Genesis 15

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Genesis 14:18-24

“And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God. 19 And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth: 20 and blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand. And he gave him tithes of all. 21 And the king of Sodom said unto Abram, Give me the persons, and take the goods to thyself. 22 And Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lift up mine hand to the LORD, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth, 23 that I will not take from a thread even to a shoelatchet, and that I will not take any thing that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich: 24 save only that which the young men have eaten, and the portion of the men which went with me, Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre; let them take their portion.”

Introduction: Who Is This Melchizedek?

[Audio version: https://resources.ccphilly.org/detail.asp?TopicID=&Teaching=WED526]

“We have come as far as probably around verse 17, chapter 14 of Genesis, where we saw the first war in the Bible, and in that war four kings carrying away the cities of the plain, their inhabitants, their wealth. And Lot then being part of that process, being victimized, and Abraham being made aware of that. In spite of the fact that Lot had been selfish, Lot had chosen the best things for himself. There’s not a hesitation in Abraham to go after his brother’s son, to exercise in faith I think, his stewardship over this land that God had given to him by promise. And he’s separated from the world, but he’s not indifferent to the world that’s around him, he’s not disassociated, he’s separate in regards to the fact that he’s sensitive, he’s looking for this city whose builder and maker is God, but he’s aware of, involved in, some of these things that are going on around him, and there is injustice here, there was a violation. And he involved himself, he takes 318 armed servants, he goes after these kings of the north. No doubt somewhere in the process there, saying to the LORD, because as we go on in the chapter, the king of Sodom is going to say ‘Go on, take all of the spoils you want,’ and he’s going to say ‘You know what, I’ve raised my hand to the LORD, I took an oath that I wouldn’t touch any of it.’ So, that doesn’t tell us when, we’re assuming as he’s going with 318 armed servants of his own house, and with some of the local chieftains that he had befriended, that somewhere in that process he had said ‘LORD, I’ll never do this without you.’ You know, it’s a picture in a sense of all of the warfare that we’re all in. Somewhere he said ‘LORD, I can’t have victory without you, they outnumber us, they’re more powerful than we are, they’re better armed LORD, I promise, if you’ll grant victory, I won’t touch any of it, you’ll get all of the glory, I won’t even touch a single piece of gold or silver, I won’t touch anything.’ Somewhere, we’re not told in the process here. And no doubt God gives him the wisdom how to divide the troops at night then, what plan to follow, and he startles their encampments, has a great victory over them. He divided himself, in verse 15 against them, he and his servants by night, smote them and pursued them to Hobah, which is on the left of Damascus. “And he brought back all of the goods, and also brought again his brother Lot, and his goods, and the women also, and the people.” (verse 16) Now, imagine on their way back, this is over a hundred mile journey, there may be some of them on camels, probably largely on foot, you know that him and Lot had to have had a fairly meaningful conversation on the way back. Is Lot somewhere in the process saying ‘You know I can’t believe, I’m so stupid, I moved down there with all the Sodomites, moved down amidst them, I was left defenseless, I was carried away.’ Is there any of that that goes on, is there anything in Lot that’s saying ‘LORD, I should have deferred to Abraham, I should have let him choose first, help me to make wiser choices in the future.’ Is there any of that? because we’re going to find Lot going back and ending up in Sodom when God’s going to bring judgment. We’re going to find that his wife, who is probably of Sodom, looks back and the Scripture says is turned to pillar of salt. And you would think, through some remarkable, miraculous victory that’s granted, you know, it’s one of those processes where you say ‘Oh Lord, Oh Lord, Oh Lord, I promise, I promise, I promise, O God, O God, O God,’ and I have to believe that’s part of the conversation as they’re on their way back. And we’re going to see Lot in Sodom, and the inhabitants of the plain then warned, God’s mercy towards them demonstrated, and yet the lesson not learned, sadly. Because he loved, he had them rescued [Lot and his two daughters], he would have demonstrated his grace to them. “And the king of Sodom went out to meet him after his return from the slaughter of Chedorlaomer, and of the kings that were with him, at the valley of Shaveh, which is the king’s dale. And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God.” (verses 17-18) So one battle ends, another battle begins. He comes back, he’s had great victory. You know, we do those things. As Lot was probably doing, ‘O God, O God, O God, if you get me out of this, I promise, I promise, I promise,’ and then he fails. No doubt Abraham had sworn, had said “LORD, if you’ll give me victory, I won’t touch, LORD if you’ll give me the victory, LORD if you’ll grant this,’ and now when the victory has been had, and Abraham whose coming, and now there are these two personages who meet him, Bera, which means “son of evil,” the king of Sodom, Sodom means “burning,” comes to meet Abraham, and this other personality, Melchizedek, who shows up here. We meet him and take note of some things about him in this chapter. He disappears for a thousand years, and he shows up again in Psalm 110, when David is saying, prophecying in the Spirit of the coming of Christ, and he says “he shall be a priest after the order of Melchizedek forever.” All of a sudden that name pops up again, then it disappears for a thousand years again, and it shows up in the Book of Hebrews. So we have this interesting personality. He is “king of Righteousness, and of Salem, Peace, and he’s priest of the Most High God.” Now he’s very interesting in that respect, he’s not Prophet, Priest and King, he’s Priest and King. In the Old Testament you’ll find prophet and priest, you’ll find king and prophet, but you won’t find king and priest anywhere. David would loved to have been a king and a priest, he loved the courts of the LORD, he’d had loved to have been there to offer sacrifice and officiate daily, he would loved to have done that. But we find Christ, whose Prophet, Priest and King, and we’re not even told that Christ is Priest until we read about Melchizedek in Hebrews [first mentioned as being our High Priest in Hebrews 4:15-16, where Paul mentions Jesus Christ as being our High Priest before he ever mentions Melchizedek in Hebrews 6:19-20 and all of Hebrews 7]. So here is this interesting personality. We’re told I think, I forget the number of times in the Bible that Christ is after the order of Melchizedek, and the argument in the Book of Hebrews is that Christ is of a Priesthood that predates Aaron and the Levitical priesthood. Because Jesus Christ was of the tribe of Judah, and not of the tribe of Levi. But the argument in the Book of Hebrews that his priesthood is a continually unending priesthood, it’s after the order of Melchizedek, who is without father or mother, we don’t know his origin, we don’t know his lineage. That’s basically what he is saying, we don’t have any record of who his parents were, it doesn’t say he didn’t have parents, we don’t have any record of his family after that. Now in that he prefigures Christ, but Christ had a lineage, Christ had to prove he was of the tribe of Judah as it were. [But before Mary was impregnated by the Holy Spirit, Yahweh God, who would later become Jesus Christ (John 1:1-18), would make appearances as God in human form, as he does with meeting Abraham in Genesis 18, and so what Pastor Joe is skirting around the facts with, is that Jesus Christ, in his pre-Incarnate form as Yahweh, had also appeared in human form as Melchizedek. That is my personal belief, take it for what it’s worth, we’ll get the answers to this mystery at the Wedding Feast of the Lamb prophecied in Revelation 19:7-9.] But it tells us something else very interesting, that Melchizedek was made like unto the Son of God. So you have Jesus being after the Order of Melchizedek in regards to a priesthood, but it tells us Jesus predated Melchizedek in that he was made like unto the Son of God. So it’s a very interesting personality who steps onto the scene. When I look at this, I think ‘Why didn’t God just give the Promised Land to Melchizedek?’ Why does he get this idolator from Ur of the Chaldees and bring him all the way there, when Melchizedek is king of Righteousness, he’s a Godly man, he blesses Abraham in the name of the True and Living God, he gives us a picture, people always say ‘What about the guy on the island, what about the guy on the island,’ well here’s one, Melchizedek. [The apostle Paul said in Romans, ‘that there is no one righteous, no not one,’ so if the Word of God, given to Moses to write down is saying that Melchizedek is the king of Righteousness, then Melchizedek cannot be human, he has to be God, in the form of Yahweh-God, the very one who would become Christ.] Here’s a guy who knows the True and Living God. And here’s the guy who has an influence in the city where he rules in regards to this God. And he seems to be a remarkable personality. Why didn’t God just say to Melchizedek ‘I’ll bless them they bless you and curse them that curse you,’ it would have been easier, Abraham’s going to get any number of headaches by the time he gets him through the process. [That will be an interesting story, all on it’s own, how Yahweh-God appeared as a human, and took that position in the city of Salem, which was early Jerusalem, appeared, ruled for awhile during Abraham’s time, and then more than likely disappeared from the scene. We’ll find out soon enough, right after the 2^nd coming of Jesus Christ, which isn’t far off.] But he serves a different purpose. Whoever he was, the symbolism is undeniable. Paul says in Romans 15, ‘the things that were written aforetime were written for our learning, to those of us upon whom the end of the ages are come that we might have hope,’ in the Scripture. When you come through a struggle, when you come through some type of a battle, and you get to the other side, and it’s been one of those things you’ve said ‘O God, O God, O God, O God,’ and he’s been gracious, and you stand on the other side, the temptation is always going to be, the lower call, from the king of Sodom to say ‘Take the stuff,’ that’s what he’s going to say here, that’s all he hears, ‘You have the victory, you’re entitled to it all.’ And there’s going to be that other part of the struggle in you that says ‘You know that there’s the One that offers bread and wine through his broken body and his shed blood, I am what I am.’ Paul would say it was through the grace of God that I am what I am. He was the most learned of the Pharisees, he goes through all his certificates and everything in Philippians and he lines them all up, and yet he says ‘It was because of God’s grace that I am what I am.’ And again, you and I, what a lesson to know that when we get on the other side of victory, or something that’s wonderful, if we take credit, if we touch the glory, we mess with it, God may just let us fall down, right there. Because we are just as dependent on God after the victory as we were the day before when we were going ‘O God, O God, O God, O God, I promise, I promise, I promise.’ So these two personalities show up, Bera, the king of Sodom, and Melchizedek, this interesting guy, king of Salem, Salem means peace, ‘and he brought forth bread and wine,’ to nourish Abraham. Now look, the king of Sodom, he comes forward to meet Abraham because he’s getting his population back, and he’s getting the wealth, he’s got some other motive. Melchizedek’s got nothing except to acknowledge that the Living God was with Abraham, and he comes to offer and refresh. He was the priest of the Most High God, “And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth:” (verse 19) this man Melchizedek knows the truth, he’s the guy on the island.

“And He Gave Him Tithes Of All”--What About Tithing?

“and blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand. And he” Abraham “gave him tithes of all.” (verse 20) Now, people who like to enforce tithing love this verse, because they take it to Hebrews, to prove that tithing predates the Law, and therefore every Christians should tithe. And look, I think every Christian should give regularly. [That’s not exactly what Genesis 14:20 and Hebrews 7 is saying, for more on this subject, analyzing what it actually is saying about tithing and Christian giving, see also https://unityinchrist.com/hebrews/Hebrews%207%201-28.htm and https://unityinchrist.com/gifts4.htm. For a complete coverage of the subject on Christian giving see https://unityinchrist.com/gifts.htm and read through that whole 4-part series.] I personally don’t see tithing enforced in the New Testament, I think the principles in Corinthians where they gave as they were able, and some of them gave out of their need. And if we sow sparingly we reap sparingly. I think certainly many and probably most Christians feel like ‘You know, I should give a tenth,’ that’s a great place to be, and it is. But again, if you make a hundred million dollars a year, you can give half. If you can’t live on 50 million dollars you got a problem. If you make $10,000 a year and you’re struggling, if you give us $1,000 we’re going to be counselling your marriage, we’re going to be buying you Huggies. Look, the principle in the New Testament is giving. If you come here and be an usher, you can come here during the week and vacuum. When you cut your lawn, you can cut your neighbour’s lawn, you can give, the New Testament principle, you know in the Old Testament God wanted a seventh of their time [i.e. the Sabbath day], and only a tenth of their increase. In the New Testament he wants everything, our hearts, our lives, all that we have is his. But Abraham is acknowledging, and that’s the point in Hebrews, there’s something superior about Melchizedek because Abraham’s bringing tithes to him, he’s acknowledging him, he’s giving him a portion of the spoils, the increase. He won’t take any for himself. Melchizedek is a local king in the area, who holds, besides what you and I wonder about the mystical part of Melchizedek, he was a historical figure to Abraham, and he held clout in the area, and he was an influence for the Most High God, and Abraham acknowledges him and gives to him a tenth of the goods. Now look at the king of Sodom, he says to Abraham “And the king of Sodom said unto Abram, Give me the persons, and take the goods to thyself.” (verse 21) “give me the persons” the Hebrew word for that is “give me the souls, and take the goods to thyself.” Who does that sound like? ‘Give me the souls, take the stuff, enjoy the gold, the silver, the wine, the drugs, take the stuff—GIVE ME THE SOULS’ who is that!? It is so clear the way the enemy is there, and Christ is there, you know, as we go through struggles, it’s a beautiful picture that comes before us here, ‘Give me the souls, take the goods to thyself,’ two kings, two opposites, two callings. Melchizedek is a priest of humanity, not Judaism, interesting man, and this other king Bera, what a clear picture of what he is. “And Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lift up mine hand to the LORD, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth, that I will not take from a thread even to a shoelatchet, and that I will not take any thing that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich: save only that which the young men have eaten, and the portion of the men which went with me, Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre; let them take their portion.” (verses 22-24) ‘You know, I have already made a covenant with God, I said, God if you give me this victory I don’t want any of it, all the glory is yours, and I’m not gonna touch any of this, I’m not even going to take a thread or a shoelace.’ What a remarkable man. ‘I won’t touch anything that would touch your glory. I won’t take anything that would cause anybody to stumble, I won’t take any credit.’ Billy Graham said “We’re never more like Satan than when we touch the glory.” Isn’t it interesting to see this guy here, ‘I will not take a thread, even to a shoelatchet, “and that I will not take any thing that is thine,” from the king of burning, because everything he has ends up burning, “lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich: save only that which the young men have eaten, and the portion of the men which went with me, Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre; let them take their portion.” (verses 23b-24) He said ‘There are those who are with me that are unbelievers, they went at their own expense, you give them whatever food, whatever is cost them, “let them take their portion.” So Abraham now, going through this first war, giving us this remarkable picture of the struggle. And look, interesting, because judgment is going to come on Sodom and Gomorrah after this. Just think what the LORD has done. Here are these people, sexual sin, again, Merrill Unger in his book of demonology feels like there was something even darker going on with demons, with giants, this darkness. And God delivers them. He could have just let them go then. He could have just let them be destroyed. And yet God has them delivered by Abraham, God allows them to see this meeting of kings before their eyes, God allows these people of Sodom and Gomorrah and Lot and his wife to hear about El Allyon the Most High God whose delivered them. He allows them to know that God would be merciful to them, if they would turn to him, and yet they’re still going to be annihilated. Very interesting “How could a God of love,’ look, a God of love, he doesn’t just judge, he’s slow to judge, he’s longsuffering, and he’s filled with mercy, that’s how he reveals himself. Even in this situation, he waited. He displays himself and his love. You know, I’ll tell you this, I think the Church [greater Body of Christ] in general fails, in many ways, in demonstrating the love of God to a lost world, it’s easy for us to look, and we can get caught up in this, we can watch what’s going on in the news, we should pray for Jerusalem, we should pray for Israel, for peace there. But God loves Muslims. He loves Iraqis, he loves Cubans, you look around the world, we get myopic and we start to, and we start to watch some of these wars almost like it’s a football game or something, and it’s wrong, because they’re human beings, with grandmothers, and grandfathers aunts and uncles and children, loosing limbs and family members, it’s terrible what’s going on [and the Russo-Ukrainian war is just such an example now]. And God right now is being longsuffering, right now. He could just let it all end [by letting World War III, the tribulation start]. He’s restraining, the Bible says, right now even. And probably the Church has failed in many ways. You know, because we want to share, it’s hard, we want to share his love for the lost world out there, and yet inside the Church we want to hold a standard, you know ‘Let those who name the name of Christ depart from iniquity,’ here in the Church we’re not wrong for saying to each other and challenging each other ‘Hey, you need to clean your life up, through the power of the Holy Spirit, through the new birth you should be somebody different than you are, pornography and all of this stuff shouldn’t be plaguing the Church!’ But we should be able to say to the person that’s lost, whose lives are being destroyed by these things, ‘The Jesus I’m telling you about will forgive you and he will transform your life and set you free.’ And it if it isn’t true in our lives, what kind of a message do we have? God is not going to use an unsurrendered life to reach an unsurrendered world. Because the fullness of Christ is there for us, because we were no better than anyone out there, and he’s forgiven us. And we should be able to convey his message of love to a lost world. [Comment: In some ways, the whole Body of Christ needs to free itself from being Christian-nationalists, Right-wing hatemongers, if it is to reach both the political Right and the political Left in non-judgmental love. The Church needs to free itself from dirty politics, on both sides of the political fence in America in order to do this, see https://unityinchrist.com/topical%20studies/America-ModernRomans6.htm )] It’s just interesting to watch this, because it’s a few chapters before his judgment will come on Sodom and Gomorrah.

Genesis 15:1-21

“After these things the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward. 2 And Abram said, LORD God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus? 3 And Abram said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed: and, lo, one born in my house is mine heir. 4 And, behold, the word of the LORD came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir. 5 And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be. 6 And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness. 7 And he said unto him, I am the LORD that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it. 8 And he said, LORD God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it? 9 And he said unto him, Take me an heifer of three years old, and a she goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon. 10 And he took unto him all these, and divided them in the midst, and laid each piece one against another: but the birds divided he not. 11 And when the fowls came down upon the carcasses, Abram drove them away. 12 And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and, lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him. 13 And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years; 14 And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance. 15 And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age. 16 But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. 17 And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces. 18 In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates: 19 the Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites, 20 and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaims, 21 and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.”

Abraham Is Worried About God’s Promises To Him

“Chapter 15 begins by saying “After these things” chapter 14, all of this, “the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.” (verse 1) Something interesting happens, in chapter 14 we see Abraham in action, we see this man. As we come to chapter 15 we discover his emotions, his feelings. And the Bible is clear, you know God has given us emotions, Jesus it says was a man acquainted with sorrows, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, he wept at the tomb of Lazarus, he had emotions, God’s given us emotions. And the trap we get into is we say ‘I feel,’ you hear people that are Christians saying all the time, ‘I feel this, I feel that,’ your brain is higher than your heart, because truth is ultimately more important than emotion. [Comment: for an interesting article describing the parts of the human brain that control our emotions, verses what controls our logic, why people, Christian and non-Christian alike can be given the same set of facts and come to differing opinions about what the facts are telling them. see https://unityinchrist.com/Does/waronscience.htm] But we are emotional beings, God made us that way. And we’re going to see Abraham, God says “fear not,” it’s the first “fear not” in the Bible, there will be many more of them. And he’s speaking to Abraham’s emotion, Abraham just had this tremendous victory through God, and yet now Abraham has to think ‘I’m old, some of the promises God made me, I haven’t seen them, the kings of the north, are they going to come back when I’m sleeping in my camp some night and destroy me?’ [no, they’re dead, Abram killed all four, but he may have been worried other Assyrians would, but history shows that this potential empire has been put into abeyance, and would remain so for another 800 to 900 years] And God stoops down in this chapter to speak to this man’s heart, and it’s wonderful as we look at it. It’s the first time in the Bible we have the Word of the LORD coming to anyone, it will happen over a hundred times as we go through the Bible, this is the first place. God had appeared to him before this, but now it says “the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision,” and we’re going to look at that vision. So interesting, “After these things” why not before? “After these things the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.” (verse 1) So God is addressing something that is happening in the heart of Abraham, and he’s saying ‘I will protect you, and I will provide, I am your shield, I am your exceeding great reward.’ Evidently those two things were addressing what was going on in the heart of Abraham. And Abraham says, “And Abram said, LORD God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus?” (verse 2) Interesting, “Adonai” used here. Now I wonder who he means by “go” there? I think he knows he’s at the end of the journey [but his journey go on for almost another 100 years], I don’t think it means he’s just going on his way, I think he’s saying ‘I’m ready to go here.’ [Interesting, Isaac would feel he was about to go, die, when he actually had many years of life left in him, it’s not unnatural for us to feel that as our bodies age, not knowing how much more time God is giving us to live, it’s a natural feeling as our bodies age.] This Eliezer of Damascus, he’s going to be heir, is what Abram’s saying, his main steward, his main servant Eliezer, the one who comes alongside, the one ‘God is my help, the comforter,’ is the idea, Eliezer of Damascus. “And Abram said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed: and, lo, one born in my house is mine heir.” (verse 3) ‘LORD, you made me these promises.’ Eliezer is a good man, and Abraham evidently had surveyed his situation and was ready to pass on and give the tribe, the dynasty of his house to Eliezer. “And, behold, the word of the LORD came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir.” (verse 4) Now this is the second time in the Bible the word of the LORD comes. How does it come? It’s not saying. How does the word of the Lord come to you and I? 99.9 percent of the time, right here [he’s probably holding up his Bible], written, ok. You know, you know some people sometimes, every time you try to talk to them about something ‘Well the Lord told me, well the Lord told me I could do this, the Lord told me I could sleep with her, the Lord told me I could be paid under the table,’ no he did not. He gave us a Book! He’s not schizophrenic, he wouldn’t write one thing down and tell you that you could do something different, that’s why we have a Book! It’s written down. And if we could hear God as clear as you hear him we wouldn’t need a book, we’d stand around with our antennas up in direct communication with an uplink. It says ‘we know in part, and prophecy in part, we have his will,’ there are times when God speaks to us, there are times when God has put impressions on my heart or your heart, that’s the exception not the rule. But God does that, he reserves the right to do that. And I think he does it for us in all different ways, depending on our personality. I find in here, and I hear him here, when he wants to talk to me and put an impression on my heart, and he’s going to want me to make the right decision on August 15^th, he starts in June. Because I’m so thick it takes at least two months of prompting to get through, for me to say ‘That is you, isn’t it Lord?’ And he stoops down and condescends to my thickness to do that in a wonderful way. But the primary way here, here the word of the LORD come to him again. “And, behold, the word of the LORD came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir.” (verse 4) So as he’s sitting there looking at Eliezer thinking ‘You know, I talked to the LORD about this, I don’t know what’s going to happen,’ thinking ‘Well he’s not a bad guy,’ and all of a sudden on his heart he knows “This shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir. And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.” (verses 4-5) The word “tell” there is the idea of counting the stars. Isn’t it interesting what God has to do. Again Abraham has got 318 armed servants, you figure most of them are probably married, that’s at least 600, they had kids, there are over 1,000 and whoever else is with him, and he lives in a pretty busy encampment. And God wants to speak to him, and it says “he” the LORD, “brought him forth abroad,” he took Abraham alone. You know, that’s a great place to be with the Lord, alone. That’s a great place to cultivate your relationship with him. It’s a great place, because in the final analysis for every one of us, when I lay in the hospital bed somewhere, and it’s time for me to pass, I’m not gonna do it with my kids or my friends, that’s alone, there’s an aloneness ultimately that we all have with him. But that shouldn’t be a terrible thing, because we know his ways, we’re used to him. Isn’t it interesting, he takes Abraham alone. How many times has times has God taken you and I alone to say something to us. He says ‘Alright Abraham, look up at the stars, tell me if you can number them.’eHHe We still can’t, by the way. We have about 30,000 catalogued by name, most astronomers. But they know there are hundreds of billions now. Abraham had no idea, God was trying to say to him that your offspring is going to be innumerable, is what he’s trying to say. He’s not trying to say it’s going to be hundreds of billions of them, ‘and if you can’t count them, no wonder I can’t communicate with you.’ ‘Tell me if you can number them, Abraham.’ No trucks, no gases in the air, no Al Gore wasn’t worried about anything back then, just imagine what it was like to look up, he says “So shall thy seed be.”

Abram Believe In The LORD Who Was Making All These Promises

Verse 6, central in all of the Bible, it’s quoted in Romans chapter 4, Galatians chapter 3, James chapter 2, and it says “And he” Abram “believed in the LORD; and he” the LORD “counted it to him for righteousness.” (verse 6) He believed in the LORD, and the LORD counted it for righteousness. Well wait a minute, didn’t he believe in him before? he left Ur of the Chaldees and followed him. What’s it talking about? Galatians 3 says ‘God spoke to him about his seed, singular, not seeds as of many,’ and told him that his seed will be a multitude. God made a promise to him through his seed. No doubt Abraham understood, this is “the seed” of the woman, that would crush the head of the serpent. Jesus said that ‘he loved to see my day, and he saw it,’ speaking of Abraham (John 8:58). Something that Abraham believes at this point, and it’s interesting as we look at the verse, because it says this, ‘Abraham, he believed in the LORD,’ it does not say ‘Abraham believed the LORD,’ ok? The LORD said ‘Abraham, you’re descendants are going to be like the stars, if you can count them.’ and it doesn’t say ‘Abraham believed what the LORD said.’ It doesn’t say that. It says ‘Abraham believed in the LORD,’ and those things are all there in the Hebrew, “Abraham believe in the LORD,” there was something about God right then that Abraham rested in. The word “believed” means “to lean upon, to bear all of your weight on something, to consider it that dependable that you can put all of your weight on it,” and it says right then Abraham believed “in” the LORD. Was it just something then that broke through to his heart with the One with whom he had to do? he believed in the LORD. It doesn’t say he believed the LORD, because he’s going to take Hagar, going to make some mistakes trying to do this himself, still as time goes on. But he believe in the LORD at this point in time. “and he counted it to him for righteousness.” (verse 6b) Again, it wasn’t meritorious, it wasn’t that he believed a specific thing that God accounted it to him as righteousness, the “it” was the fact that he believe “in” the LORD who was making the promises to him. Something happens to Abraham at this point in time, and he trusts God, he just lets go and he leans on God, he believes “in” the LORD, and he, the LORD, counted it, that, believing in him, to him, not as righteousness, for righteousness, for righteousness. [Comment: I’m a person who likes to “connect the dots,” have everything figured out, I also love detective series on TV, and connecting the dots in history, so I always want to be in control, and try to figure out “how God” or the ways God is going to keep his word to me, answer my prayers. This runs 100 percent counter to what Abraham has just learned to do here, to “believe in the God who had made these promises,” without trying to figure out how or when he was going to fulfill those promises. i.e. We’ve got to stop trying to “connect the dots” on how and when God is going to answer our prayers and what promises he may have made to us, and just trust him, and leave it up to him. Don’t stop praying for these things, but trust in the Lord God to answer your prayers, keeping his word to you. I honestly believe this is the key lesson in this set of verses. It is for me, anyway.] The righteousness that God allowed to be supplied in Abraham’s life was in belief in this One who had spoken to him, and no doubt it was relative to Christ, it was relative to a seed, it was relative to more than we just get in the picture. But Romans, Galatians and James tells us that, gives us the other details, so very interesting.

The Covenant Of The Parts--God’s Great Promise To Abraham & His Descendants

“And he said unto him, I am the LORD that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it. And he said, LORD God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?” (verses 7-8) Well wait a minute, I thought it just said he believed God, now he’s already back where we are in one sentence. Well no, he believed in the LORD. Now God says ‘I’m the one that you’re believing in, that brought you out of Ur of Chaldees and into this land to inherit it.’ Now he asks a separate question, ‘How shall I know?’ he’s believing in God, ‘But how shall I know this land shall be mine?’ [Comment: Also Abraham is asking a different question, where before he was asking about him going childless, now he’s asking God about a different promise, God’s promise to give him the land of Canaan.] He says “whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it? And he said unto him, Take me an heifer of three years old, and a she goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon. And he took unto him all these, and divided them in the midst, and laid each piece one against another: but the birds divided he not.” (verses 8b-10) Now Jeremiah chapter 34, verse 18 tells us what’s going on here (let’s turn there, I should have put a marker in there, but, at my age it’s lucky I can remember to bring my Bible). Jeremiah 34:18, “And I will give the men that have transgressed my covenant, which have not performed the words of the covenant which they had made before me, when they cut the calf in twain, and passed between the parts thereof,” God clearly says that it’s the making of a covenant. What would happen was, they cut the calf [in half] here, the goat, they evidently laid the pigeon and the dove on either side, they didn’t split those, and then if you were going to make a covenant with someone, you would take hands and you would walk through the midst of those sacrificed animals, and you basically said ‘Let this happen to us if we don’t keep this covenant now, there’s blood that’s been shed, there’s a sacrifice that’s been made, and that makes this covenant we’re making with each other sacred.’ The picture that you want to see here now as we look at this, and this is a dark night of Abraham’s life, so God is entering into his soul, God is doing remarkable things with his emotions. Abraham will fall into a deep sleep, and God goes through these parts by himself. God establishes the covenant, he didn’t need any help from Abraham. That’s why he didn’t pick Melchizedek [and as I personally believe, Melchizedek was the pre-Incarnate Jesus Christ, who was the God of the Old Testament, the third part of Elohim], because he wanted to pick an idolator from Ur of the Chaldees and show the world that he’s able to make a covenant of grace with a sinful human being so that you and I could stand fast in the covenant that he’s made with us through the blood of Christ, not by doing anything meritorious on our own. Certainly our lives should be changed when we enter into the fulness of Christ, but the covenant, our salvation is based upon what God has done for us. [And a point here I’d like to point out, in the interest of unity in the Body of Christ, often the Sunday-observing side of the Body of Christ likes to call the Sabbath-keeping Churches of God legalists that believe in obedience of the works of the Law for salvation, whilst this is what they actually believe: “on the subject of grace, I clearly remember Mr. Armstrong, senior pastor of the Worldwide Church of God always taught us that grace saves us (i.e eternal life) but our works (good works and works of obedience) earn our rewards (i.e. one city, five cities, as Jesus said).” This was the major Sabbath-keeping Church of God denomination during the 20^th century, of whom the more than 375 Sabbath-keeping Church of God denominations split off of right after it’s demise in 1995. A few of them went into full-blown legalism, but most of them maintain the proper orthodoxy as taught by Mr. Armstrong, that salvation, eternal life, is a gift of grace, earned by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, whilst our rewards in the coming Kingdom of God will be based upon our works, both those of obedience to the Law of God, and those of good works toward humanity in the name of Jesus Christ. So bury your doctrinal hatchets in the ground where they belong.] We have an interesting picture. Now the fowls, “And when the fowls came down upon the carcasses, Abram drove them away. And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and, lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him.” (verses 11-12) Now doubt it would relate to a picture of the 400 years in Egypt, but there’s a much deeper picture, I have no doubt here. Beating away the birds of prey is a picture of what we constantly have to do if we want to stand with confidence, you know, there’s warfare that you and I face as we want to just stand in God’s grace. And the darkness, you know, outer darkness is the destiny of those who refuse to accept Christ, and it’s unimaginable darkness, and it’s separated from God. Look, please, we live in a time when the Church [greater Body of Christ] doesn’t want to use the “H” word, ‘Hell, no don’t talk about hell, sin, don’t talk about those things, the blood, no, no, that’s offensive, no, no, that’s bad for self-esteem, you’re going to give people a poor self-image.’ Wait a minute, those are the central issues of what we believe, there is heaven and hell, there’s eternal destiny for every one of us, we are not temporary, we live eternally, ultimately separated from God in outer darkness, or in heaven. The only way we can go to heaven is through the blood of an innocent substitute, because all of us are sinners, and through the blood of Jesus Christ he shed on the cross, through the fact that he bore the sins of the world there, it says he took the sin of the world up on the tree with him, and God poured out his wrath on our sin, on his Son, on the tree, and paid the price once and for all, Christ said ‘Tutelisti, paid in full,’ it is finished when he died. That’s at the center of what we believe. And everybody wants to softshell and be non-offensive now. You watch the Church and it’s disturbing, because it’s going back to meditative prayer [some types of meditative prayer are ok, good. He’s talking about that Hindu type stuff], it’s going back to third and fourth century monks, it’s going back to mantras, Roman Catholicism [which teaches the “everburning hellfire doctrine, which Calvary Chapels have watered down to “separation in outer darkness, which is not what Revelation 20:14-15 teaches at all, it teaches a hellfire that burns up the wicked, killing them off, merciful death, not everburning hellfire. I’d like to make a comment here: Within the Body of Christ there are various beliefs about the doctrines of heaven and hell, what he’s teaching is a specific doctrinal belief of the Calvary Chapels, Catholics teach something a bit different, they teach about an everburning hellfire, while the Sabbath-keeping Churches of God teach something else, all groups have God’s indwelling Holy Spirit to one degree or another, and they all interpret the very same verses about hell in a different manner. To see some of those beliefs, see https://unityinchrist.com/plaintruth/battle.htm], with Hinduism, this big unclean soup that everybody’s being drawn into. No, the lines of demarcation are 100 percent clear, it’s darkness and it’s light. It’s life and it’s death, it’s heaven and it’s hell, and there is one name given among men whereby we must be saved, the name of Jesus, one name. Abraham here, deep sleep, great darkness fell upon him.

“The Iniquity Of The Amorites Is Not Yet Full”--When A Nation Reaches The Level Of Universal Evil

“And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years;” (verse 13) Acts is going to tell us it’s 430 years that they were there, evidently they were afflicted 400, because the early years when Joseph was there, there was leniency towards them until a Pharaoh arose who knew not Joseph [this Pharoah who knew not Joseph could have arisen 100 to 200 years after Joseph arrived in Egypt, since Abraham is in the 1800s BC and the Exodus occurred in 1446BC, the time they actually spent in Egypt, from the time of Joseph going down there, was actually far less than 430 years. It was 430 years from this point in time when Genesis 15 and this “covenant of the parts” occurred]. “And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance.” (verse 14) You saw the movie, right? Charlton Heston and all those guys, they came out with all that stuff. “And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age.” (verse 15) 175, that’s a pretty good old age. He didn’t start to walk with God until he was 75, it means he walked with God for 100 years. Wow, what a journey, 100 years. Look, ‘You’re going to go to your fathers in peace,’ interesting, because he came from a family of idolators, God must be talking about Adam, Seth, Noah, the fathers of the faith that had believed, ‘You’re going to your fathers in peace,’ his faith was genuine, and ‘you’re going to die in a good old age.’ Beyond that, “But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.” (verse 16) Now isn’t it interesting, some try to say that a generation is 40 years, and then if you track that carefully, you realize that a generation is 38 years, where here God is saying a generation is 100 years. I don’t know exactly what that means, only this, the Jews came back into the land in 1948, I don’t want to wait till 2048 to go be with him, so I hope a generation is not 100 years. And I think it’s “genos” the way, the Jewish people by the way. “But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again:” notice this, “for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.” (verse 16) Isn’t that interesting? Evidently the iniquity of the Sodomites was not yet full. God is going to wait 400 years [from Genesis 15 to 1406BC] before he uses Joshua and the children of Israel crossing miraculously over the Jordan River, the victory at Jericho and start to clean up the land. God measures time morally, not by the clock, and not by the calendar. Iniquity stores itself up until the dam breaks, as it were. God measures time morally, he does it in a human individual life. If someone is playing a game with God, we’re told in the New Testament in Romans and Peter it says, God doesn’t measure time the way we do, and God is longsuffering, hoping that his goodness will lead someone to repentance. But Paul says the problem is, because God doesn’t bring his chastening down on a life, the person thinks, ‘What I’m doing then is ok with God.’ No, no, remember we have the Book, and it’s an open-book test, ok. What does God think about this, what does God think about your sin, it’s an open-book test. Because his chastening rod hasn’t come down on your life doesn’t mean he’s approving, it means you’re running out of room. But he measures time morally, we found that out in Genesis chapter 6, when he says ‘My spirit shall not always strive with this generation,’ in the days of Noah. Now he’s saying, ‘Look, the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.’ God is going to let his own people, in Egyptian bondage, he’s going to let them go through the Wilderness, and again, I look at that and I think ‘Why didn’t he just let Moses become Pharaoh, finance the trip back to Canaan, send the Egyptian army to clean out the Canaanites, and just let him set up house in a month?’ You know, it would be so much easier if I was making the plans. They’d never have seen the Red Sea part, they would never have seen the demonstration of God’s power, they’d have never seen his faithfulness with a wayward people, they’d have never seen his hand, they’d have never seen his heart, they’d have seen Egyptian strength. ‘but the iniquity of the Amorites,’ he’s going to let the Canaanite people go on for 400 years in their sin, again, go to the University of Pennsylvania, get a book on the Canaanites, their religious practices, their sexual practices, it is unbelievable. No wonder God finally said, ‘morally, they’ve come to the point where there’s no more redemption, I’m going to clean them out.’ He didn’t say there wasn’t any, because Rahab, the prostitute, a Canaanite gives her heart to the Living God and is spared. There will be those, Caleb is a Kenizite, he’s not even a, Caleb goes in and takes Hebron, he gets his inheritance in the land, he’s not even from the children of Israel. He joins to them. [“Kenizzite (Hebrew: קנזי, romanized: Qənizzî, also spelled Cenezite in the Douay–Rheims Bible) was an Edomitish tribe referred to in the covenant God made with Abraham (Genesis 15:19). They are not mentioned among the other inhabitants of Canaan in Exodus 3:8 and Joshua 3:10 and probably inhabited some part of Arabia, in the confines of Syria.” The strange thing is, the Edomites didn’t exist until Isaac had Esau, and Esau’s descendants became Edomites, and some of them became Kenizzites, so Yahweh is mentioning the Kenizzites in Genesis 15 generations before they existed.] 400 years, how long does America have? God is longsuffering, how long do we have? How long do we have until God says “the iniquity of the United States has come to a full”? [It’s getting real close, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Up6-5kZDVdk&t=12s The ROOT CAUSE Of Human Trafficking & How To SAVE CHILDREN From It! | Tim Ballard. This podcast is by Lewis Howes, who is not grinding any religious axes (see https://everipedia.org/wiki/lang_en/Lewis_Howes)] How long do we have? I don’t know. You and I are still here, Salt and Light, the preservative, so God still has a plan tonight, still has a plan for the person you work with, the person that drives you out of your mind, the person that needs to hear about the love of Jesus tomorrow. So if he didn’t we wouldn’t be here.

The Covenant Of Genesis 15 Spelled Out

“But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces.” (verses 16-17) “behold,” two things, “a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp.” It’s almost like the Lion and the Lamb. “In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates:” (verse 18) “from the river of Egypt” which is not the Nile, it’s on the border in the south [some Jews and Messianic Jews disagree with Pastor Joe here, and believe this is the River Nile, since the border at the Euphrates is a border at a great river. We’ll find out if it’s the Nile, all the way to the Blue Nile’s headwaters. Personally myself, giving the Millennial nation of Israel a hands-on influence into North Africa and Africa itself will give a tremendous blessing to the people of those regions.] All the land they’re fighting over today, here’s the boundaries. “the Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaims,” which are giants, “and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.” (verses 19-21) “the Jebusites,” those who live in Jerusalem, God says ‘I’ve given it all to you.’ God passes through the parts without Abraham, God makes the covenant, the New Testament, the better covenant is based on God’s faithfulness to us, the Law was based on man’s faithfulness to God. God goes through the parts, “behold,” he says, “a smoking furnace and a burning lamp.” He’s either the light of the world to us, or a smoking furnace coming in judgment. [This was a national covenant made to Abraham, not dependent on anything Abraham did or would do, but on God’s faithfulness. You might say this covenant promise was a reward to Abraham for his faithfulness up to this point, but it is no longer dependent on anything Abraham would do. God will go on to continue to test Abraham’s faith, but this covenant promise is sure and dependent on God’s faithfulness alone. To understand the various covenants of God, see https://unityinchrist.com/newcovenant/TheNEWCOVENANT.htm] Isn’t it interesting, a smoking furnace and a burning lamp go through, God’s nature, God’s person, the picture. And please look in verse 18, “In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates:” Take note, he had said to Abraham in chapter 12, verse 1, now I’ll read it, “Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land” first he said “that I will shew thee:” Then in chapter 13 he said to Abraham, he said, ‘Lift up your eyes now, please, look to the north, south, east, west, so forth, for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, unto thy seed forever.’ Now what’s changed, God has made a covenant, and it says in verse 18, “In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed” past tense “have I given…” First he said ‘I want you to go, I’ll show it to you.’ Then he says ‘Walk through the land, because I’m going to give it to you.’ And then on this day, when Abraham is fearful, he’s had a victory, you know how the Israelites had a great victory at Jericho, and then Ai they sinned and they fell, Elijah has a great victory over the prophets of Baal, and ends up running from Jezebel and he wants to die under the juniper tree there. Here Abram has this great victory, no doubt by God’s divine guidance, he sends Melchizedek to encourage him, and head off Bera king of Sodom. And then afterwards God speaks to Abraham and speaks to his emotions, and says ‘Abraham, fear not, I am your shield, I’m going to protect you, I am your exceeding great reward.’ ‘You turned down all the stuff Bera was going to give you, Abraham, you haven’t lost anything.’ ‘But God,’ you ever say that? ‘But God,’ nobody knows what I’m talking about? ‘But God,’ you know you might as well be honest with him, because all things are open and naked before the One with whom we have to do. You can be honest with him and say “Lord, I’m angry with you, you let me down.’ That’s much better than saying ‘Oh Lord, thou lovest,’ you know, just be honest with him. I’m not saying it’s right to be angry, I’m saying he sees, come to terms, be honest, come into the light, and he heals, and say ‘Lord, I’m angry, you let this happen and I don’t understand, I’m afraid, Lord, whose going to protect me?’ Look Abraham, the man of faith, and God says ‘Abraham, fear not,’ he was afraid, right after a tremendous victory, ‘I’m your shield and your exceeding great reward,’ ‘But God, I don’t have any offspring, big reward, what’s the deal, this Eliezer from Damascus, he’s a great guy, and I guess if that’s what you want to do, that’s ok, but, I’ve been telling the whole crew here and Sarah and everybody a different story.’ ‘No Abraham, it’s not going to be Eliezer, it’s going to be somebody from your own line, come here, I want to talk to you, come on outside with me.’ You know, I encourage you to do that. If there’s ever a clear night when you can see the stars around here, there isn’t a lot of them, but if there ever is, get alone somewhere and stand out there, and look up, praise the Lord, ‘O Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth, you’ve set thy glory above the heavens, out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou hast…when I consider the sun and the moon and the stars, the work of thy fingers, what is man that thou art mindful of him, or the Son of man that thou visitest him,’ get outside, look up, understand how remarkable and how big our Saviour and our Lord is. He says ‘Abraham, come on, let me take you aside here, let’s do a little business, start counting, when you get past 20,000 give me a call, can you number them? Neither will you be able to number your offspring, that’s the way it’s going to be, Abraham.’ And he bowed his heart, and said ‘I believe in you God, I don’t know about the star stuff, but I believe in you.’ And it was accounted unto him for righteousness. He said ‘You know, I’m the God who took you from the Ur of the Chaldees, I appeared to you there, remember. I brought you into this land, I’m going to give it to you, your family.’ ‘How do I know, LORD, that this land will ever be mine?’ ‘Now, let’s do it this way, get a calf, heifer, young goat, turtledove, get a pigeon, cut ‘em in half, lay them out, I’ll meet you,’ all day long, come on God, I hope it wasn’t a hundred degrees like it was today, he’s beating off the vultures all day, God waits till it’s dark, and not only that, he waits till Abraham is tired and falls asleep, and then something beyond natural, a supernatural darkness comes, and Abraham has to realize that God’s judgment is like a burning furnace, but in the darkness he’s also like a lamp, he’s like a light, he’s the light of the world. He says ‘Abraham, your seed, they’re going to have this land, they’re going to go down to Egypt for 400 years, but I’m going to bring them back, and they’re going to get it.’ But in the midst of that, this vision, Abraham not passing through the parts, God passing through the parts, and then saying to Abraham ‘I’ve made the covenant, it ain’t dependent on you, it’s dependent on me. What’s dependent on you, is I want you to lean on me with all of your might, I want you to believe, because I have given this to you, it’s done.’

In closing

Where are you tonight, look, as a Christian? Sometimes we can struggle for years with condemnation, and then we go through this whole thing where we try to rehab the old man, we take him to the rehab program. The Bible doesn’t say rehab, kill him, crucify him, consider him dead, it doesn’t say rehab him. Because your fallen nature, if you notice, is crazier now than it was when you first got saved, because he’s been trapped down there longer. And as Christ is growing in you and you’re getting stronger, he’s more subdued, any day you want to look down there he’s going ‘Aaaaahhhgg!!!’ he’s there. You wake up in the morning he’ll smack you in the face. Are you going to heaven [receiving eternal life] because of something you do and your performance with? Or is it because of what God has done? Is it because of the blood, is it because of God’s judgment coming on his Son and paying the price for you? Paul doesn’t say rehab the old man, he said crucify him, consider him dead, ‘I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, you not I but Christ liveth in me, and the life that I now live in the flesh I live for the Son of God who loved me, and gave himself, not just for me, but gave himself in my stead.’ Wow. I’m going to have the musicians come, we’ll sing a last song, but look, if you’re here tonight and you don’t know Christ as your Saviour, please understand the terms, ok? This life goes by, let me tell you how it goes by, ok. I’m 56, I’d have got mad at you if you told me yesterday, if you told me I was going to be 30, that was just yesterday. I thought 30 was old. I was so wrong. Because 56 is young, I creak and I can’t see, I can’t digest, I can’t remember, but it’s young. I’m working my way back to being a baby when I was really young. But it goes by like that, the Bible says life is a vapour, it’s like a dream. I could get, in this room, people here that are over 80 years old to stand up and say, that is exactly the way life is, snap! it goes by like that. And where do you spend eternity? Because I don’t want to play any phony games with you, and I don’t want to play church, I don’t want to go to a building where there’s a bunch of nice stuff, with a bunch of nice people, and sing nice songs, and tell nice stories, and have a nice time till you die and burn forever [so he does believe in everburning hell, which isn’t really Biblical, see that link I listed]. OK? this is what the Bible says, God loves you, he’s Almighty, he’s all-powerful, we’ve sinned against him, he sent his Son to die in our place, to be a substitute, so he can both be just and the justifier of the ungodly. He’s figured out a way in his genius, that as God he can remain holy, and he can still be just and the justifier of the ungodly. Because someone innocent, Christ, we owe a debt that we can’t pay, so Christ paid a debt he didn’t owe. And he purchased a value. And if you will come tonight and say ‘I want that, he’s gotten me out of hock, he died in my place, I want to know when I die, when I slip out into the darkness, I want to know that I’m going to heaven [receiving eternal life in the first resurrection to immortality, 1^st Corinthians 15:49-54], to glory.’ Abraham went to his fathers in peace, it says (verse 15). If you don’t know that tonight, as we sing this last song, we’re going to stand in a minute and we’re going to play, I’m going to ask you to come down here, and stand here, and say ‘You know what, if this is all true, I want to know, I don’t want to play church, I don’t want to play religious games, but I want to know when I die, that my sins are forgiven, because I got some, I’m a sinner, it’s the truth, and I don’t want to die in my sins, I want to die washed and cleansed, I want to die in the love of God, I want to die with my head lifted up saying Father, thank you for sending your Son to die in my place, to take my place.’ I remember the story of a missionary in China, and there were huge brushfires that were started like we have sometimes in southern California, Arizona, and people were running and trying to escape, and the missionary got with his little son, little boy, and he started a fire, and the son said ‘Dad, what are you doing?’ he was a little boy, starting a fire, trying to get away from the fire, and then he realized his father had burned an area, and as that burned away, they got in the middle of that, and when the fires blew by they weren’t injured, because it was pre-burned, the place was already burned where they stood. And that’s what Jesus Christ has done for us. And if you don’t know him tonight, as we sing this last song, I encourage you to come, let’s stand together, let’s pray, and be strong with his love tonight. We see what’s going on in the world, you can think about it a week if you want to, I don’t know, the Bible says ‘today is the [Greek: “an” acceptable day of salvation’]. If I was giving away the keys to a Rolls Royce tonight, you’d be up here, great car, it wears out. But what God is giving away tonight will never wear out, forgiveness in Jesus Christ never wears out…[transcript of a connective expository sermon on Genesis 14:18-24 and Genesis 15:1-21, given by Pastor Joe Focht, Calvary Chapel of Philadelphia, 13500 Philmont Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19116]