Alright! Well, good morning everybody. Happy New year to you! Let’s take our Bibles if we could and open them to the book of Genesis chapter 15 and verse 17 (Gen 15:17). We’ll see if we can finish the chapter today, but I can’t guarantee that of course. The title of our message this morning is “The Ultimate Real Estate Deal Part II” and as you know, we’re continuing on in our verse by verse study through the book of Genesis, having completed the first part of the book, the beginning of the human race featuring:
GENESIS STRUCTURE
Creation, fall, flood, national dispersion and all the way through that section, a prophecy, a promise, has been articulated and traced of a coming redeemer, Genesis, 3, verse 15 (Gen 3:15) who will come into the world and crush the serpent’s head and then we moved in to chapters 12 through 50 where we began to ask ourselves what special nation is God going to use to bring this redeemer to the world? And that section focuses on four people, Abraham, then Isaac, then Jacob and then Joseph, because God is creating a special nation (Isa 43:1). A nation that will mediate the promises of Genesis, 3, verse 15 (Gen 3:15), the messiah to planet earth and so that’s why so foundational to Bible understanding is God’s dealings with the man that got chose through which to begin this nation, a man named Abram, later to become Abraham; and so we have been focusing recently concerning the life of this man named Abraham and we now enter or have been studying for a little while now, couple of weeks, a chapter that if you didn’t have it in your Bible, the Bible would really make no sense.
Genesis, 12‒14 – Abram’s Early Journeys
It’s a foundational chapter, it’s a fundamental chapter and it has to do with a covenant, not that Abraham made with God but a covenant that God made with Abraham, called the Abrahamic Covenant and all God in the rest of the Bible is doing is fulfilling what He said He would do in Genesis, 15. 3:35
Genesis 15:1‒21 – Abrahamic Covenant
The chapter, you might recall, starts off with the seed promise clarified. Abram earlier in the book was already promised that he would have multiple seed or children. What he didn’t understand is that this multiple seed or children, one of which would be Jesus, down the road, was not coming through an heir in his household but was coming through his own body, and that clarification has been given in verses 1 through 6 (Gen 15:1-6) and given the advanced aged of Abram and Sarai at this particular point, we learn that God is going to have to do a miracle to pull this off, but that’s not troubling when you understand that God is a God of miracles;
Genesis 15:1‒21 – Abrahamic Covenant
and then you move down to verses 7 through 21 (Gen 15:7-21) and now we have focus not so much on the seed promise but on the land promise, where Abram it’s been reiterated to him that he’s going to, in time, be the owner, if you will, or the manager, the steward of something that God is going to give him, a tract of real estate in the Middle East called the land of Israel and so that begins to be focused on in verses 7 through 21 (Gen 15:7-21). In fact, God makes the promise, verse 8 (Gen 15:8) and Abram just asks an honest question. God makes the promise verse 7 (Gen 15:7), Abram asks an honest question verse 8 (Gen 15:8): How do I know that I’m going to possess this track of real estate? And so at this point in Biblical history, God condescends to the level of the human race and enters into what we would call today a contract with this man Abram; and He goes through the covenant ritual that is always used to enter into binding agreements in the time of Abram and it involves the preparation of the animal pieces aligned in two parallel rows. We’ve discussed the significance of that but we’ll get back to it today, verses 9 through 11 (Gen 15:9-11) and then you move into verses 12 through 16 (Gen 15:12-16) where God now makes a short term prediction. Here’s a prediction that’s going to be fulfilled in the next four hundred years God says, because the people that receive this book would want to know: Are these promises true? And so God makes a prediction of a four hundred year sojourn in the land of Egypt and the nation of Israel would come out of Egyptian bondage with many possessions and that prediction is made in verses 12 through 16 (Gen 15:12-16) and so Moses, the author who was writing this book for the benefit of the Joshua generation, who was about to enter Canaan, Moses and the Joshua generation would see in this, oh my goodness this really did happen. God means what He says and He says what He means and therefore we can trust the rest of what is being given here, in what is called the Abrahamic Covenant; and now today we move into verses 17 through 21 (Gen 15:17-21) where there’s an actual entrance into the covenant by God Himself through God going through or respecting the covenant ritual ceremony and so, let’s pick this up at verse 17 where we see three things from verse 17 through the end of the chapter:
Covenant Ratification Ritual – Genesis 15:17-21
(1) A ceremony, verse 17 (Gen 15:17); (2) A covenant is entered into, first part of verse 18 (Gen 15:18); and all of this answers Abram’s question: How do I know I’m going to inherit the land one day? Now you have the specifics of the land given, end of verse 18 and into verse 21 (Gen 15:18-21). 8:09
Let’s pick it up there in verse 17 (Gen 15:17) where we learn about this covenant ritual ceremony: It came about that when the sun had set, that it was very dark, behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a flaming torch which passed through these pieces… Today when you enter into a contract with somebody, you know, it’s a matter of putting your signature on a piece of paper, but in Abram’s day, when you entered into a covenant with somebody, essentially what happened is animals were severed, so this is a very bloody type of ritual and these animal carcasses were organized, severed animal parts were organized in two parallel rows and essentially what the parties did, is they pass through, each party to the covenant, the animal pieces and essentially when they passed through the animal pieces what they were saying is: I am as good as dead, like these animals are dead, if I don’t fulfill exactly what I promise to do in the covenant or in the contract… and that is a process that is happening right before our eyes where God Himself is entering into this covenant but there’s a catch here. The catch is back in verse 12. Look at verse 12 (Gen 15:12), it says: Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, terror and great darkness fell upon him… Abram is sound asleep. God puts Abram asleep and God alone, God by Himself as represented by the oven and the torch, passes through these animal parts. Normally, it was both parties that passed through the animal parts. God says, no, it’s not going to work that way this time. I will put you to sleep where you’re unable, Abram, to pass through the animal pieces and I alone will pass through these animal pieces. 10:35
Arnold Fruchtenbaum says concerning verse 12:
Dr. Arnold G. Fruchtenbaum – The Book of Genesis, 280
“The Hebrew word for deep sleep is tardeimah; it was a supernatural deep sleep that fell upon Abram. It was the same deep sleep that fell upon Adam (Gen. 2:21) in preparation for the creation of Eve. It also fell upon Saul (I Sam. 26:12 and Dan. 8:18; 10:9). It is also mentioned in Job 4:13 and 33:15.”
The Hebrew word for deep sleep is tardeimah… I think It’s how you pronounce that… it was a supernatural deep sleep that fell on Abram. It was the same deep sleep that fell upon Adam (Gen. 2:21) in preparation for the creation of Eve. It also fell upon Saul and it’s also mentioned a couple of times in the book of Job… And God alone passes through these animal pieces and you might think, well, this is kind of a strange way to enter into a covenant or a contract. Over in the book of Jeremiah chapter 34, verses 18 and 19 (Jer 34:18-19) you’ll see this same ritual being used between people. Jeremiah, 34, verses 18 and 19 (Jer 34:18-19) says: I will give the men who have transgressed My covenant, who have fulfilled the words of the covenant which they made before Me, when they cut the calf in two and passed between its parts – the officials of Judah and the officials of Jerusalem, the court officers and the priests and all the people of the land passed between the parts of the calf… So it seems like a sort of strange practice and yet this is how covenants were entered into. It’s just that this time it’s different. God intentionally puts Abram to sleep and God alone passes through these animal parts. If you’re looking for a fancy name for this, it’s called a Covenant of Malediction… Malediction, where God is saying, if I don’t do exactly what I promised to do in this covenant concerning the seed promises and the land promises, then God Himself is saying then let me be torn asunder, let me be destroyed if I don’t fulfill exactly what I promise to do; and this then becomes the logic or the basis for our belief that the Abrahamic Covenant which we’re reading about right here is unconditional. 13:07
There’s a big difference between a conditional promise and an unconditional promise. A conditional promise is, if you do X, I’ll do Y. This is not conditional at all, this is unconditional and it’s obvious that it is unconditional because of this covenant ratification ceremony which Abram himself did not participate in because God had put him to sleep. In other words, the total responsibility for fulfilling everything in this covenant language, seed promises, land promises, does not rest on Abram’s shoulders. It rests completely and solely 100% on the shoulders of God. If that were not true, then Abram himself, along with the oven and the torch, would have passed through the animal parts which obviously is not what’s happening here. You’ll find in Genesis 15 absolutely no evidence of any condition that Abram must fulfill for God to make good on his promise. God Himself is going to execute in time and history, everything that He said, regardless of what Abram does, an unconditional promise. This is why when you move through the book of Genesis, you’ll see that this covenant is called “eternal”. It’s called “eternal” three times in Genesis, 17, and that’s why as you move into other sections of scripture, the covenant is called immutable, meaning unchangeable, because it does not rest on fickle man and his emotional highs and lows and what he does one day versus what he does the next.
Evidence of Abrahamic Covenant’s Unconditional Nature
Abram is about ready to move into sin, believe it or not, in the next chapter and yet the covenant keeps getting reaffirmed. Why does it keep getting reaffirmed despite the sin of Abram? Because the covenant is unconditional and as it’s passed from Abraham to Isaac to Jacob… all of those patriarchs, although part of God’s people wandered into sin, horrific sin, and yet the covenant keeps getting reaffirmed, over and over again. Why? Because God has bound Himself, in Genesis, 15 (Gen 15), into this unconditional Abrahamic Covenant. 15:54
Arnold Fruchtenbaum in his Genesis commentary writes:
Dr. Arnold G. Fruchtenbaum – The Book of Genesis, 283-84
“The normal procedure was for both persons making the covenant to walk between the pieces of the animal, rendering the terms of the covenant obligatory to both parties. This procedure also rendered the covenant conditional: If one party broke the terms and forfeited his life, it would exempt the other party from keeping his part of the covenant. Since the covenant was between God and Abram, it was normal here that God passed between these pieces. The previous abnormality was the fact that in place of one animal, there were five. Now there was a second differentiation.”
“It was not God and Abram that walked between these pieces of the animals, but it was God alone Who passed between the pieces of the animals, which rendered the covenant unconditional. Abram’s lack of participation emphasizes the unconditionality of this particular covenant. So Abram did not become an active participant in the signing and sealing of the covenant as such; he was only the recipient of the covenant and the covenantal promises. It meant that no matter how often Abram failed (and he will fail in the next chapter), and no matter how often his seed, the Jewish people fail, the Abrahamic Covenant cannot be rendered null and void.”
The normal procedure was for both persons making the covenant to walk between the pieces of the animal, rendering the terms of the covenant obligatory to both parties. This procedure also rendered the covenant conditional: If one party broke the terms and forfeited his life, it would exempt the other party from keeping his part of the covenant. Since the covenant was between God and Abram, it was normal here that God passed through the animal pieces. The previous abnormality was the fact that in place of one animal, there were five, but there was a second differentiation. It was not God and Abram that walked between the pieces of the animals, but it was God alone Who passed between the pieces of the animals, which rendered the covenant unconditional. Abram’s lack of participation… it’s a bit hard, is it not for Abram to participate when he’s sound asleep?… Abram’s lack of participation emphasizes the unconditionality of this particular covenant. So Abram did not become an active participant in the signing and sealing of the covenant as such; he was only the recipient of the covenant and the covenantal promises. It meant that no matter how often Abram failed (and he will fail in the next chapter), and no matter how often his seed, the Jewish people fail, the Abrahamic Covenant cannot be rendered null and void… This is one of the most solemn things in the Bible that’s probably ever happened. It’s God binding Himself unconditionally to these promises and so, what you see there in verse 17 (Gen 15:17) is the ceremony is executed and as the ceremony is executed what comes out of this is a very important word called the “covenant”. 18:23
Covenant Ratification Ritual – Genesis 15:17-21
Let’s move down to verse 18 (Gen 15:18) if we could: On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, To your descendants I have given this land, From the river of Egypt as far as the great river Euphrates… and you want to underline in your Bible, if you’re an underliner, the word “covenant”. It’s a translation of the Hebrew word “beriyth” and Abram at this point is not just the recipient of promises. Everything he has received from God up to this point in time are promises from God which from where I stand would be enough because God cannot what? He cannot lie. But what you have to understand is that what Abram has just received from God through this ritual that we have been reading about is not just promises but a covenant. The closest 21st century analogy that I could think of is a contract. Abram got a contract from God and it wasn’t the type of contract where God says, Okay, do X and Y and I’ll do Z. God just says, I’m going to do Z, regardless of whether you do X and Y and this is the second time in the book of Genesis that we have seen this word “covenant”. The word “covenant”, particularly a covenant from God is a big, B-I-G (in caps), a hundred exclamation points after it, is a BIG deal. 20:12
You might remember back in Genesis chapter 6 and verse 18 (Gen 6:18), there was another covenant announced, the covenant called the Noahic Covenant. Genesis, 6, verse 18 (Gen 6:18) God said to Noah: I will establish My covenant with you… that’s the first time we’ve ever seen the word “covenant” in the book of Genesis; and then in Genesis chapter 9, verse 9 and verse 11 (Gen 9:9,11) You’ll see the repetition of the word covenant. We’ve already had a covenant. That particular covenant was God’s covenant with Noah. What we’re seeing developing here is something totally new, it’s God’s covenant with Abram, sometimes called the Abrahamic covenant and you need to learn the distinction between the Noahic Covenant and the Abrahamic Covenant.
I have on the screen here also the Mosaic Covenant. We will not worry about that for now cause that comes later, but notice the differences between the covenant with Noah and the covenant with Abram. First of all, they have different names. Noah’s covenant is called the Noahic Covenant, Abram’s covenant is called the Abrahamic Covenant. They have different human agents. Noah is the primary human agent in early Genesis 6 through 9 but Abram is the primary agent or instrument here in Genesis, 15. They’re described in two different sections in the Bible. If you want to read about the Noahic Covenant, you would read Genesis 8 through 9. If you want to read about the Abrahamic Covenant you would read Genesis 12 through 17. You’ll notice that the word “covenant”, “beriyth” is used in both sections. You’ll see the word “covenant” in Genesis, 9, verse 9 (Gen 9:9) and you’ll see it again in Genesis, 15, verse 18 (Gen 15:18). The party in the Noahic Covenant was the whole world. God obligated Himself to do something for the entire human race and one of those promises in the Noahic Covenant was never to flood the earth again. So that was a covenant that was made essentially with the entire world. Not so the Abrahamic Covenant. The Abrahamic Covenant is a covenant made with a particular nation, not every nation on the face of the earth, but the nation of Israel. The Noahic Covenant was entered into before Israel ever existed. The Abrahamic Covenant on the other hand is a covenant that was entered into after God began to get the nation of Israel off the ground and now He’s entered into a special covenant with them. Both covenants, Noahic and Abrahamic are unconditional but the promises are very different. In the Noahic covenant it was promised no more flood. The earth is going to remain and God created the institution of human government and gave the government the power to execute murderers. We’ve studied all of that, Genesis, 9. The Abrahamic Covenant though, is very different. It’s ownership of the Hebrew people over three things that will be developing later, land, seed and blessing. The sign of the Noahic Covenant was the rainbow. The sign of the Abrahamic Covenant, Genesis, 17, will be circumcision. The purposes between the covenants, and this maybe the most important thing to understand, are totally different. The purpose of the Noahic Covenant is to restrain evil and preserve the human race in spite of the effects of sin, not so the Abrahamic Covenant. It’s not designed to restrain evil and preserve the human race, it is a redemptive covenant. God’s philosophy of redemption is being executed through the Abrahamic Covenant. The Noahic Covenant is binding today, the Abrahamic Covenant is not binding exactly the same way today as is the Noahic Covenant, because the Abrahamic Covenant was made with a particular nation, the nation of Israel. 25:10
One of the very important things to understand is the nation of Israel is the only nation that has ever existed in the history of mankind that has a covenant from God. In fact, you can go into ancient Near East studies and look at all of the nations that existed early on, some of them existed even before Israel existed and no nation has a covenant like this with their deity. Take it from Dr. William F. Albright, who is an expert on ancient Near Eastern religions in his book “Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan: A Historical Analysis of Contrasting Faiths” he says, quote:
Dr. William F. Albright – W. F. Albright, Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan: A Historical Analysis of Two Contrasting Faiths (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1968), 106-08.
“‘Contracts and treaties were common everywhere, but only the Hebrews, so far as we know, made covenants with their gods or God. Being prevailing caravaneers and so ethno-political intruders in the West, the early Hebrews were in constant need of contractual and treaty protection.’ Of course, we biblicists would insist that it was God that made the contracts with men, not the other way around.”
Charles C. Clough, “Social-Political Implications of the New Covenant,” in An Introduction to the New Covenant, ed. Christopher Cone(Hurst, TX: Tyndale Seminary Press, 2013), 277, fn. 13.
Contracts and treaties were common everywhere… In other words, in his studies of the ancient Near East he said, individual groups entered into contracts with each other all of the time… so far as we know, however, only the Hebrews made covenants with their God. Being prevailingly caravaneers and so ethno-political intruders in the West, the early Hebrews were in constant need of contractual and treaty protection… In other words, what Albright is saying here is, look I’ve studied all of these nations of the ancient Near East and this idea where a deity makes a contract with a nation, is totally unknown but it’s completely special, it’s completely unique concerning God’s dealings with the nation of Israel. 27:14
Dr. Charles Clough who is on our board at Chafer Seminary where I found this quote in his writings offers the following corrective. He says at the very end: Of course, we biblicists would insist that it was God that made the contract with men, not the other way around… Albright says: I’ve never seen in any ancient Near Eastern literature that I’ve studied a contract between a deity and a nation. This is completely unique to the Hebrews, it’s completely unique to Israel, it’s completely unique to the Jewish nation and of course, what he is referring to is not so much people making contracts to God, but God making a contract to men. So you read this word “covenant” here and it’s very tempting to just sort of race over it without fully understanding the import of what is being said and this covenant is completely unique. All over the ancient Near East you have pagan nations, pagan deities, none of them made contracts, these deities, with their nations but God Himself reached down and entered into a binding contractual relationship, which is unconditional in nature, with the nation of Israel. 28:45
One of the things that has helped me in my studies of the Bible is the fact that I actually was a lawyer before I became a pastor. Becoming a lawyer was such a blessing because so much of the terminology of the Bible, concerning contracts, you find in the legal profession and I’ve yet to find a contract, in the legal profession, that is interpreted allegorically. There is no such thing as an allegorical contract. I mean, try that on some of the contracts you’re in, your mortgage contract, just interpret the numbers the way you want to interpret them and see how far that gets you. The fact that God chose the vehicle of a contract demonstrates that He means to fulfill literally everything that He said. I mean, if contracts are symbolic, if contracts are allegorical, how do you determine if one party is in breach of the contract or not. There’ll be no way to determine that and yet you go through the Bible and it keeps saying over and over again, God did this, God did that, because God interprets the language literally. An allegorical, symbolic contract is an impossibility. So you’d better pay attention to the details here and that word “covenant” is a major hint that God is serious about what He said He would do in this particular contract. This is a one way contract. Look at the language again in verse 18 very carefully (Gen 15:18): On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram… You’ll notice that it does not say on that day, Abram made a covenant with the Lord. Abram could not have made a covenant with the Lord even if he wanted to because he’s sound asleep, as God alone is represented by the oven and the torch is passing through these animal pieces and this becomes something completely and totally unique to the Jewish people. The Hebrew nation, the nation of Israel. The nation of Israel is like no other nation that has ever existed in the course of human events because they have, based on the authority of the Bible, a one way contract from God to them. I mean, not even the United States of America has something like that. Oh, wait a minute pastor, you’re denying the Judeo-Christian roots of the United States of America. No, I’m not. You can trace the beginning of the United States of America, legally, probably back to something called the Mayflower Compact.
Mayflower Compact (1620)
David Brewer, United States A Christian Nation, 14
That’s what the pilgrims entered into when they came to these shores but you’ll notice in the Mayflower Compact in 1620, which says by the way: …having undertaken for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith and the honor of our king and country a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern part of Virginia (close quote)… This is how the United States of America got its underpinnings and it started through a covenant, a contract, but what I want you to see or understand is in the Mayflower Compact, America’s forebears made a covenant with God. That’s not what’s happening here in Genesis, 15. Abram is not making a covenant with God. God rather is making a covenant with Abram. This will explain to you why long after the United States disappears from world history, and I say that with sadness, because I love the United States of America just like you do. If you cut me open I probably bleed red, white and blue. I love the United States of America so much, but the truth to the matter is the nation of Israel would be alive and it will be fully functioning long after the United States of America crumbles or topples or collapses under its own weight or perhaps disappears through foreign invasion. The days of the United States of America are limited but not so the nation of Israel. Long after the United States of America disappears from World history, Israel will be alive and well. Why is that? Because the United States of America is sort of based on our covenant to God. That’s not what Israel has here. Abram is not making a covenant to God. God is making a covenant to this man Abram. Now, when you see this, you understand why my professor J. Dwight Pentecost called this chapter the most important chapter in the Bible. If you understand this chapter, suddenly the whole Bible starts to make sense cause all God does throughout the Bible is make good on what He has promised to do. Certainly, a promise from God is enough because God cannot lie but Abram here doesn’t just have a promise from God. He has a contract from God. Not a contract that’s conditional, a contract that’s unconditional. Not a contract or a covenant that He made with God but that God made with him and his descendants while he was asleep. 35:25
Have you studied the book of Exodus? Probably other than the cross of Jesus Christ, the Exodus is the greatest redemptive event in biblical history, where God brought the entire nation of Israel out of bondage after four hundred years.
Have you ever stopped and asked yourself why God did that? You’ll find the answer in Exodus, 2, verse 24 (Exo 2:24), which says: So God heard their groaning; and God remembered His covenant… there it is, with who? With Noah? No, with Abraham and with Isaac, and with Jacob… the whole reason why the Exodus event took place, the greatest redemptive event in biblical history other than the cross and the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. The greatest event in biblical history happened because God honored the terms of the agreement.
In Sunday school, we’re starting to look at Ezekiel, 36, 37, 38, and 39 in a series of lessons that we’re doing called the Middle East Meltdown and as we learned in Sunday School this morning Ezekiel, 36, is the greatest chapter we have in the whole Bible concerning the physical restoration of the Jewish people from around the world back into their own land. God says, I’m going to bring them back from worldwide dispersion and then if that’s not enough, I’m going to regenerate them. So that the whole nation from beginning to end is going to be a believer in Yeshua who we refer to as the Lord Jesus Christ. Ezekiel, 36, is a description of it and yet what so many people miss is why God is doing that? It says it right there in verse 22 of Ezekiel, 36 (Ezk 36:22): Therefore… as God is speaking to Israel through the prophet Ezekiel… Therefore, say to the house of Israel, This is what the Lord God says: It is not for your sake, house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for My holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you went… I mean, God is reaching out and He’s regathering His chosen people, not because of some merit in them, in fact He says, you guys have messed everything up quite frankly, it’s not because of some merit in you, it is for the sake of My name. In other words, if I don’t fulfill exactly what I covenanted Myself to do back in Genesis, 15, then My name is profaned and I’m to be destroyed. The covenant of Malediction. Chapter 36 of Ezekiel starts to make sense when you understand Genesis, 15, the whole exodus event starts to make sense when you understand Genesis chapter 15. This is why you cannot get rid of Israel in your end time belief system. It’s an impossibility and yet most Christians by way of denominational affiliation are today sitting in churches that tell them over and over again that God is finished with Israel. God has cut the cord on Israel because of Israel’s disobedience and God has transferred all of Israel’s blessings to the church, they never transfer the curses to the church by the way, they only transfer the blessings to the church. It’s a doctrine called Replacement Theology. Sometimes it goes under the banner of supersessionism meaning that the church, as the new Israel, has superseded Israel’s place and yet the whole thing, although Augustine taught this, going back to the 4th Century and although most Christians by way of denominational affiliation are sitting in churches that teach this over and over again and although it’s the majority opinion in Christendom, the whole thing is completely and totally an impossibility because of the Abrahamic Covenant that not Abram entered into with God, I mean, if that was the covenant you could see how the covenant would have lapsed a long time ago, but Abram is asleep and God enters into a covenant with Abram, not Abram entering into a covenant with God. This is why God, through the prophet Jeremiah, at the height of Israel’s disobedience, and folks you can’t get much worse than what these people were doing on the eve of the Babylonian captivity. 41:20
They were taking their own children and putting them into a fire to satisfy the god, little g, of prosperity, the god of Molech. I mean, how low can you go to sacrifice your own children to satisfy the deity of prosperity? And God says, for this reason you’re going into deportation but even though you’re going to be disciplined, I cannot and will not ever cut the cord on the nation, and it’s in that context that Jeremiah says, Jeremiah, 31, verses 35 through 37 (Jer 31:35-37): Thus says the Lord, Who gives the sun for light by day And the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, Who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar; The Lord of hosts is His name: If this fixed order departs From before Me, declares the Lord, Then the offspring of Israel also will cease From being a nation before Me forever. Thus says the Lord, If the heavens above can be measured And the foundations of the earth searched out below, Then I will cast off the offspring of Israel For all that they have done, declares the Lord… In the midst of some of the grossest immorality, depravity and rebellion against God that you can find in the Bible, in that context, God says, if you want to get rid of Israel, you’ve got a better shot if you just get rid of the sun, the moon and the stars, because as long as the sun and the moon and the stars, the fixed order abides, Israel will always be a nation before me. Disciplined, yes. Go out of existence, terminated, cord cut, never. How could Jeremiah make a statement like that under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit? The answer is what you’re reading about right here in Genesis 15. If you don’t understand Genesis, 15, then what he’s saying here in Jeremiah, 31 makes no sense, the exodus event makes no sense, the great end time gathering of the Jews in the last days, Ezekiel, 36, that makes no sense either because the Christian world looks at the Jewish nation as the Christ killers. They rejected Christ, Replacement Theologians say. We the church accepted Christ. So, Israel is out forever and the church is in. No, even the horrific sin of rejecting their own king, which they did in the 1st Century. They turned him over to Rome for execution and they violated all of their legal rules of evidence. You want to talk about a sham trial? They violated all of their legal rules of evidence as given in the Mosaic Law and extra biblical tradition to arrest Jesus through the judicial system to get him killed. That’s what God’s own nation did to Jesus and even that sin itself, that can’t cut the cord on Israel either. Why? Because God, as represented by the oven and the torch, went right through those animal pieces when Abram himself was sound asleep. 45:18
Gee Pastor, this is all interesting history, but you know, this is all kind of Jewish stuff, it doesn’t have anything to do with me. It has everything to do with you, because this is a type for salvation itself. Salvation itself in the same way is 100% a work of God. The only part that you play in salvation itself is receiving what Jesus did for you as a free gift by way of faith. Other than that, you’re sound asleep. In fact, you weren’t even on the earth two thousand years ago when Jesus was dying on the cross. I mean, you weren’t even there to be a consultant or anything. You were out, you were asleep, you didn’t even exist yet; and here God, not so much entered into a covenant with a nation by passing through the animal pieces but it was through his death, burial, resurrection and ascension in which He said it is what? It is finished; and that’s why God can make you the promises that he’s made you, concerning eternal security. Just as you cannot cut the cord on national Israel because of the Abrahamic Covenant, God cannot and will not, in fact, it’s impossible for him to cut the cord on your salvation. Now, can God discipline you? You bet your bottom dollar that He can. Whom the Lord loves, the Lord what? The Lord chastens. Look at His dealings with Israel, He disciplined them quite frequently, but get rid of them as Augustine said? As supersessionism teaches? No way; and since these things are here for our encouragement and since these things are a prototype of salvation itself where God is dealing with you not so much as a nation but as an individual, the same principles apply. You can go through great disobedience as a Christian. In fact, you could even die in disobedience. I don’t recommend you do that but it could happen and God can bring discipline into your life but He cannot and will not cut the cord on your salvation and because Genesis, 15, is a prototype of salvation itself, then all the sudden we start understanding what Jesus was talking about in John, 10, verses 27 through 29 (John 10:27-29) when He said: My sheep hear My voice, I know them, and they follow Me; I will give eternal life to them, and they will never perish… what a terrible translation in English that is. I have no idea why the English translators had translated these words from the Greek the way they did. If you look at the brackets in blue [ou mē], it’s a double negative. It’s a double negative construction in Greek. That is the strongest negation you can have. It’s like saying this can never ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever happen, that you can be snatched out of his hand and then, you also notice in brackets the words or the word “aiōnia” which means forever. So what John, 10, verse 28 (John 10:28) should say in English: I give them eternal life and they will never, never, never perish forever! Exclamation point. That’s the Wood’s English Bible there (laughs) which doesn’t exist but if I did one, that’s what I would say; and if I was translating it into Spanish I would say: No way Jose (laughs) and then it goes on and it says: …no one will snatch them out of My hand… 49:58
You know, I can’t tell you how many discussions I’ve been involved with people who don’t believe in eternal security and they’ll come to this and they’ll say: Well, it says no one can snatch them out of his hand but can’t I take myself out of his hand?… Well, the last time I checked, is no one means what? No one, including you. You might go out in 2022 and completely tank your life. I don’t recommend you do that, you might make poor decision after poor decision yet if you have trusted in Jesus Christ for salvation, that in and of itself can never disqualify you from eternal security. Discipline, yeah, which isn’t always the funnest place to be. Loss of salvation, no way. You see how Israel is a prototype of all of this? Israel was chastened quite severely but in the end, long after the United States of America has passed from the world scene, Israel will be alive and a functioning nation because of the Abrahamic Covenant. He goes on here in John, 10, verse 29 (John 10:29) and he says: …My Father, who has given to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand… Notice this, that you are in the Son’s hands and you’re in the Father’s hand simultaneously. I mean, being in the hand of one member of the Trinity ought to be enough right? You’re actually in what we call the double grip of grace, where you are in the Son’s hand and you’re in the Father’s hand, two members of the trinity, who, by the way, are omnipotent, all powerful and if that weren’t enough you have this promise that nothing can take you out of it, double negation forever. What a promise that is and yet, it’s not surprising if you understand Genesis, 15. I mean, God does this kind of thing. It’s what He did with Israel at the very beginning with what it’s called the Abrahamic Covenant. But Pastor, I mean, I’ve really messed things up, you don’t even have any idea what I’ve messed up in the prior year. 52:45
Look at 2nd Timothy, 2, verse 11 (2 Tim 2:11), I have it there on the screen: The statement is trustworthy… verse 11. Now, if it’s in the Bible, that makes it trustworthy but just to make sure we know it’s trustworthy, Paul says, This is trustworthy… In other words, this is ironclad, you can take this to the bank and then he says in verse 13 (2 Tim 2:13): If we are faithless, He remains… what?… faithful, for He cannot deny Himself… (close quote) Isn’t that patterned for us in Israel? Wasn’t Israel faithless? I mean, you put your own kid in a fire to satisfy a god, little g, of prosperity? There’s… I mean, how low do you go? I mean, there’s not much of a basement from that one; and yet Israel was always God’s people and will always be God’s people because of the Abrahamic Covenant, but what if we’re faithless? You know what faithless means in the original language? It’s an alpha privative meaning it started with the Greek letter alpha, which is a negation. Like in English we say atheist, someone who doesn’t believe in God, alpha privative. The A negates theist. That’s the way it reads and what it says is, not unfaithful as many misconstrue it but being faithless. In other words, if you reach a point in your life where you don’t have any faith at all as a Christian, that’s not going to disqualify you either from eternal life, any more than Israel’s rejection of their Son, their King, takes God’s hand of the nation. This is, I understand this, that this is a terrifying teaching that I’m giving. The religious world that might be hearing this, will have nothing to do with what I’m saying because they want to use fear of a loss of salvation as a means to control people. You’d better give, you’d better do this, you’d better do that or the carpet is going to be yanked out from under you; and I’m here to tell you that if you’ve trusted in Christ as your savior, the carpet cannot be yanked out from under you, it’s an impossibility, but Gee Pastor, I need a bunch of rules to follow, cause I’m such a screw up, that if I don’t have a bunch of rules that I’m not afraid of all the time, I’m going to lapse back into sin. So, I need you to tell me that maybe I’m going to hell. This is how legalism perpetuates itself in the mind of many people and in the mind of Christianity. The clergy says how are we going to be able to manipulate people or control people without this club that we can beat over their head every Sunday by telling them they’ve lost their salvation. You’re taking all of that away. Well, I’m not taking that away, God’s taking it away because of a doctrine called grace. Unmerited favor. God does not deal with you on the basis of justice any more than He dealt with Israel on the basis of justice. If He was dealing with Israel on the basis of justice, Israel would have been out a long time ago, but Israel can’t go out because of the Abrahamic Covenant. Because you are in the double grip of grace, God is not dealing with you on the basis of justice, He’s dealing with you on the basis of grace. Very foreign to us because we’re not used to relationships like this. You upset your boss at work, you’re fired. You don’t turn in what your professor in college thinks should be turned in, you get the low grade. I mean, our whole lives, we’re conditioned to be dealt with on the basis of justice and God comes along, Jesus comes along and says, you’re not going to be dealt with that way anymore, you’re going to be dealt with on the basis of grace and even when the Lord allows suffering into a person’s life, it’s for your own good. It’s either a storm of perfection or it’s a storm of correction. It’s a storm designed to make you better and not bitter. Or, God, like Jonah, puts you in the belly of a fish for a while and then asks your opinion, are you ready to serve me now? But when God deals with us, with suffering, He’s not dealing with us on the basis of justice. It’s all out of His love. 58:21
So you might look at these promises that God is giving to Abraham, you might look at this and say, well, this is all fascinating stuff but this is all just ancient Jewish stuff and it really doesn’t have anything to do with me. Folks, it has everything to do with you because it’s a revelation of the perfect character of God. How God is dealing with Israel is how He deals with us, because Israel is a prototype of salvation history itself. The world of religion says, Jesus did 90%, you’d better kick in the 10.
God bought lunch, you’d better leave the tip. You don’t leave the tip, maybe you’re not saved, maybe you lost your salvation. Well, how much of a tip do I need to leave? The world of religion never tells you how big the tip has to be. Isn’t that cruel? Because now you’re wondering if I’ve done enough, they just tell you to pray, pay and obey. How do I know if I’ve prayed enough? How do I know I’ve obeyed enough? How do I know I’ve paid enough? And here biblical Christianity comes along at the bottom of the screen and it says God did it all. You just receive it as a gift and enter into a gracious relationship with your Heavenly Father.
Well, Gee Pastor isn’t John McArthur the greatest? I mean, John McArthur is all over the radio, he’s all over TV, his church is thousands and thousands and thousands of people and he holds conferences and he has all of these young Calvinists under his jurisdiction. Why won’t you put Sugar Land Bible Church on board with that train? And it’s very simple. As much as many of the things John McArthur may say are admirable, he is wrong on this issue that I’m talking about. He is wrong on the most fundamental issue that a person can be wrong on. You’ll notice what he said in a sermon:
John MacArthur – John MacArthur, The Gospel According to Jesus, p. 140
“Eternal life is indeed a free gift (Rom. 6:23). Salvation cannot be earned with good deeds or purchased with money. It has already been bought by Christ, who paid the ransom with His blood. But that does not mean there is no cost in terms of salvation’s impact on the sinner’s life. This paradox may be difficult but it is nevertheless true: salvation is both free and costly. Eternal life brings immediate death to self. ‘Knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, that our body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin’ (Rom 6:6). Thus in a sense we pay the ultimate price for salvation when our sinful self is nailed to a cross. It is a total abandonment of self-will, like the grain of wheat that falls to the ground and dies so that it can bear much fruit (cf. John 12:24). It is an exchange of all that we are for all that Christ is. And it denotes implicit obedience, full surrender to the lordship of Christ. Nothing less can qualify as saving faith.”
Self-discipline comes when you look back to the covenant of your salvation. That is to say when you remember that at the point of your salvation you made a promise to submit to the Lord. You made a pledge at that time to be obedient to Christ… I hope that as you listen to me today, you don’t think you are saved because of some pledge you made to Jesus. Abram made no pledge at all, how could you make a pledge when you’re sound asleep… You confessed Him as Lord, and Lord means that He is above all. It’s essential then that as believers to remember that we made a covenant with obedience… What is he talking about here? I mean he’s violating the most fundamental aspect that we’ve been speaking of. Covenant of obedience? Pledge? I’m not saved because of some covenant of obedience, I’m not saved because of a pledge. I’m saved because of God’s pledge to me. If I am faithless, He remains faithful for He cannot deny Himself… We’ve made a covenant of obedience when we confessed Jesus as Lord. We were saved unto obedience which God had beforehand ordained that we should walk and obedience characterized by good works and obedience to God’s Word. That pledge was inherent in salvation… You’ve got to be kidding me. You mean, I’m saved because of some pledge I’ve made to God? Hey God, I’m going to really clean myself up this year. So you’re obligated to give me a relationship to you. Why the Christian world does not rise up against this insanity and condemn it for what it is, is beyond me. It’s patently works based salvation. That pledge was inherent in salvation… God at the time you came to Him for salvation promised you forgiveness and eternal life and all the grace necessary to fulfill His will, and the Holy Spirit, and you pledged obedience. And you need to go back and remember that and have the integrity to be faithful to your original promise… (close quote) He’s talking about how salvation first occurred and he’s presenting it as, you did your part, God’s going to do His part. You’d made your promise, God’s gonna make His promise. You did your pledge, God’s going to make His pledge. Totally 100% opposite or antithetical to the Bible. Opposite of the Abrahamic Covenant. Opposite of salvation history itself. The story of Christianity is not what man does for God. It’s what God has done for man by reaching down in the person of Jesus Christ and when you receive that gift, you enter into a relationship with God that’s not built on justice, it’s not even based on your faithfulness. It’s built upon grace, the Greek word “charis”. God’s favor coming to you that you don’t deserve. 1:04:52
Well, Pastor, people are just going to go out and live like the devil if you talk like that. You know what’s interesting about grace is the more you understand it, the more you start to live a right life. You know why I seek to live a correct life today and my life isn’t perfect if you could see into it, and I’m thankful that you can’t many times (laughs) because I know my own heart that is desperately sick as the book of Jeremiah says, but the reason why my life is moving I think, in a good direction today, it’s not out of fear or some bilateral agreement I made with God. I’m moving in the right direction because I’m understanding what Jesus did for me and how could a person in their right mind understand that and just sow to the flesh? Doesn’t make any sense. I live my life today as I seek to live it, not because of fear but out of worship and gratitude for what Jesus did for me and while I appreciate some of the things John McArthur says, this is not the kind of church where we’re going to be promoting his books, promoting his conferences, because he’s got probably, of all the issues to mess up, don’t mess this one up. See, you can be right on the rapture, you can be right on premillennialism, you could be right on six-day creationism, you could be right on this topic and that topic but if you miss this, you miss the Bible, you miss Christianity. 1:07:08
So, we have the ceremony and the covenant and then the land and that bums me out because the title of this message was “The Ultimate Real Estate Deal” (laughs) I didn’t even get a chance to talk about the land so we’ll do that next Lord’s day.
Covenant Ratification Ritual – Genesis 15:17-21
Shall we pray? Father, we’re grateful for grace. As we move into the year 2022, help us to be people of grace. Help us to understand that we are in the hand of the Beloved and nothing can take us out. Help us to take that teaching and not move into licentiousness but live lives of worship and glorification to you, out of thankfulness rather than fear. I do fear Lord that many people coming to church, particularly in states like our own where church going is such a ritual, I do fear that people would show up here and not understand grace. I do pray that perhaps anything that I’ve said today, you would impress upon their minds true grace that we have, as seen so early on in your dealings with Abram in the Abrahamic Covenant. I pray if anyone here is unsaved, I pray that today for them is the day of salvation. I pray that the Gospel would become so clear that Christ did it all and we simply receive what He’s done for us as a gift. If there are people here today trusting in their own pledge or whatever, I pray that today would be the day where they would abandon that, they would come under the conviction of the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit would convict them of their need to receive a free gift from God and that many, many people within the sound of my voice, even people listening after the fact would enter into a relationship with their loving God, not based upon fear but based upon the principle of divine grace. Of all of the teachings that we do in this church, I just pray father that we would get this one right, cause if we miss this one, we miss the whole point of our existence and we miss the whole point of the Bible. If anyone needs more explanation on how to enter into a relationship with their loving Father through trusting in Christ alone for salvation, I pray that they would come speak to me after the service. For those who don’t have that relationship, even now as I’m talking, I pray that they would trust in the savior alone. We trust you for this great work. We’ll be careful to give you all the praise and the glory. We ask these things in Jesus name and God’s people said, Amen.