, look back there. He says in verse two, Genesis
12, or verse three, he says, I will bless them that bless
thee and curse him that curseth thee, and in thee shall all families
of the earth be blessed. Throughout Israel's history,
you're going to find, if you read through the Old Testament,
they had a lot of enemies. And they had very few allies.
But back then, the promise pertained to that nation under the old
covenant, and it lasted, it was an everlasting covenant, but
in the Bible, the word everlasting doesn't mean eternally necessarily. It means as long as God has,
keeps them to fulfill his promise. And throughout their history,
God promised to keep them together until the time of Reformation,
as Hebrews 9 calls it, which is the time of Christ, and then
it was over. It was over then, all right? Throughout their history, as
I said, they had a lot of enemies and few allies, but what happened,
those who came against Israel were cursed of God in some way. And those who were friends to
Israel, they were blessed of God, however few there were.
And so that only applies to that nation under the old covenant.
Well, how does that apply to the church today? Well, he's
gonna bless those who bless us. Who's he talking about there?
He's talking about sinners saved by the grace of God who are brought
into the fellowship. And curse those who curse us,
that's talking about those who live and die as enemies of Christ
in his church. And they're cursed. And they'll
be eternally cursed, you see. And that's how that applies to
us. But look at verses four, let me read the last few verses
here. So verse four, so Abram departed as the Lord had spoken
unto him, and Lot went with him, and Abram was 70 and five years
old when he departed out of Haran, or of the Chaldees. And Abram
took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their
substance that they'd gathered, and the souls that they had gotten
in Haran, and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan,
that's the land of promise, And into the land of Canaan they
came. And verse six says, Abram passed through the land unto
the place of Sycam, unto the place of Moriah, and the Canaanite
was then in the land. And the Lord appeared unto Abram
and said unto him, unto thy seed will I give this land, that's
the promise, unconditional promise of God. And there built, Abraham
built an altar unto the Lord who appeared unto him. And he
removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel, pitched
his tent, having Bethel on the west and Haiyan on the east. And there he built an altar unto
the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord." Now, what
did Abraham do? What does all this signify? Well, the Bible says, whosoever shall
call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. What's Abraham
doing? He's calling upon the lamb. Now
that's an act of God-given faith. That's a man who's been born
again by the Spirit. He built an altar to sacrifice.
The sacrifice of animals. And we know that's what he was
doing because later on we're going to see how Abraham took
his son Isaac. Where's the lamb for sacrifice? God will provide himself a lamb.
That's what Abraham's doing here. He's worshiping God through the
blood of the substitute. He's doing like Abel. He's bringing
to God the blood of the lamb because that pictures Christ
of the promise that God had made to Abraham to which he looked
forward to by promise. Abraham was looking forward to
the day that Christ would come. Abraham rejoiced to see my day,
Christ said, and he saw it and he was glad. And he expressed
that gladness, that confidence by building an altar and calling
upon the name of the Lord through that sacrifice. All right.