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That's connectwithskip.com. Now, let's get started with today's message from Pastor Skip Heitzig. And then it says in verse 3, Abraham stood up from before his dead and spoke to the sons of Heth, saying, I am a foreigner and a visitor among you. Give me property for a burial place among you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight. And the sons of Heth answered Abraham and said to him, Hear us, my lord, you're a mighty prince among us.
Okay, something to note here. Back in those days, if you were in a country, you moved from your hometown like Abraham did, Ur of the Chaldees, and he's in Cana, it would be typical if your loved one died to want to take them back home to where you came from and bury them in the land of their origin, the land of their family, the land where they were born. The fact that Abraham does not want to do that indicates that he is believing the promise of God that that land they're in is the land of promise, not only for Abraham and Sarah, but for his descendants as God promised that land to be. It's an indication that this is his new home. He's willing to take some property here and bury somebody in it.
So he has a stake in it indicating that he is believing the promises of God, not taking his wife back home. Now when it says that he, verse three, it's a beautiful phrase, stood up from before his dead. I read a commentator that said this indicates a change, a new corner that he's turning in his grieving process.
It indicates, says this commentator, a squaring of the shoulders, a lifting of the eyes, a firming of the step, and a desire to move on now. There's a time to mourn, in other words, and there's a time to move on. Now the Hebrews mourn for 30 days, 30 days. You know, we mourn, we have a funeral day and we might mourn for a few days, but they had, I mean, service, services of mourning that lasted for 30 days.
The Egyptians, 70 days. I mean, they really got into it. And they demonstrated their sorrow. They would rip their clothes, throw dirt in the air. And even in later Hebrew times, like the New Testament, they would hire professional mourners. So when you could just sort of get tired of wailing, they would be paid to stand outside your house and go, oh! And just so people passing by would know what had happened.
I know it sounds goofy, but they wanted the emotions to be let out and freely expressed. So he now stood up from before his dead. He's going to do something.
He's going to be proactive. And I think this is, again, very healthy. There's a thing called, well, I'll just say what we usually say in slang, good grief. My mom used to say that. Good grief!
Do you know what I found? Grief is good. It's good to grieve. But prolonged grief is not good. When my brother died, I watched my mom for years never get over it. Never get over it. Until finally we had an aunt in the family who took my mom and just took her in the room, closed the door and said, you're going to have to move on.
And just got her to talk it through and not, well, she just didn't deal with it very well. And my brother said the same thing to us after he died. It was a period of mourning and a week of reminiscing. And then my brother got us all together and said, okay, it's great that we share these things. It's important that we grieve. But there comes a time now where we're going to have, we have to move on with our lives.
And he was right. So Abraham does something. He selects a burial plot for his wife, puts her in the ground. In chapter 24, he gets a bride for his wife, Isaac. And in chapter 25, he gets remarried.
Now you go, well, now wait a minute. How old is he? Yeah, it's interesting because here he's like 137 years old. And he's thinking of number two.
But he dies at 175 years of age. So he's got some time. He's not thinking about that yet. But as the time wears on, he will think about it.
He will move on. It indicates a healthy way of dealing with it. Now I want you to notice something else in verse four.
And I do notice the time as well. He says, I am a foreigner and a visitor among you. Now of course he means that I've been living in tents. I don't own any real estate. I know this is the land God has promised me.
But I don't even have a single acre yet. But we know something else. That in Abraham's own mind and heart, he is thinking spiritually.
I'm a foreigner. I'm just a pilgrim here. Because Hebrews 11 makes a big deal out of this. Saying Abraham, chapter 11, verse 10 or 12, I can't remember which verse, says that Abraham waited for a city that has foundations whose builder and maker was God. So he's moving toward eternity.
And that's the city he's really going to put his roots down in. God has promised the land for his descendants. But he himself is moving toward heaven. So it's good language. I'm a foreigner and a visitor among you. By the way, this is why Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 4 as he talks about Jesus coming back and he says, I write this to you lest you sorrow like those who have no hope.
Do you remember that little text? The reason we sorrow and he sorrows here, but we sorrow differently, it's a hopeful sorrow, is because if our loved ones know Jesus Christ, then the moment they die, we know exactly where they are. And we rejoice for them. And so his wife has died. She's 127. Now she's with the Lord. It's coronation day. He's a foreigner. He's a pilgrim among them. The sons of Heth answered Abraham and said to him, Hear us, my Lord. You're a mighty prince among us.
Now watch, this is a very long account of a real estate transaction. And he says, Bury your dead in the choicest of our burial places. We'll give you a grave. None of us will withhold from you his burial place that you may bury your dead.
And Abraham stood up and bowed himself to the people of the land, the sons of Heth. And he spoke with them, saying, If it is your wish that I bury my dead out of my sight, hear me and meet with Ephron, the son of Zohar, for me, that he may give me the cave of Machpelah, which he has, which is at the end of his field. Let him give it to me at full price as property for the burial among you. So they're saying, Look, just bury her.
You can have the place for the grave. And he goes, No, I want to buy some land. Now, why does he want to buy land? It's indicating that he believes God's promise that this land that he's just been a tent dweller in, now he's going to buy some acreage because he believes this is the land that God wants us to live in, die in, get buried in, and our family will possess eventually as according to the promise of God.
Now Ephron dwelt among the sons of Heth, and Ephron the Hittite answered Abraham in the presence of the sons of Heth, all who entered at the gate of his city, saying, No, my lord, hear me. I give you the field and the cave that is in it. I give it to you in the presence of the sons of my people. I give it to you. Bury your dead. Then Abraham bowed himself down before the people of the land, and he spoke to Ephron in the hearing of the people of the land, saying, If you will give it, please hear me. I will give you money for the field. Take it from me, and I will bury my dead there. And Ephron answered Abraham, saying to him, My lord, listen to me. The land is worth four hundred shekels of silver. What is that between you and me? So bury your dead.
And Abraham listened to Ephron, and Abraham weighed out the silver, four hundred shekels is a hundred pounds of silver, for Ephron, which he had named in the hearing of the sons of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver, currency of the merchants. Okay. To our ears, this sounds like a polite conversation. What you should know is this is a typical ancient Middle Eastern transaction where they try to out-courtesy each other, but the owner of this land has no intention of giving it to him. So he says, Bury your dead. No, I want to pay for it.
Well, you know, what is that to us? It's worth four hundred. Now four hundred shekels, you go, wow, he's getting a bargain.
No, he's not. This is a huge price, and every commentator, every ancient historian will say four hundred shekels is huge, because David will later on, much later on, for one eighth that price, buy the entire threshing floor of Arana, 2 Samuel chapter 24, to build the temple that his son will build. He'll buy it for fifty shekels. That whole huge top of Mount Moriah for fifty shekels, one eighth this price.
Four hundred shekels was exorbitant. So when he says, look, I'll just give it to you, the ancient Hittite tradition was to offer it, but then to expect some kind of gift or several gifts, especially since Abraham was wealthy, for the land. So it's not like he's just trying to give it away.
He's expecting, you know, something in return. So he announces this exorbitant price, four hundred shekels, probably thinking Abraham is, I'll give you two hundred or I'll give you a hundred. You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before we get back to Skip's teaching, it's more important than ever for Christians to stand for truth in our broken culture. And in the God Speaks Biblical Answers for Today's Issues collection of booklets from Skip Heitzig, you'll get equipped to speak God's timeless truth into the big issues of our time. God Speaks Biblical Answers for Today's Issues is our thanks for your gift of at least fifty dollars 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 fifty dollars or more today to help reach people around the world with the good news of Jesus through Connect with Skip Heitzig. Let's continue with today's teaching with Pastor Skip. Now, I just got to give you a little bit of insight.
Things haven't changed much. If you go to Israel today and you walk through the streets of Jerusalem, you're going to walk into some of the shops, heads up to those of you who are going on our tour, and if they announce a price to you, do not say, oh, okay. Now, they're looking for naive Americans to do exactly that, but nobody does that. They all start at a price and then they allow themselves to be worked down.
They put a huge margin up there and then you work your way down. So you walk into the shop and you say, they'll say, well, tell you what, this will be twenty shekels. Twenty shekels, that's like ridiculous. I'll give you four. Four shekels, sir, you insult me.
But I like you. And because I like you, eighteen shekels. Eighteen shekels, oh, come on, that's a ripoff. I'll give you eight shekels. Eight shekels, why would you do this to me?
Do you not like me? And they'll just lay it on. But tell you what, because you're my first customer.
I'll give you a special price, the first customer price. And they have got all sorts of language, so be careful. Don't go in there, oh, that sounds like a great deal.
I couldn't get one of these back home. Yeah, there's a reason for it. So it's like that, a little bit in reverse, where they seem to be very courteous to each other but they're really not. And so Ephraim answered Abraham, verse 14, My Lord, listen to me. The land is worth four hundred shekels of silver.
What is that between you and me? Bury your dead. Abraham, listen. And he paid the full amount. So the field of Ephraim, verse 17, which was in Machpelah, which is before Mamre, is the field and the cave which was in it. And all the trees that were in the field which were within all of the surrounding borders were deeded to Abraham as a possession in the presence of the sons of Heth before all who went in at the gate of the city.
Something else that would maybe help us understand a little bit more. According to Hittite law in those days, it was frowned upon to sell any of your land to a foreigner. Abraham was considered a foreigner. He had settled in the land but he was moving around in a semi-Bedouin kind of an environment. He was from Ur, not from this land, not from the Canaanite region.
He's considered a foreigner. They did not want to sell it to him but he basically saying, I'm not going anywhere, I'm going to stay here. And because it was his wife, they were willing to sell it. But according to Hittite law once again, if you owned land, let's say you own this section of land, and you were to sell a smaller portion of that one section, you had the deed to the entire section. If you were to parcel out a smaller portion of that deeded property to somebody else, as the original owner, you have to pay the taxes on the full amount.
If you can unload the whole property, then they have to assume the tax responsibility. So if that gives you a little bit of insight into what this Hittite is thinking when he says 400 shekels, yeah, if I can get that price, I'm doing really good, and plus you're going to pay the taxes on it. So it's called the Cave of Machpelah. Now today, if you go to Hebron, you can see where Abraham is buried. It's one of the places that we know is authentic because it dates all the way back and it was carefully preserved even 2,000 years ago when Herod the Great built the temple in Jerusalem. If you go to Hebron, there's a Herodian wall built by Herod the Great to preserve the Cave of Machpelah. In fact, it's probably in the land of Israel the best preserved Herodian architecture in existence. I've been there. It's wonderful to see. It's under Muslim occupation now, but there was a time when we could bring our tour groups there.
It's unsafe. We won't be able to this time, but when you go up to it, there's a little peephole and you can look down into a lighted tunnel and see the entrance at the end of the field of the Cave of Machpelah where Sarah was buried. And then verse 19, after this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the Cave of the Field of Machpelah before Mamre, that is Hebron, in the land of Canaan. And so the field and the cave that is in it were deeded to Abraham by the sons of Heth as property for a burial place. Now by the time we get to the end of Genesis, this cave is going to be full.
Sarah is put in it now. Later on Abraham will be buried in it. Isaac will be buried in it. Rebecca will be buried in it. Jacob will be buried in it. And Leah will be buried in it by the end of the book of Genesis. So he's buying it as a family plot and many of his family members to come will be buried there. Now Rachel, I didn't mention her because she's not buried in it. She's buried at a special tomb just outside of Bethlehem which is visible even to this day. But she's not buried in it but it'll be full by the end of Genesis.
And so as we already ended it, didn't we? So the field and the cave that is in it were deeded to Abraham by the sons of Heth as property for a burial place. Okay, I want to give you a few quick take-home lessons on this whole thing of burial and death. Number one, learn to get comfortable with the idea of death because that's where you're going. You're marching down that road. Now I'm hoping Jesus will come back before then but he hasn't come back yet.
And barring that eventuality, we're all going to die. I know that just from history. Isn't that right? Everybody so far kicks the proverbial bucket.
One out of one is the going rate. There are some exceptions. Lazarus was raised but he had to die still and some were taken up into heaven. But the general population is just appointed under man wants to die.
You're going to keep that appointment. Billy Graham was at a university years ago and the students said, what is the one thing, Dr. Graham, that surprised you most about life? He was quick to answer, it's brevity.
It's a very short time we have on this earth. So in your own families with your own children, would you learn to discuss death and life and get the proper attitude toward it? Learn to broach the subject. Even when people say don't want to talk about it. Well, you're going to have to deal with it.
So it's best to get comfortable with it. Number two, get your house in order. Abraham did. He got this burial plot and for the eventuality of not just his wife but his own death and the death of his children. Do you have a will or do you have a trust or living trust? Do you have insurance? Have you thought about those kind of issues?
I know a lot of Christians, ah, don't worry about that. Well, somebody else in your place like your children will have to worry about it. So I recommend that you get your house in order. Number three, I recommend that you clear strained relationships. Nothing complicates death more than strained relationships. Before entering the ministry, I worked in the medical field and I stood in a lot of emergency rooms as loved ones died and then relatives would come in and they would completely break down because of the last word that was said to that person and the inability now to reconcile. It's over.
I wanted to say this to them but I said something very foul instead. Clear up those relationships. Number four, get a good network of friendships around you now.
If you're the type of individual who's a loner and you're isolated, when somebody you know or love dies and you're isolated, not good. But if you can now develop a good strong network of believing friends, brothers and sisters, hold you accountable, give you strength, give you encouragement, that's your fallback. And you know what?
We all need that fallback. Fifth and finally, the most important, get prepared spiritually. Get prepared spiritually. Are you ready to meet your maker? Are you ready to stand before a holy righteous God come the day of judgment? Are you spiritually prepared? I remember as a kid I used to say, if I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.
Did you pray that too? What if that actually happens? What if you die before you wake?
Are you ready for that? Now I used to read this illustration in commentaries and different illustration books until I finally was given a photograph of a tombstone taken back on the East Coast. And I have a photograph of it. On somebody's tombstone it reads, pause stranger as you pass me by. As you are now, so once was I. As I am now, so you will be. So prepare for death and follow me. Very profound to put on a tombstone, is it not?
Pause stranger as you pass me by. As you are now, so once was I. As I am now, so you will be. So prepare for death and follow me. We're all going there. Well, that's the photograph that I have. I hear that somebody in going by this cemetery saw that sign and wrote on a makeshift sign and put it next to this tombstone these words, to follow you I'm not content until I know which way you went.
Now that's even better. Okay so he's saying prepare for death and follow me. Okay so where did you end up? I don't want to follow you unless you went to heaven. Because if you went to the other place I don't want to go there.
To follow you I'm not content until I know which way you went. Because appointed unto every man wants to die and after this the judgment. That's an appointment we're all going to keep.
Moses in Psalm 90 said, teach us to number our days that we might have a heart of wisdom. So that's where we're all going. Are you spiritually prepared? Are you sure that if you were to die tonight that you would be in God's presence, acquitted of all of your sins, in right relationship with him, enjoying heaven forever?
Well you know what? If you're not sure then you better make sure tonight. Because we don't know how long we're going to live. Well I plan to live to 127. I don't.
And I might go tonight, tomorrow, this week. We never know. So it behooves us to act while we can with what we do know. To be spiritually prepared. And to receive the only solution for our failures, our shortcomings, what the Bible calls our sins.
By receiving the finished work of Jesus Christ upon the cross that assures us of resurrected life in glory. Are you sure you have that? If not, be sure. Thanks for listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. We hope you've been strengthened in your walk with Jesus by today's program. Before we let you go, we want to remind you about this month's resources that will help you confidently speak God's timeless truth into our culture.
Pastor Skip's God Speaks biblical answers for today's issues collection of booklets is our thanks for your support of Connect with Skip Heitzig today. Request your copy when you give $50 or more. 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.
