GENESIS 12-202012 Teaching by Jerry B Simmons

Teaching Transcript: Genesis 12-20

00:00
You are listening to FerventWord, an online Bible study ministry with teachings and tools to help you grow deeper in your relationship with God. The following message was taught by Jerry Simmons in 2012. We left off in Genesis chapter 11 and we're beginning now in chapter 12 and we're slowing down. We started really fast in the first 11 chapters. We were looking at quite a few portions or quite a bit of time.

00:30
And as we are going through the book of Genesis, we got to see all of the beginnings really that are there in those first 11 chapters. The beginning of creation, the beginning of humanity, the first man, the first woman, the first children, the first sin, the first murder, all of these first, the beginning of so much things.

00:50
And that's really what the book of Genesis is about. And as we go forward this evening in chapter 12, we're now looking at the beginning of the Hebrew nation as we slow down to focus on Abraham. The book of Genesis, the word Genesis just simply means beginnings. It was written by Moses,

01:11
The estimated dates are there, 1446 to 1406. That's sometime as they were wandering in the wilderness that Moses was writing down these things and recording them for us. And we're looking at really the first several thousand years of history, the first couple thousand years, and looking at the beginning of the Hebrew nation, as I just mentioned. So we're looking at here on the timeline,

01:36
The portion we covered last week, the time period we covered, is right there on the screen for you. So that big block, we went through all in one week. And for the rest of the book, we're slowing down quite a bit. So we covered just about 2,000 years of history already, and then the last...

01:56
couple hundred years we're going to be covering over the next couple of weeks as we continue to work our way through Genesis. So the first few chapters of Genesis, we're really kind of on fast forward, you know, and we're just zooming through quite a bit of time. But now we've hit play. Now things are kind of slowing down to a little bit normal speed. And now we're just focusing on the life of Abraham. And

02:20
And so we're going to be covering just a couple hundred years this evening. Actually, not even that, like 150 years or so as we continue on in our portion that we've been reading all week long. By the way, if you've fallen behind in the Bible in three years, again, I would encourage you, scratch the chapters you missed. Just start today, read today what God has promised.

02:42
assigned for us. And if you haven't started yet, it's not too late. You can read today what God has assigned for us. There's schedules on the back table and all kinds of resources on the website. So make sure you check that out. Well, this evening we're getting started in Genesis chapter 12. But before we get into that, I want to take you back to Hebrews chapter 11 and read a couple of verses here to kind of set the tone for what we'll be seeing in the life of Abraham this evening.

03:10
In Hebrews chapter 11, we have what's called the Hall of Faith. And there in the Hall of Faith, we have the record of so many men who lived lives of faith, who were examples for us of faith. And one of those examples is Abraham. And we pick up the account of Abraham in verse 8 of Hebrews chapter 11. It says this,

03:32
By faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out of the place which he would receive. I'm sorry, go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith, he dwelt in the land of promise, as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise.

03:55
For he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Verse 11. By faith, Sarah herself believed

04:05
And then verse 12. And then verse 13.

04:28
What we have here in Hebrews chapter 11 is the author of Hebrews recounting for us, looking back at Abraham's life and highlighting some points of faith, some points that he demonstrated faith and giving for us this example of faith.

04:46
Now as we look at this example of faith, we can see and recognize some of the things that we read this week. In verse 8, Abraham was called to go out to the place which he would receive, and we will be looking at that in chapter 12 of Genesis, which we read this week.

05:03
We see in verses 9 and 10 the dwelling in the tent. We read about that a lot this week, didn't we? Abraham moving from place to place and living in a tent and receiving visitors at his tent. And so those things are very familiar to us.

05:17
Then verse 11, we kind of jump forward to what we're going to be reading tomorrow as we see Sarah bearing a child named Isaac. And we're going to be looking at that in chapter 21. And then in chapter 12, we continue to see in Abraham's life as well as we go forward this coming week with the multitude of descendants that come forth from Abraham.

05:44
We have Ishmael and his descendants, which become a great nation. And then we have Isaac and his descendants, which become a great nation. But then we also have those who are of faith, who are descendants of Abraham.

05:57
Paul tells us in Galatians chapter 3 verse 7, he says, So he has biological descendants, but he has much, much more spiritual descendants, those who are of faith.

06:15
And so as we look at Abraham, the author of Hebrews sets him forth as an example and a model of faith. In fact, as you look at chapter 11, it's very positive. There's no mention of Abraham's failures, but as we go through our portion this evening, our chapters that we're covering, we're going to see the mistakes that Abraham made as well as the victories that he achieved.

06:41
And we learn valuable lessons from both examples. We learn valuable lessons as we look at the example of Abraham this evening in Genesis 12-20. We learn about walking by faith versus walking by sight.

06:57
Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5, verse 7, that we walk by faith and not by sight. And so here's Abraham, the model, the picture of faith. And yet as we go back, and you can turn with me now to Genesis chapter 12, now as we begin our journey through this portion of Genesis, we'll get to see those highlights of how he is an example of faith, but we also will get to see those times that he walked by sight.

07:23
And there's some important things for us to consider, some valuable insight for us personally as we look at the subject of walking by faith and not by sight. Now as we talk about this, it's important for you to know, I always define faith as obedience to God at his word. And we will see that in the life of Abraham. To walk by faith is to be obedient to what God has spoken and what God is speaking to your heart.

07:51
To walk by sight, on the other hand, is completely different. That's basing your life, making your decisions on what you see, on what you feel, and on what you think. And so to walk by sight is to live according to what I think is good, what I think is right, what I think makes sense. But to walk by faith is

08:14
is to walk based upon what God thinks is right. What he says, this is what makes sense. This is the way that it is. Walking by sight sometimes is walking when you should be waiting, but it's also sometimes waiting when you should be walking.

08:33
There's times where we need to wait and God wants us to wait and we'll see that in Abraham's life. And then there's times where God wants us to go and we need to go, but instead we're waiting and we'll see that in Abraham's life as well. And so we learn from Abraham the value of walking by faith and not by sight from his successes and failures as we work our way through chapters 12 through 20.

08:59
Well, we pick it up in chapter 12. The key verse of the chapter is verse 2. It says, and I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great and you shall be a blessing.

09:13
Now again, for those who missed last week, every chapter I'll share this one verse. It's maybe a key verse you could call it or a theme verse for the chapter. It kind of capsulizes what this chapter is about. And here in chapter 12, we have this incredible promise to Abraham where God says, I will make you a great nation. He says, I will bless you. I'm going to make your name great and you shall be a blessing.

09:42
And so what we have happening here in chapter 12 is God picking Abraham. Of all the inhabitants of the earth, he picks Abraham now. And he says, I'm going to bless you and you are going to be a blessing to others. And now from Abraham is going to come the nation of Israel. Those who are Jews are descendants of Abraham. And so Abraham,

10:13
The Jewish people, the nation of Israel, the Hebrew nation is Abraham's descendants. And God is making a promise here that's very important that the Messiah as well is going to come from the line of Abraham. We can see this very clearly in verse 3. He says, I will bless those who bless you and I will curse him who curses you and then you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

10:41
How will every person in history be blessed by Abraham? Well, because from him, out of his descendants, from his line, will come the promised Savior that God has already been declaring will come. Now, we know this person is Jesus. It was fulfilled when he was born of the Virgin Mary. He fulfilled the prophecies. He is the Messiah. He is a descendant of Abraham. And from him,

11:10
All the way back to Abraham. Now he is a blessing to all nations. To all peoples. Because the gospel message is for everyone. And so the first three verses here. We have God's promise to Abraham. This is...

11:29
That's something that is essential for us to understand. In order for us to really grasp the rest of the Old Testament and the rest of the New Testament, we need to have a solid grasp and understand that God chose Abraham. And he said, Abraham, I'm going to bless you. And I'm going to make your name great. And from you, you're going to have a great nation.

11:55
It's going to be God's people, his chosen people, the people of Israel. Well, along with this promise of this nation that will descend from him, he also gives a promise of land there in verse 7. It says, And so Abraham is now in the land of Canaan. And God says, I'm going to give your descendants this land.

12:26
Not only am I going to make you a great nation, but I'm going to give you somewhere to live. And it's the land of Canaan, which we know of as Israel today. The land of Israel was given to Abraham and his descendants by God here in Genesis chapter 12. And we'll see that over and over again in our chapters this evening, that God keeps on saying, I'm going to give you this land. And so we'll look at it a little bit more in detail.

12:53
And so already we see some great steps of faith from Abraham as he receives this promise that God will make him a great nation, that he will bless him, that the Messiah will come from him. God also gives him the instruction to get out of his country, to get away from his family and to go down to Canaan, the land that he would show him.

13:14
And Abraham takes the steps of faith. That is, faith is obedience to God at his word. So he takes God at his word. He leaves Haran where he is dwelling and he moves down into the land of Canaan. And so we see Abraham walking by faith as he obeys God, as God gives him the instruction. But we also see here in chapter 12, Abraham walking by sight.

13:48
That's the last part of chapter 12. And so again, we get to see the victories of Abraham, the good examples, but we also get to learn from his mistakes as well. And so in verses 10 through 20, we have the account of Abraham going down to the land of Egypt. And you remember what happened there. In Egypt, Abraham says, this lady right here, she's my sister. And so Pharaoh says, oh, she's your sister, huh? Nice. Nice.

14:19
I think I'll add her to my collection. And so he adds her to his harem. He adds her to his wives and concubines. And she becomes part of that family. Because Abraham was fearful. He said, look, if they know that you're my wife, then they might kill me and then take you for themselves. So I've got a good idea. One where I don't die. Let's just say you're my sister.

14:50
You get taken either way, sorry, but at least I don't have to die. That's kind of the mentality there. And so he says, she's my sister. She gets taken into Pharaoh's household. But God intervenes and doesn't allow really the relationship to happen. He doesn't allow the marriage to take place. And so Pharaoh ends up sending him away. But we see Abraham here walking by sight. He's not being obedient to God. God didn't say, hey, go to Egypt and tell them she's your sister.

15:20
Now Abraham's calculating. He's figuring out. He's thinking, well, if we go to Egypt, they're probably going to like her. So here's my plan. He's walking by sight. He's walking by what he thinks, what he sees, what he decided to do, rather than walking by faith. And so at the beginning, we see him walking by faith. Oh, great example, Abraham. God told you to go and you went. And

15:46
But here we have the account of Egypt where we don't see God telling him to go. On top of that, we know for sure God didn't tell him to go and lie. And this is what Abraham did by relying upon his own resources. He went down and made a mess of things and caused some trouble and made some serious mistakes. Now he's going to make this mistake again. And so we'll be touching on that again as we go forward in our chapters today.

16:14
But it's a good example for us to start off with considering this walking by faith and not by sight. Because there's a great temptation for us to base our lives on what we see and what we think and what we decide. It's a great temptation for us. And we have goals and we have objectives. We have wishes and we have dreams. And we want to accomplish those things. And yet there's a need for us to

16:48
To lay those things aside, to hear from God and be obedient to him, to walk by faith. Now, sometimes walking by faith is difficult. Abraham walks by faith. He goes into Canaan and then all of a sudden there's a famine. And we don't know, the scripture doesn't say, but I can imagine Abraham going, I did what you said, God, and now there's a famine and I'm lacking and I'm hungry and there's not much resources. And now what am I supposed to do?

17:20
And so he figures out, well, here's what I'll do. I'll go to Egypt. I'll say she's my sister. You see, he's got his plan, his scheme all worked out. But he's walking by sight. He's not walking in obedience to the Lord. He's walking based on what he has figured out, what he has determined to do.

17:40
And so that's what we see happening in Genesis chapter 12. The great start, the steps of faith, the walking by faith, and then walking by sight as difficulty comes. As there's a little bit of affliction, a little bit of famine, now he goes down to Egypt and gets caught up in this lie that Sarah is his sister. Well, now we go on into chapter, well, before we get there, Abraham's journey. So Abraham originally is from Ur.

18:10
Ur is there on the right side down in the Shinar region. It's down actually where Babylon is later on. And that's where his family is from. But at some point, his whole family, his father and the rest of the family, they move from Ur and they go up to Haran.

18:28
So there's Ur, here's Haran, they're up in the north. So they basically just followed the Euphrates River all the way up from Ur to Haran. And they lived there for some time. And that's where Abraham was in Genesis chapter 12, where God says, okay, now leave your family, leave Haran and go down to the land of Canaan. And so now he's going to journey south and

18:51
And this whole region here is essentially the land of Canaan. And this is the region where God is sending him. This is the region where God is going to be giving to him and his descendants. And it's a region we'll become very familiar with over the coming months as we look at the things that take place here in the promised land, the land that God gave to Abraham. And so he went from Ur to Haran, then down into the land of Canaan and Israel.

19:19
You see that journey there to Egypt. That's what we're looking at here at the end of chapter 12. Well, in chapter 13, the key verse is verse 12. It says, What we see happening in chapter 13 is now they come back from Egypt, back to the land of Canaan. They're in verses 1 through 5.

19:48
And as they're back in the land of Canaan, there begins to be some problems between the herdsmen of Lot and the herdsmen of Abraham.

19:58
And so they're kind of living in close quarters, but they've got separate possessions, separate flocks. And you can imagine how difficult that would be to have the commingling of flocks and trying to keep it all together and keep it distinct. And so there becomes this situation where there's strife between the herdsmen of Abraham and Lot. And so Abraham makes a deal. He says, all right, Lot, we don't want to keep fighting. So here's what we need to do. Let's split up.

20:26
You go whichever direction you want to go. I'll give you first choice and then I'll go the opposite direction. And so we see there in verses 10 and 11, Lot lifts up his eyes. He looks around. He sees the plain of Jordan and he says, ooh, that's a really nice place. And so he goes into that region and Abraham goes in the opposite direction. Well, as Lot leaves and Abraham goes further,

20:55
back into the land of Canaan, really focuses in that area. God gives Abraham a promise again in verses 14 through 17. He says, Abraham, look around. Everything that you can see, I'm going to give you, and I'm going to give it to your descendants as well. And so we see God again giving the land to Abraham, giving the land to the Jewish people. It's their land. God gave it to them

21:23
And he's going to make that clear as we continue to study the scriptures together. So Abraham and Lot split up because there's this conflict that's happening. And here again, looking at this walking by faith and not by sight, we do see Abraham walking by faith because, well, he knew the promise that God had given to him. And he gives Lot the choice of the land.

21:53
He doesn't say, look, this is my portion. You got to move on, buddy. Go somewhere else. Go find somewhere else to camp. Instead, he says, Lot, take your pick. Wherever you want to go, you go there. And I'll go the opposite direction. We see really great humility here is Abraham. He's wanting to resolve the conflict. And so he does so by humbling himself and just saying,

22:18
Go ahead, take whatever you want. Take the pick of the land that you want and I'll take the leftovers. I'll take the land that you don't pick. Really what Abraham is doing is he's letting God provide the land for him. He's putting it in God's hands. He's saying, look, I'm not going to force this for myself. I'm going to let God provide for me the land that he promised to me. We also see the example of walking by sight here, don't we? Because we have Lot here who lifts up his eyes, right?

22:49
And based upon what he sees, what he perceives, what he plans, his purposes, he looks around, he goes, oh, this is some nice territory. I think I'll go that way. Now, this becomes a real stumbling block for Lot because the place that he picks has some incredibly wicked people.

23:19
And so he picked a place based on what he thought, what it looked like, what he determined was the best. But it brought him in close contact with, in a compromising position with some wicked people that end up really stripping Lot of everything that he has.

23:41
In fact, as we go through this account, you'll see Lot goes from prosperity. Here in Genesis chapter 13 verse 5, look it says, Lot also who went with Abraham had flocks and herds and tents. Lot had so much that there was conflict between Abraham's herdsmen and Lot's herdsmen. There was conflict because they had great possessions. They had an abundance of flocks.

24:10
And so he's tremendously blessed. I mean, he's really prosperous. But it's tragic as you continue to follow the story, the account of Lot. In chapter 14, he goes into captivity. So from prosperity, then to captivity. And then we jump forward to chapter 19 and he loses everything. He loses everything. He escapes Sodom right before the destruction with nothing. With absolutely nothing. Nothing.

24:41
You know, it reminds me of what Jesus said. He said, you have to lose your life in order to find it. But if you try to save your life, if you try to hold on and grasp hold of what you want and what you think is best, he says, you're going to lose it. And see, we see Abraham here just losing it. He says, I'm going to leave it in God's hands. God, you provide the land. Lot, you take whatever you want. I'll trust God to provide for me.

25:08
And we see Lot grasping hold of what he thinks is best, what he wants. And the end result is he loses everything. I mean, he really loses all of his possessions. But then you also see the tragedy that occurs in his family. Some of his family stayed behind in Sodom and Gomorrah and were destroyed. And then the survivors, his two daughters, are...

25:38
We can see clearly are not walking with God and make some major mistakes as we go forward. I won't get too far ahead of myself. But the whole point is you can see Lot walking by sight, making decisions based on what he thinks, what he sees, what he wants, while Abraham is walking by faith and letting God provide the land for him.

25:59
Well, then we move on into chapter 14. In Genesis 14, 14, it says, Now when Abraham heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his 318 trained servants who were born in his own house and went in pursuit as far as Dan. And so here in chapter 14, we have a couple things happening. First off, Sodom and Gomorrah rebel against a local king, a king that's up north there. And...

26:29
They're defeated. Not only are they defeated, but they're raided and many are taken captive and much of their possessions are taken as well. Well, in the midst of that, Lot is taken captive there in verse 12 and 13. And Abraham gets notified. Hey, your nephew Lot, he was taken captive because of this battle. And so Abraham, I just love this picture. He just mounts up with 318 men of his household.

27:02
It's interesting because, you know, I usually picture Abraham with, you know, his wife and maybe a couple servants and Hagar, you know. But we get a sense of how big...

27:14
His camp was if he had 318 trained servants that were born in his own household that were trained to fight. I mean, we don't know how many more he had beyond that, but he's got these 318 servants that he can just mount up and say, let's go. We're going to go get Lot back. He also gets a couple of the neighbors and they go along with him and they go, they overtake Lot.

27:40
The army that took Lot captive, they conquer them, they take him by surprise, they have the victory, and everything is restored. They get all the possessions back, all the people back, including Lot. And so Abraham then goes back from this victory, and the king of Sodom meets up with him, and then we also see Melchizedek there in verses 18 through 20 meet up with Abraham and bless him and bring him bread and wine.

28:11
We have Abraham going, it's roughly a hundred, little over a hundred miles that he traveled in pursuit of this army.

28:25
About 150 miles total that he was pursuing and attacking this army. I mean, this is a serious battle that is taking place. And so we get a sense of the kind of guy that Abraham was. I mean, he was in God's strength, you know, a mighty warrior. He was valiant and probably had some great strategy as well, insight from the Lord and how to do and achieve victory there in that situation.

28:51
This person, Melchizedek, is very interesting. There's lots of things we could discuss. I'm not going to get into it to a great degree, but Melchizedek here, at the very least, is a picture of Jesus. He's a king as well as a priest, which is something that could not be done normally under the Levitical system because the Levites were the priests, and then the

29:17
The kings were from the line of Judah. And so there was totally two different families. And so you could not be a king and a priest. But here Melchizedek is a king and a priest, which also is Jesus. He's a king and a priest. And the author of Hebrews says,

29:33
spends a few chapters, 5, 6, and 7, going into great detail about Melchizedek and Jesus and how Jesus is a high priest in the order of Melchizedek. And so I would encourage you, if you want to check it out later on, Hebrews 5, 6, and 7 will give you some insight into this Melchizedek and how he foreshadows Jesus Christ.

29:55
Some people, many people believe that Melchizedek is actually an appearance of Jesus in the Old Testament. And that is certainly a possibility. One thing I found that was interesting this week as I was reading through is that the Hebrew tradition is that Melchizedek is actually Shem. Remember Noah's son Shem?

30:16
who went through the flood, survived the flood. He dies a little bit after Abraham, actually. And the Jewish tradition is that Melchizedek is actually Shem, and they believe him to be, you know, the earth's oldest living man at that point, because he was alive before the flood and nobody else was. And so he was a high priest, really, from the patriarchs, from Noah and his three sons. So

30:43
It's interesting, I hadn't heard that before, so you can chew on that and spit it out if you want to, however you want to handle it. But again, we walk by faith and not by sight. Here we see the example of faith as Abraham is coming back from his victory and he has all of the goods with him that he recovered from this battle.

31:03
And the king of Sodom says, hey, I'll make a deal with you. Good job, Abraham. You defeated the kings that we couldn't defeat. So you keep all the stuff and then just give us back the people. But Abraham really took a stand and he said, you know what? I don't want anybody to be able to say anything

31:27
That Abraham was blessed because of the king of Sodom. I don't want anybody to be able to say, I'm the reason why Abraham is blessed. Again, he just puts himself in the hands of God. He says, you take all your stuff. It's yours. I don't want it. I want to make sure that God gets the glory for what he does in my life.

31:48
And so again, we see Abraham just believing God, holding fast to God, letting God do in his life what God wants to do as he refuses the goods that he restored and recovered for the nations. Here's a quick map of Lot's rescue. So Hebron down there at the bottom is where Abraham lived. That's kind of where he was generally camped. We see that several times.

32:16
and then it says that he pursues them all the way to Dan, and Dan is far north of Israel. The Sea of Galilee is right there, kind of in the middle. You have the Jordan River, and then down the Dead Sea, down where Hebron is, and so he goes up the Jordan River, past the Sea of Galilee, up to Dan, and then that's where the battle begins, but then it goes on up into just north of Damascus, it says there, and so he is in this battle, and

32:44
And like I said, it's a great deal of territory that he's covering in order to succeed in this battle and succeed in this victory. Well, then we go into chapter 15 and verse 18 is the key verse. It says, On the same day, the Lord made a covenant with Abraham saying, To your descendants, I have given this land from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates.

33:12
And so here, God is once again promising the land to Abraham. We have, first of all, in verses 1 through 5, that God is promising that Abraham will have an heir, that he will have someone born of his blood, one of his descendants, who will carry on his name and carry on the promises that God had given to him.

33:37
And we see a very important verse there in verse 6. It says, and he believed in the Lord and he accounted it to him for righteousness. This is another one of those verses that this is core to understanding the scriptures and understanding really our own faith as Christians today. Because Abraham believed the Lord and God credited his account with righteousness because he believed the Lord.

34:07
Paul goes into great detail in Romans chapter 4 explaining why this is so important. So I would encourage you later on, check that out and understand that believing in the Lord is how God credits our account with righteousness. Our account does not get credited with righteousness for doing good works, for working really hard, for being really disciplined, for being faithful and, you know, reading the Bible every day.

34:33
our account is credited with righteousness by believing in the Lord. It's by faith that we are saved. It's by faith that we are forgiven. It's by faith that we are righteous in God's sight. And so Abraham believed God and it was credited to him for righteousness. Well, then we have God giving Abraham a covenant.

34:57
And the covenant is that he will give the land to Abraham's descendants. And so he's explaining the details about the land that he's giving to Abraham. And he gives this kind of ceremony that Abraham's to do. He's getting the different animals and he's supposed to cut them in half. And we read through this and we go, what in the world is that all about? Why is he cutting up these animals and what is this that's happening? Well,

35:27
Although we don't fully understand it, this is a practice that was common in those times. In fact, even later on, the prophet Jeremiah talks about, in Jeremiah chapter 34 verse 18, he talks about those who made the covenant with the Lord when they cut the calf in two and passed between the parts of it.

35:47
This was something that they would do in order to make a covenant together, to make an agreement, to sign a contract. They would take certain animals, they would cut them in two, they would meet in the middle and agree on the terms of the covenant that they were arranging or negotiating. Well, in this case...

36:09
It's very similar to those covenants. The animals are there. They're cut in two. But Abraham is put into a deep sleep and God passes through the animals on his own, which signifies to us that this was not Abraham and God meeting in the middle and each had their part to do. This is God saying, I'm going to fulfill this covenant. I'm going to accomplish it. I'm going to make it happen. The burden is all on me.

36:37
And so God makes this covenant with Abraham that he is going to give the land to Abraham and his descendants. Verse 16 is another one of those critical and important verses. Look at verse 16. It says, but in the fourth generation they shall return here for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete. And so God tells Abraham, I'm going to give you this land.

37:05
Here's the covenant. Here's the agreement. It's guaranteed. It's going to happen. But there's going to be some time that lapses before I give it to your descendants. And the reason why there's time that has to take place is because the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete. There's people living in the land that God is promising to Abraham. And God says, they're wicked. They're

37:33
But I'm going to be patient. I'm going to continue to call them to repentance for the next 400 years. And after 400 years, when they're still rebellious and fighting against me, then I'm going to bring your descendants into the land. They're going to conquer it and the land will be theirs. That's very, very important for the things that we'll be studying in the coming months. We see, first of all, God's patience and

38:04
As he waits and gives opportunity for them to repent for 400 years. But then later on, we've been having a great time with the discussion, with the questions and answers. It's been really fun. I've been enjoying it. But later on, there's going to be questions. How could God command them to kill every living thing? I don't understand. That doesn't make sense. That seems so cruel and unjustified. But we'll come back to verse 16 here in Genesis 15 and realize that

38:31
It's because the sin is now complete. And God has been patient. He's given them opportunities, but they've refused, they've rebelled, and so now God is bringing judgment upon them through the nation of Israel. So highlight verse 16. Keep that in your thoughts as we go forward. It'll make a lot more sense in the things that we will see later on. Then we move on to... Oh, actually, no. Here's the map of the inhabitants of Canaan.

39:06
So I just said there's people living in Canaan, right? You have the Amalekites, you have the Kenites, you have the Jebusites, you have the Hittites, the Hivites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, and so on and so forth. And God outlines there in verses 18 through 21, these different nations, these different peoples, where they're living, that's the land that God is giving to Abraham and his descendants. These are the people that God's giving an opportunity to repent to and

39:33
but they will not receive it. And so after 400 years, their iniquity will be complete and God's going to overthrow them with the nation of Israel.

39:43
And so this is the land that God is giving to Abraham and his descendants. You see kind of towards the top there, it says the Sea of Chinareth. That's what we know of as the Sea of Galilee. That's just another name for the Sea of Galilee. And then the Jordan River starts actually above the Sea of Galilee, flows into the Sea of Galilee, and then out the bottom end of the Sea of Galilee, down to the Salt Sea, or we know it also as the Dead Sea,

40:11
And there it stops because it's the lowest point on earth. And that's why it's the Dead Sea, because it has no outlet. But here we have just a quick diagram of what this land looked like, where the different peoples were, and the land that God was promising to Abraham. Now he gives them some interesting boundaries in verse 18. He says, to your descendants, I've given this land from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates.

40:40
And so actually the land that God is giving to Abraham is a little bit bigger than what we see here on the screen. And so this is maybe a better picture of what God was giving to them. We've zoomed out a little bit. There you can see the Jordan River and the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea, you know, real small. And the circled area is kind of roughly, it's not exact of course, but just roughly a sense of what God was giving to Abraham. Egypt is there in the bottom left.

41:07
And then the Euphrates River is up there by Haran. That's the river that goes all the way down to Ur. And so it was this whole region that God was promising to Abraham and his descendants. And that's based on Genesis chapter 15, verse 18. All right, well, now we head into chapter 16, verse 3. It says...

41:30
And so here we have a story, an account that I'm sure you're pretty familiar with. Now, Hagar enters the picture. She's been the maidservant of Sarai for some time, but they're not having any kids. And Abraham and Sarai are getting quite old. And they're not having any kids.

42:02
And so here once again we see them walking by sight. They're thinking, God promised us an heir, but I'm old, you're old, I'm barren, how are we going to fix this? Here's my idea. Take my maidservant, Abraham, and you can have a child through her, and that way you'll have an heir, and that way God's promises will be fulfilled. That's walking by sight. When you have to manipulate it, and force it, and do it

42:33
of your own resources and calculations, that's walking by sight. And so Sarai there in verses 1 through 3 gives Hagar to Abraham. It's a mistake. It's not in faith, but it's a work of the flesh. It's a work of their own strength and resources. Well, still the relationship happens and now in verse 4, Hagar becomes pregnant.

42:59
And there's some complications that arise immediately as well as complications that are very, very long lasting as a result of this. But the immediate complications result now with Hagar taking off. She's feeling oppressed, attacked, and so she runs off. And she has an encounter with the angel of the Lord there in verses 7 through 14. And the angel of the Lord encourages her, comforts her, gives her some promises, and sends her back and says, you go submit to Sarah immediately.

43:33
I'll be with you. I'll take care of you. And then we see at the end of the chapter in verse 15 and 16 that Ishmael is born. So Hagar gives birth to a son. His name is Ishmael in obedience to what the angel of the Lord declared to her. We see a really bad example here, but we can learn the lesson from Abraham of walking by sight.

44:03
This is not an act of faith. This is not an obedience to God. This is man's attempt to do what God said that he would do. And there's a great danger of trying to accomplish God's plan in our own ways. It's really important, not just...

44:23
The end result, but the journey there that we are listening to God. You know, God might give you a promise. He might give you some instruction. You might know this is what God wants. But how you get there is very important. And it needs to be by faith and not by sight. Whatsoever is not of faith is sin, the author of Hebrews tells us. Actually, I don't think that's Hebrews. I think that's Romans. Look it up. You'll find it.

44:54
But the Bible says, I like that one, it's more general. The Bible says, whatever is not of faith is sin. And there's a great danger for us to walk by sight. You know, perhaps you know, God wants me to be married. And so there's a real great temptation to walk by sight. Go, ooh, I like that one. Ooh, I like that one. Ooh, I like that one. And you think, well, it's not happening. Nothing's coming together. Well, let me figure out how to fix it on my own.

45:32
Hey listen, you need to hear from God and be obedient to Him and not try to do it on your own. There was complications in Abraham's house right away, but the complications are long lasting and still continue to this day. Because from Ishmael descends the Arab nations. Is there any conflict between Arab nations and Israel? Is there? No.

46:02
Maybe you read about it every once in a while, right? No, it's every day in the news. There's this tremendous tension. There's this tremendous conflict going on. It's going back to Hebrews chapter 16, the work of the flesh. This is what happens when we try to fix things on our own and fulfill God's promises on our own. We just make a mess of things. And so again, we look at Hebrews and we see Abraham as an example of faith. And he is.

46:31
Not to take away from the faith that he had. He believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. But let's also learn from his mistakes. That we don't try to solve problems in our strength. This is one of those times where they should have been waiting for God to do the work. But instead they were walking and saying, we'll figure it out. We'll take care of it. I got this one God. You don't have to worry about it. I figured it out. I know how we can have this work.

47:02
situation resolved. Walk by faith and not by sight. Well, here in Genesis chapter 16, we meet this interesting person called the angel of the Lord. The angel of the Lord is very interesting because this specific phrase, the angel of the Lord, is mentioned throughout the Old Testament. And from the context of these encounters with the angel of the Lord,

47:33
we have some, well, some serious insight about who this person is. And who is it? Well, simply, it is Jesus. The angel of the Lord is Jesus. This phrase occurs about 11 times in the scriptures, and we can tell from the context. Here in Genesis chapter 16, the angel of the Lord is speaking to Hagar, and he says, "'I will multiply your descendants.'"

48:05
The angel of the Lord makes a declaration that only God can make. I will multiply your descendants. And then we also see her response in verse 13 as she says, you are the God who sees. And I have seen the God who sees is what she says. And so she recognizes that she has seen God. Now we know that no one has seen God at any time, but Jesus, the son of God, has revealed the father to us. And so the angel of the Lord is God,

48:36
And the angel of the Lord is the revelation, the manifestation of God to us, which is the person of Jesus. Because Jesus did not start to exist when he was born. He has always existed because he is God. And so here we see him taking this form and

48:53
He's referred to as the angel of the Lord throughout the scriptures. And you can see these other portions as well. We'll hit them as we continue to go forward. In Genesis 22, the angel of the Lord appears to Abraham. A big one is in Exodus chapter 3. As the angel of the Lord appears to Moses there in the burning bush. And it's very clear that it's God speaking to

49:15
With Moses as he says, I am who I am. And then you fast forward into the book of John and you see Jesus say before Abraham was, I am. And you see Jesus making this declaration that he is God. In fact, he is this angel of the Lord who appeared to his people throughout history. Well, now we go into Genesis chapter 17 verse 10.

49:40
It says, this is my covenant which you shall keep between me and you and your descendants after you. Every male child among you shall be circumcised. And so now we have another covenant. We see God making lots of covenants. He likes to make these covenants with his people. Part of this covenant is a change of names. And so Abram is changed to Abraham. Abram means exalted father.

50:10
And Abraham means father of a multitude or father of many nations. And so God changes his name according to the promises he has for him and according to the plans that he has for him. And he says, you're not just an exalted father, even though he only had Ishmael at that point, but now he says you're going to be the father of a multitude. And that's been God's promise to Abraham since Genesis 12, the very beginning.

50:35
Then we also see Sarai's name is changed. The name Sarai is believed to mean contentious. But Sarah means princess. So there's this transformation that takes place for her as well. Where there was this tension, this contentiousness, now she is renamed as a princess. God also gives a sign for this covenant.

51:06
The covenant that God would be their God and they would be his people. And the sign of the covenant is there in verses 10 through 14. And that is circumcision. That every male of the house of Abraham was to be circumcised on the eighth day. And that was to be the perpetual sign that they were God's people and he was their God.

51:25
It was to be the perpetual reminder, the perpetual sign of this covenant that God made with them, that he would bless them, that he would bless the world through them, that they were his people and that he was their God. We also see there in verse 16 that God promises a son through Sarah. Ishmael has already been born through Hagar, but God says, that's not my work. That's not what I'm doing. I'm going to provide you a son through Sarah and through Sarah,

51:55
You will be a father of many nations and you will be blessed. They will be blessed. They will be my people and I will be their God. This is just a little bit of trivia to give you a little bit of perspective on what's happening here. The ages of Sarah and Abraham, as you go through the account, you can put this together. In Genesis chapter 12 verse 4, Abraham and Sarah left Haran. At the time, Abraham was 75 years old and Sarah was 65 years old.

52:31
Now, Abram lived to be 175, so 75 is not as old as it sounds today. I mean, he was, you know, basically halfway through his life. He was middle-aged, and so at that time, he leaves Haran. Then in Genesis chapter 16, verse 16, when Ishmael is born, it tells us that Abram is 86 years old, which means that Sarah would be 76 years old.

52:56
Then in Genesis 17, 1, when God promises the son to Abraham through Sarah, Abraham is at that point 99 years old and Sarah is 89 years old. Now, at this point, they are old. That's their testimony of themselves. They say, hey, we're old. We can't have a child. But God still gives the promise. And

53:16
And in Genesis chapter 21 verse 5, we'll see it tomorrow in the reading, Isaac is born with Abraham being 100 years old and Sarah being 90 years old. Then we have in chapter 23 verse 1, Sarah dies at the age of 127. And then in chapter 25 verse 7, Abraham dies at the age of 175. So if you wanted a little bit of insight as far as how old they were through all these things, there you have it. Genesis chapter 18 verse 22 says,

53:47
Then the men turned away from there and went towards Sodom, but Abraham stood still before the Lord. I'm going to speed up here at the end because we're running out of time, but here in Genesis chapter 18, we have the famous account of Sodom and Gomorrah. We see it beginning really with verses 1 through 8 as three men come to visit Abraham. Two of these men are angels,

54:14
The third person is the Lord. Now it's not referred to as the angel of the Lord, but again, this is an appearance of God in the Old Testament, which means that this is an appearance of Jesus in the Old Testament. Jesus here meets with Abraham. He promises a son within the year, verses 9 through 15, that takes place.

54:37
And then the two angels head on towards Sodom and we'll catch up with that story in the next chapter. But Abraham stays back with the Lord and he begins to intercede for Sodom. God tells him, I'm going to bring destruction. There's great wickedness. And Abraham says, well, are you going to destroy the righteous along with the wicked? What if there's 50 righteous?

55:01
And God says, well, I won't destroy it for 50 righteous. And Abraham kind of works his way down to 10 righteous. What if there's 10 righteous? And God says, I won't destroy it if there's 10 righteous people. But then we find that there was not 10 righteous people.

55:17
They're in Sodom. And so God does bring the destruction upon Sodom, but because of his mercy upon Abraham, he delivers Lot. And we see that here in chapter 19, verse 24 says, Then the Lord rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah from the Lord out of the heavens.

55:36
So these two angels, they leave Abraham's camp. They go down to Sodom. They're out there in the courtyard. Lot sees them and he says, hey guys, come on in. Let me show you some hospitality and put you up for the night. There's some situations that happen because of the wickedness of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. And they want to violate and abuse these two men who've come to Lot. But the angels protect Lot and his family.

56:07
And then they work to get Lot out of Sodom, verses 12 through 22. Lot's very reluctant to go. He tries to get his son-in-laws to go. He goes and talks to his son-in-laws, those who married his daughters, and they just thought he was joking. They didn't believe him. And so it ends up with the angels grabbing Lot and his wife and his two daughters and like forcibly removing them from the city because they're so reluctant, they're so hesitant to leave Sodom.

56:37
Even though this destruction is coming upon the city. And so then we see Sodom and Gomorrah is destroyed in verses 24 and 25. And then verses 30 through 38 record for us how Lot's daughters actually get pregnant and become the Moabite and the Ammonite nation. This is a map of the Dead Sea or the Salt Sea.

57:01
You'll see down there at the bottom, it says Sodom and Gomorrah with a question mark. That's where it's believed that Sodom and Gomorrah was, that general region. And that's where it was destroyed. There's brimstone deposits there and things like that. So you can check that out later on if you want to.

57:19
And Zoar is there down all the way at the bottom. And remember, that's where Lot said, hey, can I just go to that city because it's not that far, I can make it. And so they grant him that. And so Zoar is not destroyed in that place.

57:32
Then we have Moab up there to the north. This is where Lot's daughters become the Moabites or their descendants become the Moabites and the Ammonites. And so that's where those two nations began to inhabit the land later on as they have more children and descendants. And that brings us to chapter 20. Finishing up this evening in chapter 20, verse 2. Now Abraham said...

58:01
of Sarah his wife, she is my sister. Wait, this sounds familiar. And Abimelech, king of Gerar, sent and took Sarah. Here in chapter 20, we see another mistake. As Abraham walks by sight once again, he says, well, I got to figure out some way to save myself. And so let's say that you're my sister and Sarah goes along with it. But God appears to Abimelech. So Sarah gets added to his collection. She becomes part of his harem.

58:32
But before anything happens, God appears to Abimelech there in verses 3 through 7 and says, hey, you better not touch that woman. She's married, and she's married to a great man. She's married to a prophet. And so Abimelech calls his house together, tells him the story. Then he calls Abraham, and he says, dude, what did you do? Why did you lie to me like that? God appeared to me, and he recounts for him what happened.

58:56
And then he also, God instructs Abimelech to ask Abraham to pray for him because God had actually struck his household so that they could not have children. And so there at the end in verse 17 and 18, God heals Abimelech as Abraham prays for him and his family.

59:18
David Guzik had an interesting point on this. He says, unless you are yielded to the Spirit of God, you will repeat in your old age the sinful patterns of your youth. We see Abraham make that mistake earlier on and the problems it brought, but then we see it again later on now in his life. We're capable of making the same mistakes when we walk by sight and not by faith. And so as we look at chapters 12 through 20 this evening, we're going to look at

59:49
I want to encourage you to walk by faith. It's very easy to make your own plans, to make your own decisions, to look around and come up with your own analysis of the situation and try to figure out how to fix it. But sometimes you're walking when you should be waiting. And sometimes you are waiting when you should be walking. We need to get back connected with the Lord and be obedient to Him. And what is faith? Faith is obedience to God at His Word.

60:19
The things that he's declared to you in his word, you need to be obedient to those things. But as you walk with him in relationship with him and he's speaking to your heart, you need to walk by faith. To have God speak to you or to know what his word says and to do something different is to walk by sight. It's to look and say, I know what you say, God, but that doesn't make sense to me. I think my way is better. I'm going to do it my way. And so I'm going to get married this way.

60:48
I'm going to get the job this way. I'm going to pay the rent this way. I'm going to whatever. We figure out our own ways instead of going to the Lord, hearing from Him and being obedient to what He speaks to our heart. And so this evening, I want to encourage you to learn the lesson from Abraham and walk by faith and not by sight. Let's pray.

61:13
Heavenly Father, I pray for all of us here, God, and those who are watching online, those who will listen to this later. God, I pray that you would help us to walk by faith. Lord, help us to recognize because so many times we do it without even thinking. Lord, we're walking by sight. We're coming up with our own plans and decisions and what we think is best and what we were taught and what we've been brought up to understand and do.

61:40
But God, I pray that you would help us to recognize those areas where we're trusting in ourselves, where we're trusting in our plans, where we're working it out the way that we want or the way that we think is best, where we're striving for our goals. Lord, when those things do not line up with what you want and what you have. And God, I pray that you would help us to die to ourselves, to let go of this life.

62:06
that we might save it, that we might find the life that You have for us, that we would surrender to You and Your will and Your plans. Lord, that we would wait when You want us to wait, even when that's difficult and hard, even when we think we can resolve it ourselves immediately. Help us to wait when You want us to wait. And God, help us to walk when You want us to walk, to go forward, to take those steps of faith, to be obedient,

62:35
and to do what you've called us to do. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. We pray you have been blessed by this Bible teaching. The power of God to change a life is found in the daily reading of his word. Visit ferventword.com to find more teachings and Bible study resources.