The Country Church Bourbon Indiana

Genesis 12:1-3

This seemingly unremarkable event begins a chain of events that tie a tremendous amount of Scripture together. God appears to Abram – later called Abraham. He tells him to move out of Ur to a new land. In return God will make from Abram a great nation, he will be blessed, and people will be blessed because of Abraham. Those blessing Abraham will be blessed and those dishonoring him will be cursed.

If you are fairly familiar with the Old Testament, you will probably realize that this refers to the nation Israel. But it is probably going to be a surprise to most of you that this and other promises made to Abraham tie in with the Exodus from Egypt, the conquest of the land in Joshua, the Jewish kingdoms, the birth of Jesus, the coming reign of Jesus, the salvation that Jesus brings, and the eternal kingdom of God. This is a key part in God’s story and you’ll see this promise brought up over and over again.

You say: “Wow, it’s really that important and that much of God’s story has some connection to this?” Here’s our first clue about the importance of this event – The Bible records 7 total times that God appeared to Abraham over his lifetime to either remind him of this promise, expand upon the promise, or reaffirm the promise.

When you read through the story of Abraham, going from Genesis 12-25, you’ll find a lot of “Abraham went here and did this.” He goes to Canaan. He goes to Egypt. He goes back to Canaan. Some battles happen and Sodom and Gomorrah are destroyed. At fairly regular intervals God appears to Abraham and says something to the effect of “I’m going to bless you. People will be blessed through you. I’m going to give your descendants the Promised Land.”

Link: The last time He comes to Abraham to give a promise is Genesis 22:15-18.

Genesis 22:15-18

Let’s look at the words a bit more in detail here, and the context around them, and I think you will start to see just how this promise made to Abraham can be as important as it is and tie as many things together as it does.

First, let’s talk about what just happened. Famous story. Most or all of you know about it. This is the time where God appears to Abraham and asks Abraham to go to a place and offer his son, his only son Isaac, as a sacrifice. It’s a controversial story because people try to put themselves in Abraham or Isaac’s shoes and think that God is being mean-spirited and cruel.

The truth is, though, there is no mention of Abraham or Isaac being at all afraid throughout the whole ordeal. Abraham had completed faith in God that everything was going to be OK. He even said to Isaac “God will provide for Himself a sacrifice.” Nobody was hurt, nobody died, as far as we know no one was even afraid.

How could Abraham have faith through this? Why did Isaac not violently fight this? They had the promise from God that a kingdom was coming through Abraham. And, in Genesis 17, God specifically tells Abraham that the promise is going to be fulfilled through Isaac’s line. So they already knew that somehow Isaac was going to live to have children and grow to be a kingdom.

In fact, Hebrews 11:17-19 says that as Abraham offered up Isaac he “considered that God was able even to raise [Isaac] from the dead.” He knew God would do whatever was necessary to fulfill His promise, even if that meant raising Isaac from the dead. He just knew it would all be OK.

So here’s what’s happening before this promise is given – you have a father, offering up his only son as a sacrifice, in faith that his son will live again. Father, only son, sacrifice, live again. Sound familiar? “For God so love the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

There’s still more: First, God reiterates His earlier promise – that Abraham will be blessed and have a lot of offspring. But then He adds to that promise a new one. God says that Abraham’s offspring – singular, one – will possess the gate of his – singular, one – enemies. And in his offspring – singular, one – shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.

Galatians 3:16 says “Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, ‘and to offsprings,’ referring to many, but referring to one, ‘and to your offspring,’ who is Christ.”

So, summing up the event once again – you have a father, offering up his only son Isaac as a sacrifice, in faith that he will live again. And then God intervenes to provide a sacrifice. Then God tells Abraham that he is going to have a son who will rule over the gates of his enemies and all the nations of the world will be blessed through this offspring, who we later learn to be Jesus.

Wow! Wow! Don’t sleep on this story. Don’t be offended by this story. We see sacrifice, God offering a substitutionary sacrifice, father, son, faith, promise, salvation, kingdom, reign over enemies – key points and moments in God’s story being reflected in this event.

I used to be bothered by this story myself. But now that I see all the beautiful pictures and many threads throughout God’s story that all tie back to this, it’s one of my favorite stories. Mind-blowing in all that God is doing and saying in this moment. Its God preaching the Gospel long before Jesus became flesh and walked among us.

This promise to Abraham doesn’t get dropped here. It gets repeated, expanded upon, has branching promises built off of it, and gets transferred from one heir to another down a long line of Biblical history.

As I said, in Genesis 17, God tells Abraham that the promise will go through Isaac.

Next, in Genesis 28:1-4 the promise passes to Jacob, whose name changes to Israel.

In Genesis 49:10 we read that Israel’s son Judah will become the tribe of royalty. Judah will reign.

Link: In 2 Samuel 7:8-17 we get some new promises, related to these, made to King David.

2 Samuel 7:8-17

In Genesis 49:10 God promises that Judah will be the tribe of royalty. David is from the tribe of Judah and is the second king over Israel. Saul came before him. Saul didn’t work out too well. He lost God’s blessing, ended up dying, and David became the new king in his place.

In some ways, this is similar to the promise made to Abraham – God is telling David that Israel will possess the Promised Land and they will dwell in it forever. But He adds some more promises. There will come a time when they will dwell in the land and no one will ever disturb them again and violent men will not cause them trouble anymore. They will have complete peace. Rest from all enemies for all time.

Then he promises David that he will make a royal house for him that will rule over Israel. And one of these offspring will have a throne and a kingdom that doesn’t end. His kingdom will be forever. “Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever.”

This is really not so different from the promise made to Abraham – it’s just getting ever more specific and clear. The offspring will come from Abraham; will come from Isaac, Jacob, Judah, David.

Side note – all of those names are found in Jesus’ genealogical account and this is why the Gospels record His genealogy, to show that He is the promised offspring of Abraham and David.

He will rule over Israel. Abraham’s descendants will possess a great land and the Son of David will rule over this land. He will defeat all enemies. They will never rise again. There will be peace in this kingdom forever.

Now I’ve just went over promises that talk of this this morning, and I haven’t even covered them all. Prophecies speak of this frequently as well. Just turn to any prophetic book, read it and you’re going to find some talk in there of God giving Israel an eternal land with a king who will always reign over them.

Here’s just one example:

Amos 9:11-15

House of David restored. Israel possesses the land. Peace and eternal kingdom forever.

This promise, repeated frequently to different key persons in the Old Testament, and the prophets who foretell its fulfillment, it ties together and explains a lot of other biblical events and stories.

The Exodus from Egypt is strongly related to this promise made to Abraham. The children of Jacob grow to become a large people in Egypt and God leads them out to take possession of the Promised Land. They fail to take complete control, and the promise is that they will have a king who reigns forever with them in that land, so it wasn’t fulfilled then, but it’s an important part.

Different kings rising and falling in Israel. Israel returning to the land of Canaan after the conquest of Babylon. All over the place.

So, of course this comes up in the New Testament too. It will also help you to understand a bit why there was so much confusion for so many about Jesus the Messiah.

Link: The clearest reference to this promise of Jesus as the Son of David and eternal king of the Jews in the Promised Land is found in Luke 1:26-33.

Luke 1:26-33

People, in general, during the time Jesus walked the earth were well aware of the promises made to Abraham and his sons and especially the promise made to David. But they were not considering other significant statements in the Old Testament – they weren’t thinking of Isaiah 53, for example, which tells us that the Messiah will die for the sins of the world and will live again.

This will hopefully help you understand a bit better what seems so odd to us today looking backwards. Everything is clearer in hindsight. But you see over and over again Jesus’ disciples just assuming that how it was all going to work out was that Jesus would assume control of the government and wouldn’t die.

In their eyes, Jesus, the Son of David, was meant to be the eternal king over Israel in fulfillment of the promises God had made. And they were correct – He is going to be that eternal king over Israel and the whole world in fulfillment of the promises – but they missed something. That is why Peter is so bold as to rebuke Jesus when Jesus tells them that He will die and live again.

Matthew 16:21-23

This happened because Peter was thinking about the promise made to David. But he had missed many other things. He’d missed the imagery and symbolism of Abraham and Isaac. He missed Genesis 3:15 where God promises Eve that she will have a son whose heel will be bruised by Satan but He will crush the head of the serpent. He missed Isaiah 53 and various messianic psalms which talk about the Messiah dying for the sins of the world.

Jesus, of course, as in all things, was right to rebuke Peter. Peter ought not to have been telling the Son of God that He was wrong. That’s for sure. If Jesus says He must die and live again, He’s right – whatever anybody thinks about it. But at least you can understand a bit better now why Peter made that mistake.

It was not a mistake – though – to believe that Jesus is the Son of David who will rule over Israel and the world in an eternal kingdom. The angel Gabriel said exactly that to Mary. God promised that to Abraham. God promised that to David. The prophets prophesied about it over and over. God doesn’t break His promises. But Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection must come first. That’s where Peter was wrong. And his opposition to that idea caused him to be speaking as the mouthpiece of Satan.

They must come first because, for there to be an eternal kingdom of peace and righteousness, a serious problem needs to be dealt with first – and that is the rebellion that Satan started against God and mankind followed after in the Garden of Eden. When Mankind chose to disobey God, they became sinners and died. Now we lie, we steal, we get angry, we commit violence, and we’re greedy. Imagine taking such people and putting them in an eternal kingdom where their sins haven’t been paid for and they still have sin natures – disaster.

You can’t have an eternal kingdom of peace and joy and righteousness that’s filled with violent, spiritually dead, unrighteous people. The heavenly kingdom can only be a heavenly kingdom for Aaron if Aaron is first forgiven of his sins and then changed at the resurrection to no longer be a sinner. Otherwise, it’s inevitable that Aaron will spoil heaven for himself and others on day one.

Evidently, a lot of people, most even, had not thought about the incompatibility of their sin with an eternal kingdom of righteousness. So they just thought the son of Abraham, the son of David, was going to come and set up the kingdom right there and then and everyone would live happily ever after. No, gotta deal with the sin problem first.

And that’s what He did. On the cross of Calvary Jesus took upon Himself the sins of the world, suffering the necessary punishment for transgressing God’s holy law, and making the way for all those believing in Jesus to be born again to new life and receive the Holy Spirit through whom they are being made holy and will be made completely holy at the resurrection.

But Jesus didn’t stay dead. He resurrected and returned to heaven.

Acts 1:6-11

And, just as promised, He will be coming back to restore the kingdom to Israel. This will happen in the chapters we read about last week, Revelation 20 and following. Jesus will come back, defeat all of His enemies, set up a millennial kingdom, when the enemies rise again they are defeated finally forever and the kingdom continues on a new heaven and a new earth.

Application: