Genesis chapter 22 and verse
15. And the angel of the Lord called
unto Abraham out of heaven the second time, and said, By myself
have I sworn, saith the Lord. For because thou hast done this
thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, that
in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply
thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which
is upon the seashore, and thy seed shall possess the gate of
his enemies. And in thy seed shall all the
nations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my voice. So Abraham returned unto his
young men, and they rose up and went together to Beersheba, and
Abraham dwelt at Beersheba. And it came to pass after these
things, that it was told Abraham, saying, Behold, Melchiah, she
hath also born children unto thy brother Nahor. Huz, his firstborn,
and Buz, his brother, and Kemuel, the father of Aram, and Chesed,
and Hazo, and Pildash, and Jidlaf, and Bethuel. And Bethuel begat
Rebekah. These eight Milcah did bear to
Nahor, Abraham's brother. and his concubine, whose name
was Rumah, she bear also Tebah and Gaham and Thadhash and Mahchan. Amen. May God bless to us this
reading from his word. And so particularly I want to
speak to some of the younger people who are listening in at
the moment and to remind you that we value your company, we
value your presence and we trust that the Lord will bless you
also as you come and share his worship with us today. It appears
from what we've been reading in this passage in Genesis chapter
22 that what is said to Abraham this second time when the angel
of the Lord speaks out of heaven is actually spoken by the Lord
Jesus Christ himself. And it is worth remembering that
when the Bible speaks of the angel of the Lord, It is speaking
of one who is a messenger of the Lord. And there is no reason
why that messenger should not be the Lord Jesus Christ himself,
the God-man. For while we think of Jehovah
as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the three persons of the Godhead,
yet it is the God-man who speaks, it is the God-man who is, as
it were, the Word, the living Word. That is why at the beginning
of John's Gospel we read, in the beginning was the Word, and
the Word was with God, and the Word was God. So here it seems
to be the God-man who is speaking when the angel of the Lord speaks
a second time to Abraham. And it is also worth remembering
that when the Lord speaks, it's because he has got something
to say. And when he speaks a second time,
it is because he has something to say that it will be good for
us to listen to. And so let us be men and women,
boys and girls, let us be those who have a desire to hear what
the angel of the Lord, what the Lord Jesus Christ has to say
to us. In verse 16, we see that the
angel of the Lord declares, by myself have I sworn. And that is a very powerful affirmation. It is a very powerful confirmation
of God's purpose. It's as if he is saying, I am
swearing an oath. I am declaring that this is absolutely
true. And indeed, the Word of God notices
this because in the New Testament, we're reading today, of course,
in the book of Genesis, which is the very first book in the
Bible, but in the book of Hebrews, which is towards the end of the
New Testament, we discover there that this little verse is referenced
by the writer to the Hebrews, it may have been the Apostle
Paul, but it is referenced in chapter 6, verse 13. And we're
told there that, for when God made promise to Abraham, because
he could swear by no greater, he swear by himself. So what
we're seeing here is God is swearing by himself. He is saying that
I promise to you by all the attributes that I have, by my very person
myself, that what I have declared to you will most certainly take
place. So this was a comfort and encouragement
to Abraham that God was swearing with such powerful affirmation
that he would do for him all the things that he had said he
would do. It's a renewal with this supreme
assurance for Abraham's faith. And I wanted just to make a little
point here because some people, teachers, some preachers in some
churches speak about free will. And they say that free will means
that men and women are free in their will to either accept or
reject the Lord Jesus Christ as their saviour or believe in
him or not believe in him and it's all got to do with the individual's
choice and it's all got to do with the individual's will and
we call that teaching free will. And it is opposed and it contradicts
the teaching of the Bible which teaches us that God chooses and
God ordains and God directs those who will come to him in faith
for salvation. But it's verses like these that,
if not explicitly, then certainly implicitly show how wrong free
will teaching is. Because here God is promising
to Abraham, and he is saying, I am promising you by all that
I am. that you will be the father of
both natural and spiritual children. In multitudes, he swears by his
own honour and attributes that Abraham will be father to a spiritual
multitude. Now, if God is swearing that
this will be the case, how can it be up to men's individual
free will that that is going to happen? Is God, God? Spiritual life is God's gift. It is not for men to will it
for themselves but it is God's gift and what God was promising
to Abraham is that he would give his life, he would give his spiritual
life, he would give his gift of salvation to a whole multitude
of whom Abraham would be father in the faith, that he would be
their father in the faith. And that's what we see in verse
18. It's a reference to the Lord
Jesus Christ, the seed that would come from Abraham, and that he
would be a blessing to all nations of the world. So that all the
nations of the world, not just the Jews, not just the children
of Israel, in the natural line of Abraham, But all the nations
of the world would be blessed by the coming of the Lord Jesus
Christ into the world, by the preaching of the gospel of the
Lord Jesus Christ, by the giving of God's grace to his people
and in the saving of their souls. You know, the Bible tells us
that someday soon, when the church is in heaven, we are as believers
in the Lord Jesus Christ, going to sing a new song. And the words of that new song
are these, Thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God by thy
blood out of every kindred every tongue, every people, every nation. So that the Lord Jesus Christ's
people are from every family, every language, every nation,
every people. This is the promised spiritual
people that were given to Abraham. And Abraham's faith and trust
in God was honoured by God. Faith is a gift which God gives,
but God honours that faith as it is exercised in the lives
of his people. Abraham was faithful to God's
calling. May the Lord give us faith and
may we be faithful to that calling, to the salvation of our souls. Abraham and Isaac returned home
to Beersheba. We're not actually told that
Isaac made that journey, but it's pretty obvious that he did
because we afterwards hear of him back there in Beersheba. They collected the young men
on their way. And in the final verses of this
chapter, we are told about Abraham's brother's children. his wife
and concubines. A concubine was a sort of servant
wife. She wasn't a full wife kind of
half-wife maybe, but these were often servants who bore children
to their masters and it was an acceptable, at least to a degree,
activity in those early days of the world, no doubt for the
multiplying of people in the world. But here we discover something
about the family and genealogy of Abraham's brother. And really,
it's only given to us, I think, for one principal reason. It is designed to introduce us
to Rebecca. a very beautiful young woman
who soon would become Isaac's wife. So Isaac was Abraham's
son. Isaac was the one who had been
given back to Abraham as it were from the dead because Abraham
found the ram in the thicket and the ram was sacrificed and
Abraham went back to his father and now Isaac went back to his
father. Now Isaac is growing up and soon
he is to take a wife and this wife will be Rebecca. Let me just say something about
that to you and then we'll be finished at this stage of our
service. Sometimes, and not only when
we're young, but especially when we're young, we wonder and we
worry about what the future holds for us. Who will we marry? Where will we meet them? Where
will we live? What will we do? And the world
can seem a very scary place with lots of uncertainty. These verses
remind us that God is in control of all things. And when we believe
him, he will reward our trust by providing for all our needs. Isaac had never met Rebekah,
but God was preparing Rebekah, unbeknown to Isaac, to become
Isaac's wife. One day, Rebekah would become
the mother of Jacob and Esau. And one day, many years to come,
from that line would come David, who would be king, would come
Solomon, and ultimately would come Jesus Christ himself, and
that great nation that had been promised to Abraham. You see
how God's plans were working out? God's plan in action? Let us not be fearful and let
us not worry when we trust in the Lord. He has our lives in
the palm of his hands. He has our lives under control. There's two verses from Proverbs
that I want to finish with. Verse 5 of chapter 3 and verse
25 of chapter 29. And this is what they say when
I put them together. Trust in the Lord with all thine
heart and lean not unto thine own understanding. Whosoever
putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe. May the Lord enable
us to trust him and keep us safe. Amen.