Christmas in Genesis (Part 5 of 6)

Music Music Most of us remember being a child on Christmas Eve and being too excited to sleep. Well when God made a promise to Abraham that he would one day bless all the nations of the earth through him, faithful Jews for centuries lived with that sense of eager anticipation. Today on Truth for Life, on this night before Christmas, Alistair Begg illustrates the magnitude of the promise that God made to Abraham.

Music I invite you to turn with me to Genesis, the first book in the Bible, and we'll read just one or two brief sections, beginning at chapter 12 and verse 1. Now the LORD said to Abram, Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse.

And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. So Abram went as the LORD had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. And then in chapter 15, after these things, the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, Fear not, Abram, I am your shield, your reward shall be very great. But Abram said, O LORD God, what will you give me?

For I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus. And Abram said, Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir. And behold, the word of the LORD came to him, This man shall not be your heir, your very own son shall be your heir. And he brought him outside and said, Look toward heaven, and number the stars if you are able to number them. Then he said to him, So shall your offspring be.

And he believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness. And then in chapter 17, just a verse or two, again at the beginning, when Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to Abram and said to him, I am God Almighty. Walk before me and be blameless, that I may make my covenant between me and you and may multiply you greatly. Then Abram fell on his face, and God said to him, Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations.

No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham. For I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you.

Amen. We thank God for his Word, and we seek help from him in both understanding it and then living in the light of it. Come down, O Love divine, seek thou this soul of mine, and visit it with thine own ardor glowing. Speak, Lord, we pray, by your Word, by the Holy Spirit, that Jesus may be all the more precious to us. For it's in his name we pray.

Amen. Well, those of you who have been present over these last couple of Sundays know that we set ourselves something of a task. I've questioned myself a couple of times, not least of all this week, about the wisdom in doing what we've done, and that is seeking to discover, as it were, Christmas in Genesis. By that we really mean discovering Jesus in Genesis and the way in which the unfolding pattern of the Bible leads us inevitably to him. We would have been greatly helped in this endeavor if we could have listened in on the instruction that Jesus delivered to his disciples after he had met with them on the Emmaus road. The record of that is in Luke chapter 24. And if you're familiar with that passage, you know that in a very ironic way, those disconsolate disciples, following the death of Jesus, were met up with by an individual who was a stranger, and they were asking this stranger, Are you the only person in Jerusalem that doesn't know what has been going on in Jerusalem? The irony being that they were talking with Jesus himself, who had been the center of everything that was going on. And very graciously and purposefully, Luke tells us how Jesus then gave them a Bible study. And he explained to them, from the Old Testament Scriptures, the way in which all of the lines lead to himself. And over a period of some forty days, if you like, there was a Bible class taught by Jesus, and how wonderful it would have been to have him take us through these pages. And by the time I finish this morning, you say, Yeah, it would have been wonderful if he could have taken us through this morning as well.

But we share that together. We are aware of the fact that when he did that with those followers, their hearts burned within them. So they weren't simply taking notes, as it were.

They weren't simply making discoveries that were intriguing to them. No, the entry of God's Word fired them up. And then, within relatively short order, the Spirit of God filled them up.

And then, as they went out onto the Jerusalem streets, nobody could shut them up. And that is another sermon that I'll leave for another time. Fired up, filled up, and couldn't be shut up—the story of the impact of the gospel in the life of the early apostles. With that said, we began in chapter 3 and in verse 15 to see how there, in what is referred to as the proto-evangelium, the first indication of the gospel, we saw how that verse contains a ray of hope in the context of the darkness that has come about as a result of the rebellion of Adam and Eve. And you may remember, we thought of that in terms of the entry of sin into the world. Last time, we looked at the story of Noah and pondered how the provision of an ark as a place of refuge points us to Jesus as the one who bears the judgment and is the only refuge for our souls. In coming now to the section that begins at chapter 12, we realize that in just the same way as there is a sort of dark background and then the ray of hope, there is the darkness of judgment and then the place of refuge, so chapter 12, with the calling of Abraham, follows on from the darkness of chapter 11. And in chapter 11 we have the story of Babel and of the people saying what is not an unusual thing—we hear it regularly in our day—"Well, I think we can get up to heaven on our own.

Why don't we build a tower that would get us up there? And why don't we see if we can't make a name for ourselves?" And of course, the whole thing comes to a crashing halt.

It is left unfinished. Primeval history just essentially comes to a fruitless climax. And then you turn the page into chapter 12, and you discover that God's plan, as he intervenes, having dispersed these people and having disrupted their circumstances and scattered them throughout the world, God's plan is to take an individual, and instead of that individual seeking to make a name for himself, as in Babel, God will make a name for him. And that was what we read in chapter 12. And God said to Abram, I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great.

By the time you get to chapter 17, he is regarding him as the father of a multitude, because it is there that his name is changed from Abram to Abraham, speaking to the fact that he is the father of these nations. Now, of all of the studies so far, this is probably the most daunting. And I have to ask for your diligence, not now but actually at home, because I've said on each occasion we can only deal with this at a certain level. There will be inevitably many blanks.

Well, the first two studies were nothing compared to this one. I assigned the homework for the balance of the day so that you can go out, as the church in Berea did, and examine the Scriptures to see if these things are so. The melodic line that runs from this point on is essentially this, that in you, Abraham, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. In other words, the seed of Abraham is going to bring the blessing that has been lost as a result of the fall, the flood, and the scattering. So, sin has entered into the world. God has come in judgment in the flood. There's a brand-new beginning as they come out of the ark and as they're encouraged, once again, to go forth and multiply the same exhortation that had been given to Adam and Eve in the garden. And then, within short order, things begin to turn in upon themselves, and so here we have man drawing attention to himself, and man being scattered. It is God who has scattered them. It is God who has discombobulated their language. And one day that is going to come, when all of that is reunited, and the picture of the confusion of Babel is more than compensated for on the day of Pentecost, when this dramatic incident happens and people can hear the story of the gospel in their own tongue—God coming to reverse that which he had put in motion all those years before.

And so it is that men and women today are scattered throughout the world. You've come in here today. I don't know where you've come from. I don't really know where you're going to. But I hope you know where you've come from, and I hope you know where you're going.

Not just small picture. I don't mean, I hope you know where you're going for lunch. I mean, I hope you know where you're going for all of eternity. I hope you know where you've come from. And I don't mean where you were born in Ohio. I mean, do you know that you were personally created by the living God who fashioned you in an intricate way in your mother's womb? Do you know that he made you so that you might know him, love him, and trust him? Do you know these things?

Or are you just like the person who says, Well, you know what? It's Christmas. You've got to go somewhere. And they've got the spire back up, so let's just go and check them out.

Well, that'll be okay. I was thinking about all the wanderers. It struck me as I was reading. It happens to me all the time, but just in my mind I came on the line. I had a brother way back home, and he started out to roam.

And last I heard, he was out by Frisco Bay. And sometimes when I'm feeling blue, his old voice comes ringing through, and I'm going out to meet him one fine day, but I just can't help but wonder where I'm bound. I can't help but wonder where I'm bound.

I just don't know where I'm going. Now, the reverse of that is God, instead of seeing our life scattered, is the wonder of the gathering—that he is gathering together a people, a multitude, that involves different colors, different backgrounds, different intelligence ratios, and so on. And God, the Bible tells us, is invested in putting this together. And it's a wonderful picture, especially if you feel alone. Some of us feel alone. Even in a crowd, we feel alone. Loneliness isn't just being by yourself.

Loneliness is knowing what it is to be alone, even when everybody else is around, and getting out and going into your car and saying, I don't really know where I am or what I am or where I'm going. Well, here's the story of the Bible, and it's grounded in Abraham. God is gathering together a vast company.

You know, Fanny Crosby, who wrote a lot of hymns in her day, has a wonderful hymn. And I was thinking about it again as I was driving here this morning. I was thinking about gathering, and then I thought about the movie The Gathering, part of which was shot in Chagrin Falls, and the disruption in family and the man who was dying and how he figured it's Christmas time, and maybe we could get everything put back together again. Maybe we could gather. Well, the wonderful story of the Bible is that that's what God's doing. He's gathering people. He's laying his hand on an individual here, and a strange person there, and a girl there, and a young boy here, and a university student over there. And he says, Come on, I'm putting together this people. And so it is that one day it'll be one unbelievable gathering. When the blessed who sleep in Jesus at his bidding shall arise, from the silence of the grave and from the sea, and with bodies all celestial, we shall meet him in the skies, what a gathering of the ransomed that will be.

What a gathering! Abraham's children. You heard our reading in John 8.

They said, Why are you saying these things, Jesus? Don't you realize that we are the children of Abraham? Jesus says, No, if you were the children of Abraham, you would do what Abraham did. But as it is, externally you are in the framework.

But in reality, you're not there at all. Now, the promise of God to Abraham is that in his seed all the families of the earth will be blessed. Will be blessed. Every so often people say, Well, I bless you. Or sometimes when you sneeze, they say blessings and so on.

It's very nice. But what does it mean here that they will be blessed? It's not a reference to sort of a general sense of well-being, a sort of cozy feeling.

No. What is being proclaimed here is that through the seed of Abraham, from whose seed will come the Lord Jesus, the promise is of knowing God, is of having our sins forgiven, is essentially the reality of salvation. Because, you see, what is it that Abraham believed when it says—did we read it there in chapter 15?

Yes, in verse 6. And he believed the Lord, and God counted it to him as righteousness. What did he believe? Well, he believed the promise. What was the promise? The promise was that he would become the father of many nations. How was that going to start?

With a child. Let me tell you what he believed. He believed the gospel.

That's what he believed. If you doubt that, you need to do what we said earlier, and that is go to the back of the Bible where you'll find many of the answers. And in Galatians chapter 3, Paul actually expounds Genesis chapter 15 and verse 6.

And this is what he says. Just as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness, know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the Scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles—that is, the people who did not have the promises of God and all of this by way of background—that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, notice here's the phrase, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, In you shall all the nations be blessed. So then those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham the man of faith. So what do you have, really, in Abraham is that he's a bit like the people that Peter mentions in his first letter, where he says that the folks that wrote these prophetic passages, they were like men standing on tiptoes, and they were looking, trying to see what it was that God was going to do. He actually includes the angels in that, and he says that if you imagine the angels, they're sort of looking down from the parapet of heaven, longing somehow or another to understand what the answer to this question is. And it is, of course, in the gospel. Your father Abraham, says Jesus to the Jews, rejoiced that he would see my day, and he saw it and was glad.

And people say, Well, how could he see your day? Well, he saw it in the fulfillment of the promise in the gift of Isaac. Now, what we're trying to say here is that here we are in Genesis. Is it shooting us forward into the Christmas experience? You say, Well, I can see you're trying your very best to make that point, but keep going.

You haven't quite got me there. Well, for example, when you come to the birth narratives, someone will probably read the record of Simeon, this wonderful fellow Simeon. And what will we read? Well, we'll read that Simeon was waiting for the consolation of Israel. You say, Well, didn't we sing about that?

Yeah! We sang about it this morning. Israel's strength and consolation, joy of all the earth, thou art, visit us with thy salvation, enter every trembling heart. That's what we sang. Now, we may not have understood what we sang, and we may not even have meant what we sang. But that's what we sang.

So we're actually singing Simeon's song. Now, all this and more besides is there, which you're going to discover in your homework. It is a significant plan. It is a picture of God's plan from all of eternity.

It is the story of God's—the eternal counsel of God's will, as Paul writes of it in Ephesians chapter 1. This, you see, is the answer to Stephen Hawking's question at the end of his book on time. And at the end of that, I mentioned it in one of the concerts, Hawking says, in going into those black holes, in going into physics and gravity and things that I don't even understand, he says that what we're really trying to do is see if we can find a unifying pattern that will explain the observable realities of the universe. And he says, and if we can come up with that, then it will be the greatest discovery for rational man. And we will, he says, know the mind of God, despite the fact that he doesn't believe in God.

But how else is he going to explain this? So what I'm saying to you is that although this idea of Christmas in Genesis may seem far out and gone from you, think only this, then—that in this promise, God is assembling a great company. He is calling out individuals by name in the same way that was happening 4,000 years ago and 2,000 years ago and is happening now.

You're listening to Alistair Begg in a series called Christmas in the Beginning. This is Truth for Life. As Alistair mentioned, we're discovering Jesus in the book of Genesis, recognizing how the entire Bible points to him from the very beginning. At Truth for Life, we believe the Bible is like no other book. It is the very Word of God, and it has the power to change hearts and lives. We often hear Alistair invite us to open our Bible, and that's because our mission here at Truth for Life is singular and straightforward—to teach the Bible. We want to clearly read and explain the text, just as God has given it to us, without adding anything to it or taking away from it, so that those who listen can come to trust its truth, rely on its promises, and be transformed by its power. Now, if you're a parent, we hope you recognize the immense spiritual value of reading the Bible together with your children and praying with them every day.

There's really no substitute for gathering as a family together to worship. But it is not easy to know where to begin. For most of us, it can be challenging to have a plan that is in place that we are able to stick to. So with 2020 coming to a close, we've selected what we believe is an easy-to-use, year-long devotional plan that is designed to help you and your family spend a few minutes every day in God's Word throughout 2021. The title of the book is Exploring the Bible Together.

One of the reasons we love this book is because it lays out for us a program that is easy to manage. Each day, you read about five verses, and by the time you get to the end of the year, your family will have read verses from Genesis all the way to Revelation. There's an entry for six days each week. Each entry includes a couple of discussion questions, a key spiritual lesson from the text we've read, and there's a closing prayer. If, as a parent, you've found yourself struggling to have a time of daily family worship, Exploring the Bible Together is a perfect resource. It's also a great book if you're a grandparent and you want to share time in God's Word with your grandchildren. If you're a youth leader or a Sunday school teacher, we think you'll find this is a helpful book as well. Our offices are closed today so that our staff can be home to celebrate Christmas Eve with their family, but you can request your copy of Exploring the Bible Together when you make a donation online at truthforlife.org slash donate or by tapping the book on the mobile app. I'm Bob Lapine. On behalf of Alistair and all of the staff here at Truth for Life, we want to wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.