Genesis 22:15-23:20 - Part A

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That's connectwithskip.com. Now let's get started with today's message from Pastor Skip Heitzig. Now I want to just clear something up, because toward the end of our study last week, we talked about the place where Abraham almost sacrificed his son Isaac. It was one of the mountains God said he would show him, which was Mount Moriah. Mount Moriah, back then, in Abraham's time, was simply a hill that rose up as part of the landscape. There was nothing much around it except a little township called Salem, eventually called Jebus, eventually called Jerusalem.

But it was the peak of a mountain. As years went on, a temple was built on that mountain. It was the temple of Solomon. Later on, the temple of Nehemiah, rebuilding the temple of Solomon. Later on, it was enlarged by Herod, and in the New Testament, a temple was there as well, but much larger. If you were to look at the mountain through history, you would have to picture toward the base of the hill, that's where the city began, Jebus.

Salem and then Jebus. When David occupied that territory, and eventually Solomon built the temple, he built it up on the slope of the hill. As the city extended outward on upward on the hill, the temple was built not on the top, but on the slope of the hill.

Follow me? The top is still here, the city's down here, somewhere up in the slope, that little town or that temple was built by Solomon. It was destroyed by the Babylonians.

It was rebuilt under Ezra and Nehemiah. When Herod the Great got into town, he wanted to make an extravagant place, so he built a retaining wall on part of that slope, filled it in, and made it flat. 35-acre platform, 35-acre flat platform called the Temple Mount. If you go to Jerusalem today and you stand on the Mount of Olives, you can look at it. The Temple Mount, that flat platform from the days of Herod the Great, is still there, to make it clear that it's still there today. But that temple platform, and where the temple stood on Mount Moriah, is not the top of Mount Moriah.

The top of Mount Moriah is still further to the north. On the outside of the city walls, it rises, it peaks, and then it goes back down. Where the temple is not the top, where Golgotha was, is the top. Golgotha is the place Jesus was crucified.

You follow me? Now in Abraham's day, again, there were no temples, there were no buildings. It was just rolling hills and topography. When God said, take your son and sacrifice him on the mountain, the top of Mount Moriah would naturally be the place he would have taken Isaac. So we have a picture of Abraham sacrificing his son, or almost, whom God calls his only begotten son. He was dead in Abraham's mind and heart for three days, until the angel stopped the knife from being plunged in. It would have been on the top of Mount Moriah, and when Jesus was sacrificed by his father, it was in the same spot where Abraham almost sacrificed his only begotten son. So I wanted to clear that up because I did have a few questions last week about where the temple stood, was that the top or not, and it was not.

So I hope that clears it up. Now we're going to pick up in verse 15 and finish verse, down to verse 24 and then into chapter 23. Now I have a question for you as we begin. Do you want fellowship with God? How many would raise their hand and say, I want it, I really want fellowship with God.

Okay, now I raise my hand as well, but I wonder if we understand what we're saying we want. Because the idea of fellowship is to share like experiences with another person. Abraham in chapter 22 enters in to the deepest form of fellowship with God that I believe is possible. Now listen to what Paul says in the New Testament, then I'll get back to this. Paul the apostle in Philippians says, that I might know him, that I might know him. I want to know God. That's what we raised our hand just a minute ago and said, I want to know God, I want to fellowship with God. Now listen to what he says, that I might know him and the power of his resurrection. We're going, yeah, yeah, I want some of that.

I want to fellowship with that too. I want power in my life. That I might know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering being made conformable even unto his death. Okay, now we're going, ah, now wait, wait a minute.

First part I like, not too sure about part two. Resurrection power, I want that. Fellowship with God and resurrected power, want that.

Want power in my life. But what about the fellowship of suffering? You see, for a moment in time, Abraham and God were in the same club.

They both knew what it was like to sacrifice their son. They were on the same page, in the same club in the same activity, in deep sorrowful fellowship with one another. That's the deepest form of fellowship.

I bring that up to offer this possibility. What about seeing your times of trial, your times of suffering, your times of heartache as an opportunity to meet God in a way you could not meet him any other way. I'm going to fellowship with God in this deep dark valley that I'm going to be in the deep dark valley, this horrible, awesome moment, this terrible time of sacrifice and loss. How about that I might know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering being made conformable even to his death. We're in a period of loss in Abraham's life. In chapter 22, the offering of his son, he didn't go through with it, but sometime he was willing to do so and in his own mind his son was dead for three days before that resurrection, so to speak, of hope when the angel stayed his hand and he didn't plunge that knife into his son's heart. And as I mentioned last week, all of heaven must have stopped in amazement to look on earth and see how a man could love God.

But thousands of years later, on the very same piece of real estate, all of heaven marveled to see the demonstration of how God could love mankind in offering his only begotten son on a cross. Now in verse 15, it says the angel of the Lord called out of heaven to Abraham a second time and he said, by myself I have sworn, says the Lord, that I have been born, says the Lord, because you have done this thing, you have not withheld your son, your only son, blessing I will bless you and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies. Your descendants, Abraham, in other words, will one day occupy the land of their enemies, the Canaanites. They're going to occupy it. It's going to become the promised land, not the land of Canaan.

It'll become Israel. In your seed, verse 18, in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed because you have obeyed my voice. Verse 18 is the very first occurrence of the word obey in the Bible.

And I told you that I tell you whenever we have the rule of first mention, here's the first time obeyed is noted. Here is God from heaven noticing and rewarding Abraham, not for how he felt, not for how he thought, but for what he did. He's obeying God.

It's a huge, huge thing. It's the evidence of faith. True faith will be faith that obeys. It's obedient faith because you obeyed. It's not that you thought you would obey.

It's not that you just had pleasant feelings about me, but you did what I said. All of Abraham's life required obedience. Now, he believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness, but that faith that he had was shown by obedience.

For example, God had said to Abraham, leave your hometown, Ur of the Chaldees. Did he do it? Yep.

You say, well, he didn't go all the way. He went to Haran. Yeah, but when God finally said, leave Haran and go to that land of Canaan, did he do it? Yes. When God told him to wait by faith upon the promised son, did he do it?

Yep. And when God told him to sacrifice his son on Mount Moriah, did he do it? Well, he went to do it and he obeyed and he would have done it, but God again stayed his hand. God noticed his obedience. It's the long obedience in the same direction. Now I draw your attention to the phrase, your seed in verse 18.

Very, very important. Here's what I want you to know. In the Bible, there's four ways the term seed is fulfilled. There's four different definitions of Abraham's seed. You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before we get back to Skip's teaching, in his book, Is God Real?, Lee Strobel, author of the New York Times bestselling book, The Case for Christ, provides a rational exploration of the proof of God's existence and the basis of our eternal hope. Writing to skeptics and believers alike, Strobel turns his critical mind and expert interviewing skills to perennial questions like, how do we know which God is real? And if God is real, why does he seem so hidden? Is God Real?, along with two messages preached by Lee Strobel at Calvary Church, are our thanks for your gift of at least $50 today to help share biblical teaching with more people around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig.

Go to connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888 and request your resources when you give at least $50 today to reach people around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig. Let's continue with today's teaching with Pastor Skip. Number one, his natural seed, his natural descendants, physical descendants of Abraham, i.e. the Jewish people. That's the seed of Abraham. Number two, natural-spiritual seed. These are believers in Christ who are Jewish people, Romans chapter 9, 10, and 11, as opposed to those who believe not, the seed of Abraham. Number three usage of the term seed, the spiritual non-physical descendants of Abraham, that is anybody who by faith believes in Christ and is justified by faith like Abraham was, non-Jewish but Gentile, that would be me and most of you, your spiritual descendants of Abraham. Romans 9 mentions that, Galatians chapter 3 mentions that, and here's the fourth application, the ultimate seed who is Jesus Christ. All of those are used in various applicational forms in the Bible, physical or natural, natural-spiritual, very spiritual, and number four, the ultimate seed who is Christ. I'll just give you that reading Galatians. In Galatians, and you don't have to turn to it, you can write it down if you want because it'll be done by the time I get to it. Galatians 3, 16, now to Abraham and his seed where the promise is made, he does not say and to seeds as of many, or plural, but as of one, and to your seed who is Christ. Now all of the world was to be blessed through Abraham's seed, and that means physical descendants of Abraham, spiritual descendants of Abraham, as well as the ultimate seed, Christ.

All of the above are true. Think what we would be missing if the Jewish people were not around, if there were no Jewish people. Well, number one, we'd be missing our Bible. I couldn't say turn in your Bibles tonight because we would have no Bibles to turn to. We would have no Ten Commandments. That was part of the covenant God gave to them. The Ten Commandments, very important to us.

It's the basis of our jurisprudence system in most western civilized nations. Number three, we would have no Savior. He came through the lineage of the Jewish nation, and without a Jewish Jesus, we would have no Christianity, no salvation. He's the ultimate seed. And so that promise really is of the gospel. In your seed, all the nations of the earth will be blessed because you have obeyed my voice. So Abraham returned to his young men, and they rose and went together to Beersheba, and Abraham dwelt at Beersheba. Question, why does verse 19 say Abraham returned to his young men? How come Isaac didn't return? Remember what Abraham said to them back in chapter, well we're in chapter 22, last week. He said, the lad and I will go up yonder in worship and we will return to you.

So why doesn't the text say they both returned? Just Abraham returned. I don't quite know, but it is interesting that though obviously Isaac returned as well because he wasn't sacrificed, there is no mention of Isaac from the time of this almost sacrifice until we see him in a couple chapters when he reappears with his bride, his Gentile bride. There's an absence, and then he appears again as he meets his bride, as he comes again with his bride, and with his bride we see them. It's just something to note, maybe it means something, maybe it doesn't, maybe it's one of those little fingerprints of the Holy Spirit because obviously the sacrifice on Mount Moriah is indicative of the sacrifice of Christ on the same place. And it's just interesting that he is not seen here but will be seen again when he appears with his Gentile bride.

Again, that could just be a wonderful little touch by the Holy Spirit. It came to pass after these things it was told Abraham saying, indeed, Milcah has also borne children to your brother Nahor. Now there's a list of names, 12 sons that Nahor had. Now get these names, Hus, his firstborn, Buzz, his brother. So the first two boys, Hus and Buzz, boy if they were around today wouldn't they get ridiculed.

Kemuel, the father of Aram, Chesed, Hazo, Pildash, Gidlath, and Bethuel. How many of you, and do you know anybody who's having kids soon? Are any of you here gonna have children soon? Are ya?

Congratulations. Does any of those names appeal to you? You raise your hand.

You're looking for biblical names? You're thinking, forget it, right? Good move. I dare you, try this one. Pildash, I'm just kidding. Now it says Bethuel. Now look at verse 23, Bethuel begot Rebekah. These eight, Milcah bore to Nahor, Abraham's brother, his concubine whose name was Reumah, also Bortiba, Gaham, Thahash, and Ma'akah. There's another one, Ma'akah.

Now why is this little information given to us? Because the narrative is gonna show, because the promised seed is Isaac, and Isaac in a couple chapters is gonna get married, and now we have a hint of Bethuel, who's gonna have a child named Rebekah, and Rebekah will have a brother named Laban, and all of these characters are very important in the next few patriarchs, Isaac and Jacob. Now we get to chapter 23, and it's an obituary, chapter 23. It's the death of a princess. Sarah dies in this chapter. Sarah, originally her name was Sarai, which meant contentious. God renamed her, thankfully, to princess. Sarah means that. She's 127 years old when she dies.

Okay, you're thinking, it's about time that she dies. When you get to 127, okay, that's like old. I got an email today from a friend overseas. I don't know how true it is, but they're trying to corroborate a family from the country of Georgia, these ex-Soviet states, that there's a woman, I saw her picture even, that she's gonna be 130 years old, they say, on July 8th. And so they're trying to contend with Guinness Book of World Records, because the record holder is 114 year old woman from Japan, and they're saying, look, we have the documentation. She's gonna be 130 years old July 8th. And you know what, I don't know when the picture was taken, but she didn't look that bad.

I mean, for 130. If you're just breathing air, you're looking pretty good, but this lady didn't look too bad. So it says Sarah lived 127 years. These were the years of the life of Sarah. It's the death of a princess.

Abraham's princess. Some of you, most of you, will remember back to September 6, 1997, when the people's princess, she was called, died. Princess Diana, the most photographed woman in the world, died in a car crash. When she died, it was such a huge deal, a million people showed up in person lining the streets of that death march as that flowery casket drove in that glass hearse to her burial place. 2.5 billion other people, billion, watched it by television.

It was a huge deal. The people's princess. But here we have Sarah. Now, she's a big deal, and here's why. As the wife of Abraham, she's the mother of the Jewish nation.

There's no other woman in the Bible where her age is mentioned, her death and her burial and burial place is mentioned besides Sarah. And it's because of who she is. She occupies such a huge place in the Bible. In fact, women are told to emulate her. She's an example to women. Now, I find that interesting. Here's something you might find interesting. Nowhere in the Bible is Mary, the mother of Jesus, ever given as an example for people to follow.

Did you know that? She's never held up as a supreme example. But Sarah, twice in the Bible, is. Once is Isaiah chapter 51, where the children of Israel are told to look back over their own history, remember where they've come from, and Abraham and Sarah are listed in that. The other is 1 Peter chapter 3, where the outward woman isn't to be emphasized, but the inward woman is to be emphasized, and Sarah is given as a beautiful example once again, an example to be followed. Now, here's what I love about the language of the death of Sarah in chapter 23.

Follow me. Number one, the language is straightforward language. It talks about death very openly and plainly. You know why? Because death is a fact of life.

That's why. And the lesson for us in the straightforward language of chapter 23 is we should learn in preparation for our own death or the death of people in our family is to learn to talk about it openly. In many families, it's not discussed. Don't talk about it. I don't want to talk about it. Well, if you don't talk about it, then you're not going to deal with it until that person dies. Then you have to deal with it.

Better to talk about it and get the right attitude about it first. So it's straightforward language. Second thing I want you to notice as we work our way through chapter 23, it's personal. Sarah is mentioned by name. She's not called the dearly departed or Abraham's loved one, but she's personalized.

Again, I think that's huge. Number three, Sarah is not given into the hands of specialists who handle the body and handle the funeral, but she's in the loving hands of her husband, Abraham, who seeks to bury his wife. I'll tell you, one of the things I'm grateful for, I lost my father and my mother and my brother, is the ability at my mother's death to be next to her and not have her at the hospital, but be next to her in that last week of her death and to take care of her and to watch her leave earth and go into heaven. That was wonderful.

Painful, but wonderful. Holy ground, I feel. And so, Sarah lived 127 years. These were the years of the life of Sarah.

So Sarah died in Kiriath Arba, that is Hebron, in the land of Canaan, and Abraham came to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her. Thanks for listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. We hope you've been encouraged in your walk with Christ by today's program. Before we let you go, we want to remind you about this month's resources that will help you confidently respond to questions and challenges to God's existence.

It's Lee Strobel's book, Is God Real?, and two messages he preached on the topic at Calvary Church. Request your resources when you give $50 or more to support Connect with Skip Heitzig. Call 800-922-1888. That's 800-922-1888 or visit connectwithskip.com slash donate. And did you know that you can get a weekly devotional and other resources from Pastor Skip sent right to your email inbox? Simply visit connectwithskip.com and sign up for emails from Skip. Come back next time for more verse-by-verse teaching of God's Word here on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.