John Lennox: Abraham, The Friend Of God

[Music] when I got married about 50 years ago

not quite there were speeches at the wedding and an Englishman got up and he said I have no jokes about

Irishmen and I thought I was delivered from all kinds of pain and then he added of course he said it is quite obvious that it is no joke being an

Irishman it is a great pleasure to be with you all this year and I'm especially delighted that this conference is taking place in

Poland my journey from kavit to Visa was a journey down memory lane for in the late 70s and the early 80s I've been

preaching in almost every single town and Village around this area in chesen and Belco buwa Scot in hu in Yia and so

on and so forth and the idea that such a conference would ever be possible in this country is really a miracle taking place and I think it's wonderful to see

many of my polish friends from those days still here Who Bore the brunt of defending the Christian faith in very difficult

circumstances and I think it's a great encouragement to them to see that this is possible in these

days now in my previous two series of studies at EF I considered the lives of two of the great Pioneer leaders of

scripture Joseph and Daniel they both Rose to become leaders of Major World

Empires Joseph of Egypt and Daniel of both Babylon and mid Persia they were both of them men whose

success as Leaders was due to their walk in faith in the enduring reality of God and one of the lessons we learned

from Daniel was that he did not simply maintain his Devotion to God privately he maintained his public witness to the very end of his

life and we saw that is an immense challenge for us in an age where the pressure to privatize faith is increasing every

day now this year we're going back even further in history to consider the life of a man who was their common ancest in

two senses physically and spiritually a man who's held out to us in scripture as the great Pioneer of

Faith his name is Abraham but there's a very big difference between Abraham and Joseph and

Daniel the New Testament only mentions Joseph six times and Daniel once for as

Abraham is Central to the development of New Testament Theology and is mentioned

over 60 times and is a principal figure in the books of Romans Galatians and

Hebrews I have discovered him to be a formidable character a big character I heard yesterday of a man who

had many children all of them having biblical names and the father has asked why didn't you call one of of your children

Abraham and he said we thought about it but the name's too big for any child to bear and that is a sense that I have had

as I've studied this great man who is partly

Enigma and partly mystery and defies every classification that I can find and the biblical account of his

life has raised in my mind as many questions as it has done answers and I am going to share with the experts here many of those questions and very few of

the answers in one sense of course Abraham is the mirror opposite of both Daniel and Joseph Abraham was called firstly to

leave the region of Mesopotamia to which Daniel would later be deported and secondly Abraham himself self was deported from Egypt where

eventually Joseph would run the Empire Abram lived first as a city dweller in Ur and haran and then as a migrant

Nomad he never ruled a nation let alone an Empire and in a sense there's a spiritual logic here God calls the man

Abram out from the Mesopotamian culture to live as a pilgrim so that he can learn the

fundamental lessons of what it means to trust God he is the Paradigm of faith in God

but then as the centuries roll God will choose people out of his descendants who've learned those lessons to go back

into the secular City to witness for him so there's a movement to get the world out of the pilgrim before you send the

pilgrim back into the world armed with the message that the world needs to

hear now Abraham was chosen by God to be the progenitor of a nation that was to bring blessing to the whole

world Joseph and Daniel are magnificent examples of that happening but they in turn are far out

shadowed by the one who is described as the Seed of Abraham Jesus Christ the son of God the savior of the world our new

testament begins with this is the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David the son of

Abraham Abraham was the father of Isaac and Isaac was the father of Jacob Christianity is not a mere

philosophy anybody with enough brains can think of a philosophy but they cannot think of history and Christianity is firmly

anchored in historical events and in particular is geared and linked with the history of Abraham and his

descendants so there is a strong historical Dimension to what we read but there is more than that it was never

just history and physical descent as Christ pointed out in John 8 to those Jews who came to him and said We Are The Offspring of Abraham and have

never been enslaved to anyone Jesus said to them I know that you are Abram's Offspring yet you seek

to kill me because my word finds no place in you if you were Abram's children you would be doing what Abram did but now you seek to kill me a man

who's told you the truth that I have heard from God this is not what Abram did you are doing what your father did

you are of your father the devil so it's obvious isn't it that being one of Abram's true Offspring is more than being physically

descended from him listen to one of the key statements of justification by faith in Romans 4 we say that Abram's faith

that Faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness how then was it counted to him was it before after he had been circumcised it was not after but before

he was circumcised he received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith when he was still uncircumcised the perf purpose

was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised and in

Galatians in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith and if you are Christ's then you are Abram's

Offspring as according to promise many years ago I was in Israel I had met a couple a couple of

years before that in Austria Jewish people whose faith in God had been Shattered by outfits and I met them again in Israel

and we went out for a meal and we were talking animatedly about the role of Israel in history and suddenly the wife said to me

she said why aren't you a Jew and I was slightly taken AB her husband was incensed he said said my

dear you you mustn't ask that question Oh I said it's all right I said haven't you realized what I am and she looked at me and she said

what are you well I said actually I said and I lowered my voice I said I'm a son of Abraham she said you are

not I said I am but you can't be you're not a Jew oh I said that's very interesting I said tell me

what do you have to do to be a son of Abraham I said well you know Abram had two sons Yak Isaac and Ishmael is is

Ishmael a Jew oh no she said I said why not well he didn't have a Jewish mother his mother was Egyptian oh I said that's

very interesting I said tell me I I said um Isaac had two sons yeaf and

Yakov was eaf I saw a Jew oh no she said I said what about his mother she was called rivka Rebecca oh she said it's a bit difficult isn't

it I said it is and I let them stew for a little while and and then um I I said you know it's almost as if God was

choosing who the seed would be oh she said that's right God was choosing and I said you know what God has ch

chosen that anybody who trusts God like Abraham did is counted a child of abah of

Abraham she looked at me for a long time and she said you know you have more hope for our nation we than we have ourselves but this gets exciting ladies and

gentlemen you see I've just read to you that if we are christs we are Abram's seed as according to the promise and I

guarantee every one of us even though we find the reading of legal language boring in the extreme with one

exception if it's a will that mentions us you will never see such a reversal of concentration if you find that somebody

discovers that their name is written into a will now you will notice in the New Testament in connection with Abraham there's a lot of legal language that some of it is

highly Technical and the reading of Wills is a dangerous thing isn't it it can bring great joy to some people it can bring misery to others it can rupture and

Destroy families even Christian families inheritance ladies and gentlemen is a very big deal for all of us

us and we shall be investigating it but the fascinating thing here is this you and I if we trust Christ

are legal Hees of Abraham what does that mean have you thought about what it actually means we'll have to explore it

because if I'm a legal air of a man who's put a massive footprint on history I better find out exactly what that

means so that is one of the things that we shall have to explore but we need to explore it Abram is such a big character

we need to explore it in a big context the context of the whole structure and the thought flow of the Book of Genesis now you're going to need two

things to follow me you're going to need the notes which are very inadequate but they'll help and you're going to need a Bible I hope you you've heard of a Bible you are going to need it because I would

expect you all to have read the text before we came I had an email sent out to that effect and secondly that you follow because we're dealing with um 15

16 chapters of scripture these four days and so in order to be able to go at a reasonable Pace I will expect you to follow from scripture now the big

picture of Genesis is relatively simple you will see there that there are six major sections the book splits into two

halves and it is organized or in a in a way agreed by most commentators with the expression that runs like these are the generations of

or this is the account of now it's slightly more sophisticated than having each section for one of those mentions but roughly speaking you have got three

big sections in the first half the creation of the universe and human beings then what it is to be human and the beginning of sin and death and then

from Adam to the Judgment of the world where God destroys the World by water and then the second half of the book is

very easy to see how that's organized in a literary way you can summarize it like this I am the god of Abraham of Isaac and of

Jacob the first section of this second half is Abraham and his sons and ends with the death of Abraham the second

section is Isaac and his sons and ends with the death of Isaac and the final section is Jacob and his sons and it ends with the death of both Jacob and

Joseph so in that sense it's quite simple the first section teaches us about the nature of God about the status

of the universe about the status of human beings and the major emphasis is that God

speaks and he organizes and creates the universe by a speech act and God said

which is an unpacking of John 1 verse one in the beginning was the word and the high point is reached with the creation of human beings and we read

these magnificent and staggering words and God said to them and we learn that human beings are uniquely dignified by the

status of being capable of understanding the speech of God and the Book of Genesis is going to unpack that and particularly the story of Abram as God

speaks to him and reveals himself to him then section two starts again with the creation of human beings you'll notice

that the first three sections each of them mentions the creation of human beings man made in the image of God what does it mean well man is made of the

Dust of the ground he's physical he has an aesthetic sense he needs food he's curious he works he has a relationship with wife and family but then we

discover that life at its highest is a relationship with God that is defined by God God's word and God said in the day you eat

thereof you shall surely die so in section one it's creation by the word and in section two it's the definition

of human life at its highest as a relationship with God through his word and the key issue is are humans going to

trust the word of God or not and that is going to be the major topic of Genesis section one is an assault against

naturalism this universe is a creation of God section two is an assault against the redefinition of

man and the utilitarianism that characterizes our Western World and section three the story of Noah is again an assault on

naturalism but but it tells us that in the past history of the universe there was a break in the uniformity of

Nature and God used a constituent element of the universe to destroy it namely water stand back from all of

that section one of Genesis talks about creation section two of Genesis talks about the fall and the beginnings of of

a hinted Redemption section three talks about judgment those are three Central pillars of what we call the Theology of

Christianity in the Bible and we are reminded that as it was in the days of Noah so shall it be in the days of the

son of man that God will in the future one day intervene it will be a rupture in the uniformity of nature when he will judge and use a con itent element of the

universe to destroy it not water but fire so those three big things and you will see how Supernatural they are there

is such a profound dimension of supernaturalism in scripture right from the very

beginning so that's the first half of the book Genesis you see not only gives a an account of the temporal beginnings of

the universe but it also gives us a Biblical anthropology in the original sense of

that word a logos account of anthropos man and Leon Cass a Jewish writer of great academic distinction suggests that the stories

are powerful precisely because they present human life in all its moral ambiguity they present to us not simply

what once happened in a particular time and place but in a very real sense they will throw light on what always

happens and hence they will throw light on the complexity of our own lives so Genesis does not simply show us

what is first in time but what what is first in importance when it comes to understanding fundamental

things God the universe life language morality relationships sin death Faith salvation

judgment and the first three sections reveal to us what the world once was in all its Glory with human beings made in

the image of God as the Pinnacle of his Creation with all their wonderful capacities and it then relates the devastation wrought by the misuse of

those capacities in disobeying the word of God and in bringing sin and alienation into the

world the banishing from Eden the trials of Life the increasing violence of human behavior that leads to

the capital Judgment of the flood with only the family of Noah saved to repopulate the planet it's a pretty Grim

picture and God starts again this time by calling out a particular person Abram from the

descendants of Noah to form a new nation that would live life God's way and of course the major lesson and

the biggest lesson is that since sin entered the world through human failure to trust God and grasping at Independence of God the

way back to God will involve learning to trust him and his word and you know it's immensely encouraging as we study we shall see

some of the immense complexities of the way back to God but we can stand back from this and be encouraged that have flawed men and women

like the three great Patriarchs and Abram in particular can learn to trust God then there's some hope for the rest of

us ladies and gentlemen the biggest issue we Face the biggest pressure on us is to undermine our confidence in God

and His word that's number one and the enemy will do anything he can to trip you up morally but he'll do everything

he can to undermine your confidence in the word of God and his truth that's why we have vast reams of history of Abraham and the Patriarchs

because the key issue for them in the midst of all the other issues of family and so on the key issue was am I going to trust

God and that will be the challenge to my heart and to yours well where did he start well we don't know a great deal about Abram's early

life but the Book of Joshua tells us that Abram was an idol worshipper and Joshua said to all the people thus says the Lord the god of

Israel long ago your fathers lived beyond the Euphrates Terah the father of Abraham and of nahor and they served

other gods that's the starting place and we know far too little about it really and so speculation is

rif but at least we can ask the question what is the nature of idolatry because God had to break its

grip in Abram's life is it relevant to us yes says John the Apostle little children keep

yourselves from idols they may be things forces Powers false gods ideas but generally speaking Idols

form that category of things that we trust rather than God they can be things we love though many in the ancient world feared their Idols the key thing is it

has to do with trust and so it has to do with a central message of Abram's life now of course every day we have to trust people do dentists

institutions but that does not mean we put our final trust in them and there are many things power Fame wealth health education sex and so

on that become God substitutes for many in our societies but in the west the dominant view of

naturalism its world view its Central focus is its proud Trust trust in the human mind and in its attribution of creative

powers to Nature and that is as idolatrous as any of the idolatries of the ancient world because of course you will be aware that ancient Babylonian

Mesopotamia their gods were material Gods by which I mean that they had not simply

cosmogenesis their gods came out of the original mass energy or physics and chemistry of the universe that is immensely

important as one writer put it getting it exactly right the gods of the ancient near East were descended from the heavens and the Earth the god of the

Bible created the heavens and the Earth that's the vast difference and it is amusing when you debate people like Michael Shermer and so on as they did in Oxford last year

and they come up with this argument you know you are an atheist with respect to Artimus Bal they go through the alphabet and tell me I'm an atheist with regard

to Zeus and then they said we just go one God more what a childish comment that is it shows they haven't a clue about the nature of the Gods of the

ancient near East because all the gods I've just mentioned were products of the universe the god of the Bible created the universe and we need to emphasize that very

strongly because what Genesis would be doing in the life of Abram is to move him from a world view that deifies the basic forces of nature as we would call

them projecting their images onto gods and bring him to the worship of the true God who transcends SpaceTime and

who created the universe and of course this idolatry is um the Center of what happens in um

Genesis in the Garden of Eden the Temptation surrounded the human satisfaction of three desires the basic appetite for food the desire for

aesthetic satisfaction and the intellectual desire for human flourishing you shall be as God and the subtlety of the talking

snake and that's another story but you'll notice that the principle simp Le first attack on Humanity was this has God

said has God said that's the attack that's where it comes if God can get you if if the enemy can get you to ask that question has God said you're well in the

way to losing your compass and what we need to do for one another at a conference like this and I'm so delighted to be part of it in all

the workshops is to Ram home the important importance and the reasons that God can be trusted and we can have confidence in him as we go out into a

world which for some of you means that you're in a very extreme minority and it's very hard to keep your head above the parapet and to keep yourself

straight and so I trust that God will encourage us so the central issue is this are we going to trust God in his

word or are we going to trust ourselves and our abilities there is a danger of that of course you know all of us in this room I suspect of had a very good

education and you know what one of the biggest dangers for us is it's idolatry of the mind you say what's that idolatry of the

Mind ladies and gentlemen is where I trust my mind and my intellectual ability and then I use God when I get stuck Christianity is when I trust God

and use my mind there's a vast world of difference and there's a Temptation for us especially if we've been given those

kind of gifts to subtly and increasingly trust our mind our arguments our abilities and God gets crammed into a corner and you can measure that by the

amount of time we spend in scripture which we claim to believe and to teach that's a challenge isn't it how can I possibly convince the world that the Bible is God's word when I'm a

bright person who spends five minutes a day or less reading it I probably don't need to say that to you but perhaps I do to some of the people that you're responsible for

teaching we need to wake up and get real about this and that's why and I'm so delighted to hear Stefan say it in his delightful way the importance of

beginning with the word of God and letting it soak into our minds and hearts now the universal project is the

background to Abram the building of the great City it is a fascinating genealogy because the genealogy of Shem is

interrupted of Noah is interrupted and you get this little bit about um Nimrod the founder of Babel who's said to be a

first mighty man on the earth a powerful Hunter and again we know relatively little about him Josephus held that it was Nimrod who excited the people of

shenar to such an affront and contempt of God he said he would be revenged on God if he should have a mind to drown the world again and his idea was to build a city big enough that the flood

of it happened again would never reached it there's a very telling phrase the beginning of his kingdom Genesis starts with the words in the

beginning that's the beginning of SpaceTime the universe now we come to another beginning the beginning of

secular power we would call it in the city of Babel which was a very Advanced project there are hints earlier in

Genesis about the beginnings of civilization Cain were told build a C called Enoch and one of his descendants had a particularly talented family that

developed agriculture industry music and the Arts and these ancient people as they migrated say to one another come let us

break bricks literally and burn them to a burning let us build for ourselves a city with a tower with its head in the

heavens and let us make a name for ourselves and the word for name is Shem this is all happening in the genealogy of

Shem let us make a Shem for ourselves what does that mean you say I'm here at this conference and I'm looking for meaning

of course we are what is your name what do you mean the search for meaning is one of the

most motivational searches that Humanity knows and we start with it let us make a name for ourselves but somehow they were discontent and this is making a name

through the use of advanced sophisticated human technology we're right into the 21st century of course Harvey Cox in his Landmark book

The secular City written in 65 says in our day the secular Metropolis stands as both the pattern of our life together and the symbol of our

view of the world and Leon Cass said Babel is a new idea in Genesis it's a redefining of what Humanity means and

this is what the city does now that is a topic for you to work out in your workshops the secular City

death in the city as Francis schaer once said what is the city and what is it significance because of course vast proportion of the earth now is living in

cities aren't they and big towers have you noticed how the nations are competing to build the biggest thing into the sky they can fascinating isn't

it Philip Noble writing in the American the most Primal motivation for skyscraper construction is to stake a claim to Mark the

land to show how your power can change the world both physically and psychologically nothing says I am Master of the Universe more clearly than the erection of a tall building and if it

can be taller than all the rest so much the better before the petronus towers no one knew where qual lumur was skycrapers are made to make space

they are built to make money but they are also built to make a point they are built to all and when we do get our true mile high tower in 2030 or sooner

one thing is certain behind the financing behind the army of workers the engineers The Architects there will stand a giant

ego personal corporate or national but still requiring its likeness to be etched in the clouds and the ideology of

the modern skyscraper is the ideology of ancient Babylon identity technological achievement press pushing out the

boundaries flaunting wealth and power reaching for the sky grasping at immortality and the tower zigurat in

Babylon was called etan Ani The House of the foundation of Heaven and Earth it sought to link the city with the

cosmos at the level of rational investigation and plotting the Stars trying to predict the seasons but then in trying to reach the heavens and to

control its powers do you recognize this as motivation the irony is that later in scripture we read that the only thing in Babylon that reached to heaven was its

sins the ancient T reached up towards heaven but Genesis has a beautifully ironic comment God had to come down to see what they were

building that's not bad is it it didn't reach it's very high God had to come down there was an unbridgeable gap between God and their

achievement and we need to communicate that ladies and gentlemen because the higher the skyscrapers go up they think the less space is left for

God because they feel that God resides in the gap between the height of the skyscraper and the dimension of heaven and God com Ed in a chilling way on

their capacity nothing will be impossible to them what does that mean does it mean that the project is feasible but God

will not allow it to happen well at least we can see what God does he doesn't destroy the city he breaks its language

down now language plays a vital part in Genesis by his word God created God said to them by his word he defines

morality and relationship and now God does something that confuses their

language because language creates unity and commonality it is the foundation of order and without common language the common building project

collapses since as we know in Europe even the lack of common language causes all kinds of misunderstandings and

frustrates the desire for control now these are things we could develop right from now and stop at this

they're so important the meaning of the city cuz can it all be wrong many of you work in cities and we owe the city to the development of the

million iPhones that there are in this room and all the rest of it we're grateful for the city well let's before I stop now this morning get to the

opposite side of this to get it into proportion the key statement is this God speaks to a man called

Abram and he says leave your country and your Kindred i' make a great nation off you but then he says this I will make your

name great Shem your Shem great this is it isn't it this is the

message it is actually something utterly fundamental because either I'm trying to make my own name

great or I'm Allowing God to make my name great where do I generate significance is meaning something only

only we and we alone can create as Babel thought Abram's called to trust God for meaning and inside any of us there can

be a struggle even in this conference we see walking around at this conference what we imagine to be great

names you know so and so great name you know well that may be as it may but we need to be careful with that kind of talk don't we because we can begin to feel

insignificant and the pressure then is to compete you listen to a group of powerful people talking and you can see subtly behind the scenes a pecking order is being established you ever notice

that no you wouldn't notice that would you and people pushing and because I'm searching for my significance and you're searching for

your significance my significance sometimes mean that I push my towered a bit higher than yours in fact I can't even see yours and you can't even see mine because you feel yours is higher than

mine already and that can lead to a lot of hurt and pain ladies and gentlemen we need to be practical here if this is

what Abram was saved from it must be real and if this is the heart of the diagnosis given in Scripture that Abram's coming out of this background

that is God is trying to get get this background out of him we may be sure that the way we build our

lives and the way we search for our meaning is utterly Central it's a deep challenge isn't

it and you see if people say this is a negative attitude to the city it's culture it's agriculture it's infrastructure it's Commerce it's

Financial system systems educational and all the rest of it and my friends at IBM tell me we are now entering the age of the smart city and it sounds utterly

fascinating what's wrong with that and what is wrong with using your mind to develop these things absolutely nothing as far as I can see absolutely nothing there's nothing with wrong with

using the mind and trusting God there's everything wrong but trusting the mind and using God and that makes a practical

difference now does God not like cities is that what the message is now listen carefully in case you misunderstand me God is very interested in cities just

listen to this now this is something you don't learn in the Old Testament but it's an analysis of Abram's motivation given in the new test

I'm going to read it to you it's in Hebrews 11 for Abraham was looking forward to the city that has foundations whose designer

and Builder is God then he goes through the other Patriarchs and says God is not ashamed to be called their God for he has

prepared for them a city God is absolutely for cities but you'll notice ladies and gentlemen that the final book in the Bible

has got two cities won't you there's Believe It or Not mystery Babylon the gra and there's a New

Jerusalem that's no accident of course because in a sense the Bible is A Tale of Two Cities and it's not a question of which city you live

in it's a question of which city you live for Daniel lived in Babel Babylon Abram left it but the secret of Daniel's life was

he lived for the city which is what the foundations and now we come near to what's going on here do you notice that in the description of Babel the interest

is all in the foundations there was a city and a tower and we think so much of the tower we forget that it had found foundations now

what do we mean by that do you mean the kind of bricks or stone or steel or plastic no of course not in the ancient world as in the

Contemporary world cities stand for ideologies we used to use it in the radio we've stopped doing it but when I was young centuries ago I used to hear

the radio and it used to go like this Moscow says and Washington has responded and Paris does and they use the capital

city as a metaphor for the ideology of the city philosophy behind it so what we've got to ask ourselves is what is

the ideology that stands behind Babel that is what intellectual moral and spiritual foundations was it built on that's the

oneide and if God has prepared a city what are its foundations Abraham looked for the city which had foundations so Abraham

according to Hebrews knew about the foundations not simply about the city well I want to suggest to you that the simple answer is the obvious

one that the first and biggest Foundation that was totally missing in Babel was trusting God for the foundation of life and meaning and

significance and life's journey was a following God as God said come and invited the man to leave that

City on those foundations not to give up the idea of a city but to think around conceptually

about a totally new kind of City organized life but organized round basic principles like that of trusting God

God that's what the story is about we have reached one of the mountaintops of Genesis

Abram has moved from being a naturalist a pagan thinker step by step he's moved in

response to the voice of the Living God he's come to believe that there is a the Creator he's come to believe that there

is an owner a possessor of Heaven and Earth and now he stands looking at the Blazing 100 billion stars of our galaxy and listens

to the voice that tells them that his offspring are going to be like that and without any evidence physically

that ever he will produce a child he bows his head and he believes God and the world

changes and countless Millions including us in the 21st century have come to see that as the

Paradigm of faith and trust in God and I want us to grasp a very simple thing it's that it is possible for people to change their world

you I debated Peter Singer in Australia and Melbourne Town Hall A couple of years ago and I was honest with the audience and I told them that my parents were

Believers and so were my grandparents and Peter got up and polite as he is he said well of course that's my biggest objection to the religious

faith in general in Christianity you see people remain in the worldview in which they were brought up so I thought this is going to be very

interesting so when he uh gave the microphone to me I said Peter I've told the audience about my parents so would you like to tell us about your parents

were they atheists yes he said they were atheists oh I said I see you have remained in the worldview in which you were brought

up you've remained in the faith that your parents taught you oh but he said it isn't isn't a faith oh I said I'm sorry Peter I thought you believed

it now that shows us ladies and gentlemen that one of the biggest battles we have in our contemporary culture is the definition of

faith what does it mean to believe because many of our atheist colleagues think that their atheism is

not a belief system ours is a belief system and they've redefined Faith to mean believing where there's no

evidence that's dangerously wrong and I want to emphasize that at the beginning today that Abram's Faith

was not blind it was not based on no evidence he had evidence building up constantly until this point he had as yet no evidence that

that he would ever produce a child but he had every evidence that God was trustworthy and that is utterly crucial

that we realize that whatever the Christian faith is it is not blind belief it is commitment based on solid

evidence and part of it is of course the story of Abraham now this matter of faith is is

so important because there's great religious confusion in our world about faith so let me read first of all the

New Testament analysis of what happened to Abram Romans 4:1 what shall we say was gained by

Abraham our forefather according to the flesh for if he was justified by works he is something to boast about but not

before God for what does scriptures say Abram believed God and it was counted to him

as righteousness now here's the crucial statement now to the one who works his wages are not counted as a

gift but as his due and to the one who does not

work his wages are not but believes in him who justifies the ungodly his faith is counted as

righteousness we need to be absolutely clear that works and Faith are regarded as

opposites faith is not a work it is not a contribution to Salvation and it is not that we have the faith to do the works that will grant us

acceptance because of course if our works were adequate God would be obliged to give us justification it would no longer be an

act of Grace anymore than it would be an act of Grace for an employer to give an employee the wages she had earned and

it's this that brings peace with God the realization that receiving salvation is not contributing to

Salvation receiving God's gift and it was that that transformed the life of

Abram but Abram was human like we are and he wanted to be sure and we want to be sure don't we it's only when we have a secure basis

for Faith it's only when we've got confidence in God that we can go out and face the world and I see in my Advanced

age even older than the old man who sat beside Yi all those years ago I see that one of the basic problems

is confidence in God because faith and confidence are very closely related and the moment our confidence in

God is undermined we lose this Central drive and motivation for communicating the gospel to the

world and so Abram raised the question God said to him I'm going to give you this land to possess and your Offspring and

there he was without a child his wife Baron and he said oh Lord God how am I to know that I shall possess

it and God didn't dismiss his request for certainty and Assurance but did something that spins up towards us through history

and is of utterly fundamental importance he made a covenant with Abraham it's a very odd story isn't it

uh God said to Abraham bring me a heer 3 years old well how on Earth is that an answer to how can I know bring a heer and a few other animals and he brought

them and he was told to cut them all in half I don't know whether that's the way you help people with Assurance but that's the way God helped Abraham he cut

all these animals into halves and put a little pile of animals against each other so there was space in between what's going on

here this is the ancient notion of what it means to cut a covenant the word for Covenant in Hebrew

barit comes from Barat to cut to cut cut a covenant and the idea is very simple it is this suppose well Yi will do yui

and I are going to do a deal and I'm going to sell in my house so we agree the

price and I agree to pay him $1,000 um and he's going to sell me his house now what happens then is once we've agreed it we get these little

piles of animal and Yuri walks between them and I walk between them what's the idea of that the idea is very simple but it's very

graphic what we're saying is do that to me if I don't keep the terms of the agreement it's very simple isn't it you've got it have you you cut me in

pieces if I don't pay you the money and you don't give me the house now the important thing to see is that both Yi

and I have got conditions to fulfill so we both walk between the pieces and you know in the Old Testament

we have a reference to that not to Abram's Covenant but the to the Covenant at sini and Jeremiah 34 says this the men who have violated my Covenant and

have not fulfilled the terms of the Covenant they made before me I will treat like the calf they cut in two and then walk between its pieces

that's blunt isn't it now here's the very interesting thing just listen to what happened as the sun was going down a deep sleep fell on

Abram and behold Dreadful and great Darkness fell upon him and then the Lord said to Abram no for certain that your Offspring will

be sers in a land that's not theirs and will be servants there and they will be afflicted for 400 years years but I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve and afterwards they will come out

with great possessions as for yourself you shall go to your fathers in peace you shall be buried in good old age and they shall come back here in the fourth generation

for the iniquity of the amorites is not yet complete and when the son had gone down and it was dark Behold a smoking

fire pot and flaming torch passed between the pieces on that day the Lord God made a covenant with Abram saying to your

Offspring I give this land from the river of Egypt to the Great River the river Euphrates Abram did not passed between the pieces he was asleep

actually God did now that is dramatic and it is vastly important that we grasp it that

in scripture the word covenant covers two fundamentally distinct Concepts it covers the notion that we usually use the word agreement for where

there are two parties involved but there's another legal document which affects all of us it's called a will or a testament and only

one party is involved if I leave you something in my will you don't have to earn it all you have to do is receive it you have no

conditions to fulfill and this is how God gave Abram certainty because this this Covenant

this agreement was like a testament it was God committing himself to fulfill everything and all Abraham had to do was to trust

God that's magnificent you know and on it hangs all our Salvation because this is how the Bible explains to us how we

can be certain it's what gives us stability as we Face the

world it's a one party a monop PLC Covenant a testament as distinct from what happened at sini 430 years later

another Covenant but there both parties had to go through the pieces as we've just read from Jeremiah now let's have the new test comment on this in Hebrews

chapter 8 if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant not the one with Abraham the one at sini no place would have been sought for

another but God found fault with the people and said the time is coming declares the Lord when I will make a New Covenant with the house of Israel with

the house of Judah it will not be like the Covenant I made with her for fathers when I took them by the hand

to lead them out of Egypt why because they did not remain faithful to my Covenant and I turned away from them it

had two sides two parties it was a diic covenant that's the difference and we are all involved it's crucial that we

realize that coming down from the days of Abram our security lies in that new covenant made on the cross where God fulfilled

the conditions and all I have to do is to trust him when Pace like a

river ORF flows my soul what a fantastic gospel it is it's utterly unique which is why the religious mind finds it very

difficult to grasp because our whole mindset our whole education our whole knowledge of

life is you only get what you earn and what you deserve and God comes into the situation and says you cannot earn it so

I'm going to do something utterly unique you know these are basic things but we need to remind ourselves of them and I believe that they figure so

prominently in the New Testament because it's this story above all that helps us understand it now listen to the New Testament again

pointing that Abram's security lies in the fact that once the Covenant is ratified it cannot be altered by any

subsequent action to give a human example Galatians 3 says Paul even with a man-made Covenant no one an knows it or adds to it once it has been ratified

Nei the promises were made to Abram and to his offspring it doesn't say in two offsprings referring to many but referring to one and to your Offspring

who is Christ this is what I mean the law which came 43 years afterwards does not anull a covenant previously ratified

by God so as to make the promise void for if the inheritance comes by the law it no longer comes by promise but God

gave it to Abram by a promise and if you are Christ then you are Abram's

Offspring as according to the promise nothing can alter the fact that your name is

written effectively into that original Covenant that we're reading about so we are involved I know it's all

surrounded by legal ease but my I would like to know ladies and Gent gentlemen notice what the promise said you're going to be air of the world

do you believe that that's very concrete isn't it of course Abram was told first of all just about the land but we'll not fault God for extending it to the entire world will

we if uh I contract with a builder to build a house a modest house and when I receive it it's got a goldplated bathroom and a swimming pool and a sa and everything

else and I I say but look I didn't oh he said don't worry you don't have to pay for this I decided to just to be generous well you wouldn't complain would

you I think we need to take this seriously God is the owner of this planet ladies and gentlemen do you think this planet can

throw its creator out and never hear anything more about him oh it's big stuff isn't it oh I know they are going to be new heavens and a

new Earth God isn't physics finished with physics and chemistry that's old Greek philosophy that teaches that don't you know said Paul to some Christians fighting with one another

like children don't you know that the Saints will rule the world not unto angels has he subject the world to come whereof he speak but

somewhere some has said what is man that you are mindful of him that's the

inheritance it's not simply salvation it's inheriting the world is that big enough for

you I think it's important and I haven't time to do it in detail but it's important that we grasp this that the promise to Abraham and I'm

reading Paul Romans 4 again that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of

Faith there are Untold exciting things waiting for us I'm not going to unpack it I'm going to leave it to you because we've got to

move on but let's notice at this juncture standing on the mountain trusting God the man is assured utter

Assurance I meet so many people in middle life and they've never really grasped this even as Christians they're constantly trying to earn their acceptance with God they

haven't understood the gospel that the whole basis is that God does us something and all we have to do is

receive it and not earn it it needs to permeate our Souls doesn't it because sometimes we get so confused we feel that it's our Christian

work that's earning us acceptance with God and we're stressed to pieces from inside out because we're driven by

uncertainty and it's worth asking ourselves just individually am I driven by certainty or uncertainty to know that we're accepted

by God quite independent of who we are is one of the biggest things in life isn't

it that's what keeps life stable but now we come to the negative lesson I wish I didn't have to talk

about this but in a way it is so important because Abram had to learn

positively what it means to trust God he had to learn negatively not to trust himself and what the New Testament

calls the Flesh and now we have three from chapter 16 to

19 which have to do with the topic of the flesh from two perspectives our

flesh is a very tricky thing because there's religious flesh and then there's the other side the see me

immoral type of Flesh we meet both of them the stories are obvious in a way God has promised a

child and Sarah hasn't got a child so see thinks up a scheme of how to get a child I mean after all God needs a bit

of help we got a be realistic about these things God has promised it so it obviously it means that we need to look around for solutions to this

intractable gynecological problem so she looked around and according to the custom of the day the best idea was

cacy interestingly that that idea is introduced isn't it that needs a big discussion doesn't it but it was acceptable at the time so

she took her Egyptian maid and she puts a lovely spiritual gloss on it doesn't she she goes to her husband ABR she said the Lord has prevented me from having

children so it sounds very spiritual doesn't it and so she suggests that Abram takes Hagar the Egyptian servant girl as wife in order to have

children the text says interestingly and Abram listens to his wife but did phrase occurs in Genesis

3:17 and nowhere else this is a rerun of the Fall ladies and gentlemen her offering her husband the fruit where God said

no her now offering her husband the fruit where ah but the text leaves us open does surus see a good

thing or is the introduction of foreign genetic material a thing that can cause endless trouble I leave you to judge from

history the text does not comment it's a rerun of the four the same issues and that's why Leon cast

says Genesis tells you in one sense what once happened but it tells you what always happened because we're always being brought up to this

question and then in another way it's a mirror image of the account of Abram denying Sarah in Egypt in the previous

section there Abram asked Sarah to deny her true relationship with him and she obliged and was taken as a partner for Pharaoh here she's prepared to deny her

true relationship as Abram's wife and encourages him to take another partner an Egyptian and it's this time it's AB who obliges

Sarah in Egypt he was moved by fear and the desire for wealth here she's moved by feelings of Shame at her baroness and in neither

episode do Abram or Sarai show any interest in their own future as husband and wife the episodes are

moved and motivated by calculation rather than lust Sarah had hoped to be built up by the the child but when Hagar got pregnant she

despised Sarah introducing alien genetic material is a massive bioethical problem

in our age ladies and gentlemen and I'm glad there are experts here who are busied with it it's one of a complex of

very difficult problems because I do not want to sound remotely unsympathetic to women whose makeup physically has prevented

them from having children the desire to have a child is a very deep thing it's part of the creation order isn't it and we must show

every sympathy to those whose natural expectation in life has not been fulfilled but we need to take this story

seriously solving the problem in the energy of the Flesh and the way in which we think is wise retrospectively isn't

always seen to be the best thing and of course instead of simplifying life and realizing God's

purposes they learn Abram and Sarah a bitter lesson of what can go wrong when you use others as instruments to further your ends rather than treat them as people with significance in their own

right we need to have a lot of sympathy for Hagar ladies and gentlemen God did he didn't dismiss her or ignore her

and Abram tried to get rid of the problem by telling Sarai to do what she liked hoping this will calm her

Fury but it doesn't she overreacts she deals harshly with Hagar and sends her away what a tragedy Hagar's lost her

home Sarah's lost her maid Abram's lost his wife that's produced his child there's a big lesson isn't there

harshness Injustice are no way to deal with the consequences of my own wrongdoing and isn't it so true to life that when we do something wrong we

can so easily overreact and damage others and injure them to crawl our way out of it when the whole thing is proceeding from our

own self-pity and our own knowledge that we are the ones that have done the

wrong and Hagar's Supply runs out and she despairs who can she turn to perhaps she was already having thoughts of returning after all she knew how Abram

felt about his son he loved him and then she hears the voice Where have have you come

from God inquiring after the geographic location of a person has only happened once before in the Garden of Eden where are you

Adam where have you come from Hagar's learning about Psalm 139

which I love and Sally Doo you know my downsitting and my uprising Hagar discovered that this God was interested in

her not simply in Abram he was interested in her and we mustn't forget it theologically we mustn't forget it

that when the New Testament uses Hagar as a metaphor that is saying nothing about the fact that God was interested in her spiritually and physically and

indeed God promised to bless Ishmael when he was born and out of him would come a vast Nation Sarah called upon the Lord to

judge and he didn't he sent Hagar back and for 13 years what a household can you imagine

it do you know the Chinese idiogram for trouble is two women in a house I wonder why well if ever there was an exposition

of it here it is 13 years and it wasn't simply two women in a house it was well it was a young

man who was described as a wild ass of a man untameable and perhaps Abram secretly admired him he certainly had Great Hopes for him because eventually

when he still hadn't a child he said to God oh that ishmail can live before you Abram was impressed with ishmail there was something wild and UNT aable

something pioneering about the man's spirit and Abram was building up his hopes that this is going to be the man with the spunk and the umph to go out into the world and Pioneer this new

movement but it was wrong so they had a rough time they had to learn about the Flesh

and so do you and I isn't it interesting that the New Testament follows exactly this pattern when Paul in Romans has discussed just ification by faith instead of it all leading to Absolute

glory and wonder it leads to a horrific struggle inside Paul with the old flesh and we all know about that and we

all have to learn it we all have to learn what Paul once said I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh I have the desire

to do what is right but not the ability to carry it out you feeling like that do you know there's nothing more debilitating you've been a Christian

many years and then you suddenly find you're repeating a sin and you struggle and the old flesh Rises up and there it goes again and there it goes again and you begin to

despair do you know anything about that of course we all do and Abram had to learn and we have to

learn and the wonderful thing is that God has something to do with it because God in chapter 17 appears to Abram and

he says when Abram was 99 years old the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him I

am God Almighty walk before me and be blameless notice he didn't say you are

Abraham Almighty walk before me and be blameless I know you laugh but I hope you get the point cuz that's what we sometimes feel you

know do you notice the metaphor that's being used it's to do with walk and it comes at exactly the right point in Abram's experience according to the New

Testament analysis because what is it that Paul teaches us that we are to walk after the spirit

relying on the power of God Almighty that's what the New Testament begins to teach us and I have to learn it and you have to learn

it Abram learns about the struggles in the same order as Paul he thought his own strength was enough to fulfill the promises of God and he found his flesh

was insufficient even as a man who believed God insufficient to work it out before we came to Christ and were

saved we couldn't please God through the Flesh and it's exactly the same after we come to trust Christ and so here is now

God's introduction to his answer to this question but I say says Paul in Galatians walk by the spirit and you

will not gratify the desires of thees fesh there's an act of walking which fights against the desires of the flesh for the desires of the flesh are against

the spirit and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh for these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to

do and so God began to teach Abram lessons about his method of dealing with the Flesh and my is it a bit of an

uncomfortable lesson it has to do with circumcision which again is not a topic that I feel particularly comfortable about talking about but we've got to

face what scripture says about it because this is one of the angular Concepts what on Earth has circumcision

a physical Mark In the Flesh got to do with walking before God and being perfect it seems so in congruous but

here again bit of effort will repace because the notion of circumcision is used in five or six different ways in scripture you better fasten your seat

belts because this is going to be very quick it was first of all a covenant with Abram regarding his physical

posterity not that of Genesis 15 the New Testament points out that circumcision since it happened afterwards cannot affect that original Covenant here was a

special Nation physically marked out a nation that produced the Messiah secondly Romans tells us that circumcision is a seal of the

righteousness of faith that Abram had while he was still uncircumcised that's so important he was first Justified and then circumcised 13

years later so his justification had nothing to do with the physical right of circumcision that ceremony did not convey the spiritual reality third ly it

was a sign of membership in Abram's tribe that did not make them spiritual children of Abraham indeed circumcision even if you

had it did not in every case mean recognition of a person within that special tribe ishma was circumcised fourthly it was a symbol for

Israel the danger of ceremony without spiritual content you stiff necked people said Steven and circumcised in hearted ears

you always resist the Holy Spirit oh my I'd like to have time to unpack this what confusion there is in this world with the

idea that physical ritual conveys spiritual regeneration and reality so many people are confused about the relationship of right and

ritual to Salvation I sometimes illustrate it this way do you see that ring it has meaning if I married I could wear a hundred of them and even through

my nose but they wouldn't make me married the symbol has validity if the reality

stands behind it it's exactly the same here but unfortunately many came to regard circumcision and keeping the law

of Moses as the means of Salvation when the very right cutting off the flesh was meant to teach the exact opposite it was

a pretty blunt and graphic way of reminding Abram where not to put his trust I leave you to work that

out I'm putting it as delicately as I can ladies and gentlemen and it was meant it's a brilliant metaphor actually once we see

what's going on it was meant to indicate the abandonment of all Trust In the Flesh in the moral sense listen to this

now here's the key verse for we are the circumcision says Paul who worship by

the spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh that is the bejer lesson that it

was meant to teach every confidence in God he believed God and it was counted to him in righteousness but now he's got to and

I've got to learn the negative lesson no confidence in the flesh that's a very difficult lesson to learn all of us brilliant people gifted

beyond the majority so easy to put confidence in the flesh and it's disastrous of of course when we go out to face a world

that's alien and antagonistic so easy to trust your brains your wealth whatever kind it is intellectual

spiritual physical no confidence in the flesh and the reason that's possible to do this is again Old Testament Deuteronomy 30 the

Lord your God will circumcise your heart here it comes there is a real ity that corresponds to the right of

circumcision it is circumcision of the heart it's not a physical ritual at all the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your seed to

love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul that you may live you see my unregenerate heart cannot make itself love God if ever I'm

going to love God I must be cut loose from the Flesh and planted in the spirit and here we come to another pair of Concepts Paul talks about us being by

Nature In the Flesh and the wonderful thing that God does when we come to trust Christ he

takes us from being rooted in the flesh and he plants Us in the spirit and our responsibility is there

ever after to walk after the spirit and not after the flesh because the problem is this that although we're no longer in

the flesh it's putrifying there and it's so easy for us to walk after the flesh therefore says Paul as you've

received Christ Jesus the Lord so walk in him rooted and built up in him and established in the faith and he goes on

to say in him also you were circumcised well what kind of circumcision with some physical right no notice how carefully he says it with a

circumcision not made with hands I hope you've noticed that all rituals dare I say baptism included are made with hands have you ever seen anybody being baptized without somebody

using their hands this is far deeper than that this is the circumcision of Christ and what's it telling me something glorious that

when I trusted him a cut was made deep down in my being that cut out that rootedness In

the Flesh and implanted me in the spirit this is a spiritual reality and it is God's provision with

all the trips and falls and everything else it's God provision for us and so Abraham got to the state where

God announced once more that he would have a son and Abram falls down laughing shall a child be born to a man of 100 and a woman of 90 oh that ishmail may

live before you well no you're going to have a child but unfortunately the matter of the

flesh is not finished and they have to learn it from another Direction and it has to do with the famous visit

of the angels and the Lord to Abram and the question of the Judgment of the most fleshly city in the ancient world

Sodom you see we've got to judge the religious flesh that's subtle and difficult because we're so well meaning we want to use all our energies for the

Lord and so easily we slip from trusting him but this other thing we got to judge too you see lot had been rescued by Abram but he'd gone back to Sodom he'd

had another chance hadn't he and the Lord appears to Abraham and in chapter 18 there's a very elaborate

meal done with brilliant Middle Eastern understatement where Abram entertains two angels and what is obviously the Lord

himself hospitality is the thing that opens the door onto this second half of our section and hospitality is going to be

the theme because Sodom is going to stand as the most horrific abuse of hospitality that you can ever

imagine and Abram entertains the Lord and his angels that is a wonderful thing isn't it to fellowship with

God things are moving upwards up on the plateau and the mountains of his life and he's now able to entertain God and God comes to his tent and they have a

bit of a discussion and he tells Abram When Sarah's outside the door that he's going to Sarah is going to have a child and Sarah starts to

laugh and the angels call her in you did laugh no I didn't laugh but of course you laughed and that word laughter is going to become the name of the son Yak he

laughs and that's going to have significance as well and then two angels leave and Abram stands and this awesome

conversation I don't really know what to make of it where God the moral governor of the universe starts to talk to a human what

he's going to do about judging the cities of the plain I mean just imagine what this is

if we take it seriously God is inviting his comment having an ethical discussion with this

man and God said um I will go down and see Sodom the echo of Babel is on obvious isn't it Babel wasn't high enough to reach Heaven nor was Sodom although the sins

of both were reaching heaven and I'll see if it's as bad as it is and Abram raises the question will

you sweep away the rightous with the wicked is it going to be indiscriminate Justice and he starts bargaining with

God and arguing the numbers down would you would you destroy the city for 40 well what about 30 what about 20 and he leaves off at 10 why he left off at 10 I don't

know because it raises deep ethical problems doesn't it because if you save the city for the sake of 10 that means the unrighteous are not punished at all doesn't

it what level of Ethics is this you think well I leave that to the ethical experts but you do need to think about it God

discussing dealing with our planet with a human is that just a little hint ladies and gentlemen I don't

know Abram's seed to rule the world it's as CS Lewis once said the New Testament rustles all its leaves rustle with the expectation of

Eternity there's something big going on here and I just feel too small to really cope with it so God says for the sake of 10 I won't destroy it and then the scene moves to

Sodom the hypersexualized city I've called it it is a tragic

story an utterly tragic story they come to the gate of Sodom they encountered the wickedness and tragedy of Sodom lot had become a

judge in Sodom do you know notice the repetition of the concept of judgment here Sarah says the Lord judged between you and

me Abram shall not the judge of all the Earth do right and lot he's worked himself into the city administration of Sodom hoping to do something now we got

to get this clear we wouldn't have known this except for the new testament which says lot was a righteous man and he vexed his soul

wow what a a tragedy is lot profoundly unhappy tormented probably since the day he separated from Abram the city had destroyed his moral

compass he could see that homosexual rape was horrific but his alternative was to deny the last vestage of fatherhood and offer his virgin daughters to the sex enraged men who

were clustered around the door and he's a believer lot clicked his way into

Sodom and it destroyed him he pleads with the angels who say you got to get out he speaks to his children they don't listen and the angels have to drag him out and he still

wants to stay he said look let me stay in this little city toar it is a little city he can't get away from it and the

angels allow his request what a denial of moral reality and you know the New Testament comment is grim reading here it

is two Peter tells us that the rescue of lot shows that the Lord is able to deliver the

righteous for after a description of God's rescuing various people and dealing with Jud judement he said and if he rescued righteous lot greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the

wicked for as that righteous man lived among them day by day he was tormenting his righteous Soul over their Lawless Deeds that he saw and heard then that

proves what that the Lord knows how to rescue The Godly from trials and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of

judgment but let us be warned God rescued him from a disastrous situation he could not remove the consequences lot loses everything family

home career wealth reputation he thought he could predict the lot by going to Sodom he was saved though as though by fire

literally remember those solemn words of Paul that the day will come when our works and our lives will be assessed not in order to get into heaven

or not if any man's work is burned up says Paul he will suffer loss though he himself will be saved but only as Through Fire do you not know that you

are God's Temple and that God's spirit dwells in you if anyone destroys God's Temple God will destroy him for God's Temple is Holy and you are

his Temple ladies and gentlemen it matters what we do with our bodies what a horrific lesson and you know Abraham didn't know that lot was being rescued the next we read of Abram

he's standing up in a hill and he watches the smoke and the fire and the brimstone devouring the whole place and he thinks lot's gone of course what would you have felt if you had been

Abram was it my fault you ever felt like that that your influence on somebody else has led them to disaster sure it

was partly Abram's fault wasn't it it must have been a marvelous thing when Abram learned that lot had been rescued but oh at what cost because

lot's daughters were interested in prosperity posterity even though he wasn't and they committed incest and produced moav and

Amon who caused endless trouble in the years to come and I close with this likewise said

Jesus just as it was in the days of lot they were eating and drinking buying and selling planting and building but in the day when lot went out from Sodom fire

and sulfur rain from heaven and destroyed them all so will it be on the day when the son of man is revealed on that day let the one who's

on the housetop with his Goods in the house not come down to take them away and likewise let the one who is in the

failed not turn back remember Lot's wife she turned back she couldn't let it

go and she was engulfed in the brimstone and the sulfur and turned into a pillar of

salt what a battle it is I would despair wouldn't you if we didn't have a relationship with God

Almighty I want to read from scripture Genesis 11 and verse

31 trah took Abram his son and lot the son of haran his grandson and Sarai his daughter-in-law his son Abram's wife and

they went forth together from Ur of the calans to go into to the land of Canaan but when they came to haran they

settled there the days of tra were 205 years and trra died in haran now the Lord said to

Abram go from your country and your Kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show

you and I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a

blessing I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you I will curse and in you

all the families of the Earth shall be blessed so Abram went as the

Lord had told him there's an enigma at the start of this story because it would seem that Abram's

father began the journey with his son and with lot and with their wives and the question arises when was

it that God first spoke to Abram to call him on this journey the way I read it it appears that he was called in

haran but there's an alternative translation which translates it with a PL perfect in chapter 12:1 now the Lord

had said to Abram it is the fact that when Steven was giving his famous speech that resulted in his death as the first

Christian martyr he started it with these words the god of Glory appeared to Our Father Abraham when he was in

Mesopotamia before he lived in haran and said to him go out from your land and your Kindred and go into the land that I will show you so was he

called twice or what well I just don't know the important thing therefore is not exactly

when he was called but what it was that got him started on this

journey did Abraham go in Blind Faith or was there a reality

behind the start of this journey because this of course is the first great follow me in

history and it seems to me the primary thing here is this the god of Glory appeared to Our Father

Abraham that is it was a vision an experience of God that impelled him to start this pilgrimage it wasn't Blind

Faith it was the exact opposite of Blind Faith it was a result of seeing something more glorious even than the culture of Mesopotamia into which he'd

been born and it was a glorious culture as you will see if you go to the British museum glittering in their advance in science and art and music and medicine

and everything else this was high culture and what impelled Abram to move was seeing a god of Glory who was

even bigger than that and the interesting thing is that when Steven mentioned this in Jerusalem the god of Glory appeared to our father

Abram there was sitting listening a young man his name was Saul and at the end of that second section of the book of Acts that same

God of Glory appeared to that young man on the way to Damascus and a light Shone above the brightness of the midday sun and told him to

go there are the two sides of our story Abram saw the glory of God and he left that Civilization to form the nation of

Israel and now Paul listening to Steven and being affected and eventually encountering the Risen Christ sees the same glory and it impels the mission the

result of which is that you and I are sitting here this morning one of the biggest events in history ladies and gentlemen is that that man who sat and

listened to Steven brought the gospel to Europe and so we are in his debt as well as of course to his Lord and the major

message is clear isn't it if ever we're going to go if ever we're going to go in a pilgrimage that

influences the world the one absolutely essential thing is that we see the glory of God that's more than doing Bible study to prepare for sermons you

know one of the dangers of busy active people in Christian work is that they spend all of their time preparing things for other

people and they do not seek God in their study of his word it's worth asking ourselves why do we study the word of God is it because they've

got talks to give well maybe but ultimately we need to learn to seek God in his word so that we hear his

voice and then we're going to have something to say to the world so the first message this morning is the thing that impelled Abraham and I

trust will impel us now of course he might have thought for years hidden years of questioning of thinking because he was clearly a brilliant

man and it is fascinating to imagine what might have happened do you know there's a Jewish legend about trra being

an idol maker and Abram one day came in and broke up all the idols leaving only the biggest Idol and claiming to his father when

asked to account for the devastation in the idol making factory what went wrong oh says Abram the idols fought with one another and tras said but Idols can't

fight because they're lifeless well then why do you worship them said Abram and however much that story may be true or false it has a point doesn't

it the absurdity of idol worship and perhaps it was the father had begun to see something and had got up in the journey sharing the vision of the son

but he got stuck for years in Iran because the vision for the father was not firsthand for Abram it was firsthand we need a firsthand Vision don't

we we need to see the glory of the Lord and you know as you analyze scripture you see that anybody that did

anything anybody that did anything was someone who'd seen the glory of the Lord we beheld his

glory is my God big enough to take me on a journey that's going to be significant for the world world because it's only the glory of God

that can break the g grip of civilized sophisticated idolatry whose adance then as now have no idea that

there's anything more glorious than the world of art science culture medicine and Engineering but Abram was about to discover that behind this universe there

was a person a living vibrant creator person who had made Abram and the rest of us for himself who wanted Abram to enjoy his love and

fellowship and who had prepared for Abram a city the God who called then can still call now dare we

hope that before our conference is over there'll be some of you who will have heard that voice in such an unmistakable way that life's New Path will be opened

up to you to change your focus to change your life's

work so Abram set out on the journey and he went to the land of Canan and I'd love to have known what kind of a journey it was because from haran to

Canyon was about 21 days if you had camels with you which I believe they did but that's another story and the interesting thing is very little is

said there were Canaanites in the land and the Lord had paid appeared to Abram and he built an altar and he moved his tent and he built an altar and he moved

his tent what an interesting reversal of the normal concept of Life what have you built well possibly a house or a

flat but for Abram the tent was moved there was no trace of it when he moved the things that were

permanent were the altars he built that is his life was dotted with experiences of God that were so real that he commemorated them with something

utterly solid it's an interesting reversal of the common philosophy that we build solid buildings and put our name on

them to commemorate us Abram didn't the shifting tent the permanency

of his experiences of God look back over life do you see altars strewn through your life and dotted about those

experiences of God that shaped you that determined your identity that moved you now Abram was being Guided by God

and now a famine struck and Abram learned that even if you're Guided by God this Earth doesn't guarantee you to be

comfortable all the time and they had to face famine and lack of food so they moved down towards Egypt and that created a

problem when he was about to enter Egypt he said to Sarai his wife I know that you are a woman beautiful in appearance that was a nice thing to say

to his wife and when the Egyptians see you they will say this is his wife then they will kill me but they will let you live so say you are my

sister that it might go well with me because of you and that my life may be spared for your sake the first recorded words in

scripture of a human being have to do with his wife this at last said Adam is bone of my bones and flesh of My Flesh and she

shall be called woman because she was taken out of man the text then goes on to define marriage therefore a man shall leave his

father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh the first recorded words of Abram

also concern his wife when He suggests her denying their true marriage relationship the problem for Abram was not the

existence of his wife but her beauty he's been promised a great future by God he hopes to thrive he's into

wellbeing and so now he's got to make a value decision he puts thriving his own immediate self-preservation and material wealth above honesty and truth and the

ethics of marriage did he think that the promise of God meant that his well-being was now

the chief value so that it meant that he could essentially sacrifice his wife by asking her to go along with a Hal

truth well-being is one of the major Idols of our time isn't

it two billion hits on Google a major value in people's minds whatever value means a major subject of

academic study with Millions hanging on every word what is well-being and this text raises the question we Christians should be

interested in it shouldn't we shaping concepts of well-being and we should be aware shouldn't we of studies like those done by Andrew Simmons the past president of the Royal College of

psychiatrists in Britain I quote the advant ages effect of religious belief and spirituality on mental and physical health as one of the best kept secrets in

Psychiatry and Medicine generally if the findings of the huge volume of research on this topic had gone in the opposite direction and it

had been found that religion damages your mental health it would have been front page news and every newspaper in the

land have we got anything to say about well-being into our contemporary Society listen to an atheist a well-known

atheist Matthew Paris writing about his experience of Africa he says this those who want Africa to Walk Tall amid 21st

century Global competition must not kid themselves that providing the material means or even the knowhow that accompanies what we call development will make the change our whole belief

system must first be supplanted and I'm afraid that it has to be supplanted by another now listen to this removing

Christian evangelism from the African equation may leave the continent at the mercy of a malign Fusion of Nike the Witch Doctor the mobile phone and the

machete wellbeing and the crudeness and the low level of the conversation between Abram and Sarah leads us to wonder first of

all about Abram's understanding of the concept of God you see it's very easy to assume that Abraham was a dear Evangelical

Christian well taught and trained in every School of Theology you know this was a raw Pagan now beginning to Grapple with the big issues of the

world and one of the biggest issues is the concept of a wife don't laugh too quickly ladies and gentlemen Abram clearly

expected the Egyptians to take Sara and they did Pharaoh's natural desire for a beautiful addition to his harim created immense difficulty and

you'll notice that the issue has to do with beauty and Aesthetics that's how sin entered into the world in the first place isn't it when she

saw God has given us an aesthetic sense and that's magnificent but the enemy can use it listen to Leon c a Jewish

commentator God cares for Sarai but especially for Sarai as Abram's wife the attentive reader May learn from

this story that although one may choose a wife one cannot choose what wife

means do you hear that although one may choose a wife one cannot choose what wife means a wife is

not transmutable into a sister or a concubine when it searchs one's purpose and ladies and gentlemen I don't have to remind

you that the world is altering the definition of what wife means Abram one day will have to learn what being a father means but in order to do that he must

learn the meaning of wife which is clearly another foundational principle of God's City witness the metaphor when the city is ultimately seen in the Book

of Revelation it comes down from heaven as a bride adorned for her husband it's a holy city its values are rooted in the character of God and Abram has to

learn those lessons as we do at the base level of what it means to be a wife and what it means to be a

husband it's important that there are seminars and such things at this conference isn't it let me ask myself the question as you ask

yourself what is my con concept of a wife what does it mean to me how do I express that meaning let me

look back over the past year how have I treated my wife how has her relationship developed or have I neglected

her if I'm honest and it's hard to be honest what would my wife say to me if I ask asked her to tell me what she

thought wife meant to me am I struggling here do I need to repent you see Abram seemed of no sense

that his mission was a joint venture with Sarah he had no notion of being joint HS of the grace of life and what about us we're involved in Ministry we

have a vision and a sense of calling do we consult our wives about what we do I would never accept an invitation

that hasn't first run past my wife because one of the things that is so important is that we function as a team and we don't assume oh El he'll

understand that that's my work and so on and so forth or do we just charge ahead and take on all kinds of things

with without it ever occurring to us that our wives might help us here my wife's been through every word of this these talks ladies and

gentlemen you spent hours does that surprise you do you do that do you know I find it hard to imagine that Abram and Sarah I

prayed together about this but then realism tells me that there are many wives and husbands who never pray together when did you last pray with

your wife and your husband or read the scriptures together how can we expect to minister

for God if that's the case I don't know you all I'm speaking to my own heart but I talk to so many people who are active in Ministry who are household

names and they're not praying daily with their wives and we lose power and authority there this is a journey this journey of faith and it's deeply practical so the

first thing Abram to learn the painful way is what is the meaning of the wife husband relationship now this is very practical but my wife's here so I have to be practical or I'll get into

trouble reading scripture well you know every month my wife sends out about 30 copies of our daily bread to husbands and wives around

the place you'd be amazed who some of them are we' seen marriages healed there're simple notes Our Daily Bread there's a little app you can get it for nothing oh

but you say it's not high powerered and philosophical no it isn't and therefore you're more likely to read it together to do something is infinitely better

than to do nothing today this morning the verses where God is a God of all comfort and I find that powerfully reassuring as I come to minister to

you and again and again we found that those simple notes that they're totally opposite to what happens in the day oh well you found something else marvelous

as long as you do it it's a big learning curve isn't it and of course what I've said about husbands learning about

wives it's the same the other way around what does the wife conceive her husband to be and you see here's the problem

Abram's action in not acknowledging or cleaving to his wife that's another problem isn't it when wives don't leave and men don't leave their father and

mother that can create endless problems with but I'm not going on to those now but Abram's Disobedience to scripture led to enormous Financial

wealth that's an interesting thing isn't it because now we're entering into another major topic here the question that stands before us is the relation of

well-being and material well-being in particular to the value of persons and relationships a fundamental thing in God's City one of the foundation

principles is learning that people are more valuable than things and it took a lot of learning and as you know Pharaoh

took Sarai we don't know whether he slept with her or not Jewish commentators mostly think that he

did and you will remember that AB abam in the next episode slept with an Egyptian called Hagar it's an entangled world it's a

complex World others feel and they may be right that she was put into the harim and had to wait her turn so to speak and

by the time her turn came God plagued Pharaoh's house and got him to realize that she was a person's wife and you notice that Pharaoh rebuked him and said

what is this you've done to me why didn't you tell me she was your wife why did you say that she was my sister and I took her for my wife now then here is

your wife take her and go the moral level of the Pagan was higher than Abraham that is a very big lesson isn't

it how easy it is to look down on people that do not share our worldview and until we learn that every man and woman is a moral being created

in the image of God and therefore morally is capable of putting any of us to shame we'll not be able to relate to those of other faiths and to discuss the differences because they will think in

every conversation that we're simply talking down to them from a superior position better to be rebuked by a non-Christian or a pagan than not to be

rebuked at all but how embarrassing here's the man who's going to be the flagbearer for the testimony

of God in the world and the first world leader he he meets boots him out for dishonesty and misrepresentation that's a terrific start isn't

it I just get amazed at how basic this is and how crude some of it is actually as you get down to it Abram got a afraid

and denied a relationship have you ever done that oh you say I've never denied my wife well just be careful some men can

flirt and effectively deny their wives and cause an awful lot of trouble and women can do it too but ladies and gentlemen there's a bigger relationship than the one with our

wives and it's very easy to deny that one through fear do you know when Peter tells us that we're always to be ready to give an answer to those that ask us a reason for

the hope that is within us he prefaces it by something that nobody ever reads don't be

afraid because he realized that all of us get afraid we all have a fear level that switches in and we have to overcome

fear and oh as we look back over life who of us could hang our heads High and say we've never given in to peer pressure and denied the biggest

relationship of all Abraham was on a steep learning curve and left Egypt a humbler and a

wiser man what a silly thing it was to do but it looked sensible to go down to Egypt for help and the prophets warn against it

don't they because they saw behind Egypt of a whole world view that excluded God and it's so easy for any of us to go

down to Egypt for help when our re resources seem to fail learning what a wife is is important ladies and gentlemen because

you notice this city wife metaphor interchanges in the Bible Babylon that we studied that Abram left in the sense that he left that background in the New

Testament she becomes a woman the mother of Harlot so spectacularly beautiful have you noticed

that and that pinpoints what this is all about because the husband wife relationship depends crucially on Mutual

loyalty and commitment which city do I live for Babylon the Great prostit was scintillatingly beautiful she wasn't as some people picture it some ugly woman

that nobody would have been interested in she was exact opposite Kings of the earth seduced by her but the difference between a prostitute and a wife is a

matter of loyalty a prostitute is not loyal to any one husband a wife is so this

journey it's a journey looking for the city with foundations and one of them is learning at different levels of depth what relationship really is and

taking that closest of Human Relationships and magnifying it up until we see that it's leading on to the greatest relationship of all that

between Christ and his bride the church but we must proceed further Abram comes out of Egypt a very

rich man and lot apparently has made a bit on the side as well so that the land can't support them and now the pressure of ill-gotten gain creates a family

problem and the herdsmen are fighting there's no space the land is too small to contain them and so Abraham comes to lot and says let there be no Strife

between you and me and between your Hersman my Hersman for we are Kinsmen ah he's beginning to learn the

lesson do you see that Abram's resolution of the difficulty is by an assertion of relationship let's not fight about the material stuff we are brothers and

that's a most a much more important relationship is it watch Christians fight about legacies you ever heard of a Believer

that's fought about a legacy I've hardly ever met a family where it hasn't been a problem there always somebody that thinks that they owed more isn't

there we are brothers how much does that settle well we have to answer from our

own experience but wealth can lead to tension in families and disintegration and so Abram very magnanimously apparently says to lot you

choose the land is all yours there's no record of course of lot and Abram praying about about it there's no spiritual uh Dimension to it so lot

looks up and he sees the cities of the plain and it looks absolutely beautiful like the Garden of Eden and there's a city on the horizon called

Sodom and he moves his tent as far as Sodom now the men of Sodom were Wicked great Sinners against the Lord I said earlier incorrectly that the story is a

story of Two Cities it's a story of three ladies and gentlemen and the other one is Sodom and we all know what Sodom stands

for it looked beautiful but going for the advantage the business Advantage meant that Abram

uh that lot had to move into the Society of people who were renowned for their sheer wickedness and immorality you want to be careful with

before you set up your business in SoHo or in the red light district of any country what a

situation lot was Guided by his eyes good business decision he never thought of the influence of his

move on his children and his life and his morality and he was stepping

step by step into disaster may I say it this way it's very dangerous to move near Sodom how far is Sodom from any of us one

click one click that's all as your hand hovers over the mouse one click

we need to fight don't we Sinners that we are to avoid the click that leads to Sodom and leads to

disaster so now Abram was alone lot had gone and the Lord speaks lift up your eyes and look from the place you are and

now God guides his eyes and repeats the promise the next thing we read about is war war of Four Kings against five and it

seemed to be an international thing when you read it here it seems so tiny but some of these kings came from Beyond Babylonia they were a thousand kilometers or more away from where

Abraham was this was a big deal this war in which he got involved and what happened was that the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah and so on

were defeated and lot was taken with all his possessions so now he lost it all and Abram heard and he was very powerful at

this time in the had standing army and he went and he brought back and it's so interesting to read what he brought back Abram brought back all the possessions

and also brought back his Kinsmen lot with his possessions and the woman and the people that's an interesting order isn't it but it shows what it's

about now we read a most interesting thing you've got to imagine what's happening that the king of Sodom is

coming out to meet Abram and Abram's coming to meet the king of Sodom when suddenly from nowhere another figure

appears the king and priest melis EDC appears from absolutely nowhere he brought out Bread and Wine he was Priest

of God most high and he blessed him in said Blessed Be Abram by God most high possessor of Heaven and Earth and blessed be uh God most high who has

delivered your enemies into your hand and Abram gave him a tenth of everything and the king of Sodom said to

Abram give me the persons you take the goods now do you see what's happening here here's

decision time what is more important people are things what have you learned Abram and the king of Sodom is coming out with an

apparently wonderful job opportunity or gift opportunity give me the persons they're the bothersome lot you keep all the

wealth but hey half a minute lot was one of the persons wasn't he and do you see what Abram said I have lifted up my hand to the the Lord God most high possessor of Heaven and Earth

I wouldn't take a thread or Sandal strap or anything that is yours lest you should say I have made Abram

Rich you got to be extremely careful who you accept wealth and power from because there'll always be a payback

day what's it all about because this apparently minimalist incident becomes a major

Topic in the book of Hebrews mkis edct let me just read what is said in the New Testament about him

for this Miz EDC king of Salem priest of the most high God met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the Kings and blessed him and to him Abram a portion the tenth part of everything he is first

by translation of his name king of right rightousness and then he's also king of Salem that is king of Peace he's without father or mother or genealogy having neither beginning or days nor end of

life but resembling the Son of God he continues a priest forever what is this who was he importance is

obvious the most quoted bit of the Old Testament in the new is the psalm that says the Lord said unto my Lord Psalm

110 thou art a priest Forever After the order of mzc so this is no innocent thing but surely what do you mean need no father or mother in the text of

Genesis of course you notice that every principal person in Genesis has a genealogy that is crucial for Abram for

Isaac for Jacob but this man no it's not that he didn't literally have a father or mother it's as he appears in this text he's

introduced with very careful literary style to convey a message that you'd never have guessed if you only have this text and he came in

crucially to equip Abram to make one of the biggest decisions of his life what's it all about well I could

take you to the room in Cambridge where as a student I first learned this what it meant to have a high priest after the

order of melis EDC I can see it reading some cycl styled notes that David Gooding had written or had written

at the age of 21 expounding this book of Hebrews and it opened up a whole new world to me cuz I'd often ask myself the

question in the crisis of Life what is it keeps you holding on to God in faith we talk about the eternal security

of the believer that's wonderful but what happens if a person stops believing we believe that God has provided for our guilt on the cross he's

provided for our character in sending His Holy Spirit and regenerating us but what about the maintenance of our faith and the major message of the book

of Hebrews is this isn't it we have such a high priest and what does he do he

ever lives to make intercession for us and the book of Hebrews is full of encouragement to press on

don't throw away your confession why not what can encourage me to go on is this that this King

priest is prepared to intervene in my life right now and butress my faith to take the next step you see I often wondered why have

we a high priest isn't the cross enough isn't the resurrection enough isn't the ascending of the Holy Spirit enough well if we didn't need a high priest God wouldn't have given us one would he

that's the easy answer do you remember Peter mixed up Peter oh Lord I'm ready to go to prison

if I have to and to death and then he discovered he didn't have to and he denied the Lord his relationship but before he did it the

Lord had said to him quietly I have prayed for you that your faith doesn't fail didn't pray for his testimony or his witness or

his control of language they all failed but Jesus set himself to pray for the thing that links Peter to the Lord his faith I prayed for you that your

faith does not fail and when you've turned again not if you turn again when you've turned again establish your brothers in the Journey of life we're

going to face big questions big decisions and Abraham is only beginning to learn the the lessons of Faith his justification by faith is the next thing

in the text but the wonderful thing is that this King he's king of a City Salem which means peace

Jerusalem and he's called melis zedek sadik righteous and that preaches a big message too you can't have peace without

righteousness you know and he appears comes out of nowhere and disappears and he brings Bread and Wine

to sustain us oh you'd be dim if you didn't begin to think beyond that wouldn't you because that meaz

EDC set with a bunch of men in Jerusalem fearful he brought out Bread and Wine didn't they and there was a man sitting there

whose eyes were full of material wealth and the silver shekels and the tragedy of the situation was they asked who it was they didn't know who it was he that dips his

bread he to I offer the bread and as you know in the Middle East offering that bread was an offer of

friendship and if a man was in a room and offered you the bread and you were the worst enemy desperate to be reconciled you could take that bread and

the relationship would be healed and the bread moves around and Judas takes

it in utter hypocrisy he every space in his heart for the gifts but none for The Giver he brought out Bread and

Wine the tragedy and irony of that situation is that they were symbols of the great work on the cross which was to provide

forgiveness for everybody who repented and trusted the Lord it's a big story isn't it and then those dim and distant

Beginnings in the ancient world Abram was beginning to learn he was learning that wife is

important that relationships are important that kingship is important that people matter more than things but

the trouble was he'd been promised a vast Nation by God and he had no children no

son did after these things the word of the Lord came and that expression is only used twice with Abram the word of the Lord came so now we know it's going

to be something of utter importance fear not Abram I am your seal your reward shall be very

great but Abram said oh Lord God what would you give me for I continue child us of the heir of my house is elaser of Damascus and Abram said behold you've

given me no Offspring and a member of my household will be my Heir and behold the word of the Lord came to him and

said this man shall not be your Heir your very own son shall be their Heir and he brought him outside and said

look towards heaven Number the Stars if you are able to number them

so shall your Offspring be and there the man stood and could see a little way into

the 100 billion stars of our galaxy and we believe God oh that's colossal isn't it stand with him

no evidence no child no nothing he believed God and one of the most important statements of the Holy Scripture now

follows and he that is God accounted it to Abram as righteousness this is the base principle of how people are put right

with God that they exercise that glorious gift that every creature has as a creature made in the image of God the capacity to

trust and the whole weary way of sin up to this point in Genesis is that battle are we going to trust God or

not and he believed God and it was a kinded to him for

righteousness the New Testament gives us Insight Romans 4:23 for the words that was counted to him for righteousness were not written for his sake only but

for ours also it will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our lord who was delivered up for our trespasses and

raised for our justification to justify of course means to declare righteous not to make righteous the Old Testament and instructions to judges if there be a

controversy between men and they come to judgment and the judges judge them then they shall justify the righteous and condemn the Wicked the righteous were righteous to start with the judges had

to declare them righteous and this is of momentous importance isn't it the relationship of Abram's Faith to yours and mine now we are not expected

to father children at the age of a 100 but Abram was confronted with with deadness in sarai's body could he

believe that God could create new life it wasn't his faith that created the life God did that in response to his

faith and we end where we began ladies and gentlemen this is the truth that sent Paul to the ends of the Earth with the

gospel I'm not ashamed are you of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes the Jew first and

also to the Greek for in it the righteousness of God is revealed from Faith to Faith as it is written the just shall live by

faith but now the righteousness of God is manifested apart from the law and the prophets though the law the prophets bear witness to it the righteousness of

God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe for there is no distinction for all has sinned and fall short of the glory of

God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the Redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God put forth as a

propitiation by his blood to be received by faith it's glorious isn't it because it all needs to be emphasized that

trusting God is not contributing to Salvation faith is the opposite of Works

to the one that does not works as Paul but trusts his faith is counted as

righteousness that gives us a message that's worth preaching to a world whose eyes are religiously

closed to the Magnificent possibility that it is possible to be declared right right with

God by trusting God and not relying on your own idolatrous brain now

we're coming to this final talk and I'm so grateful to you for your attention for your

encouragements and above all for your prayers and it's appropriate to mention some of the things that have helped me in my

preparation I have of course read many books and it's invidious in a way to mention them but the ones that have

particularly helped me from the Jewish side Robin old Robert alter's book on Genesis the brilliant Meer sternberg's

book on the Poetics of biblical narrative which everyone should read and Leon cassa's book The the beginning of wisdom reading Genesis from

a philosophical perspective on the Christian side the old commentary by Marcus dods and

Genesis Gordon wham's magisterial two volume work the word biblical commentary on Genesis and Derek kenner's little ivp commentary on

Genesis but one book that's been particularly helpful has been given to each of you in a little bag with myrtlefield house written on the front

of it it is David gooding's most recent book The Riches of divine wisdom now David Gooding has been my

mentor for more years than I care to remember and I owe him my initial insights into the riches of scripture he

it is to whom I owe an unrep debt for helping me to understand how to mine at least some of those

riches and now at the age of 88 he has given us a book that I think you will

find incredibly helpful because it deals with the difficult passages in the New Testament as it expounds the old and

covers them in considerable detail in particularly but not only the those passages on Abraham so please read the book that you've been given but there's

another book in that pack it's called true to the faith it is not a commentary but an exposition of the book of Acts and I

call it an apologetic Exposition because what I've tried to do here in a limited way I feel that we need to learn how to

expound scripture into the culture rather than collecting a few questions from the culture and going back to scripture and collecting a few verses relating to those

questions to study scripture as books and use them as a powerful search light to analyze the culture that's a very different way

around and in that book true to the faith on the book of Acts it is seminal in my mind for helping us to understand

the way in which scripture is structured in terms of its thought flow its logic and its powerful way of dealing with the

fundamental questions that face Us in the Europe of the 21st century coming all the way from the first so I would encourage you to read that

book but why did we do Abraham I wouldn't have chosen it myself and I feel great greatly indebted

to someone who's in this audience Alec melin of the ly trust who a year ago said to me why don't you do

Abraham and you know it's one of those things in life that's a little bit unusual because I don't normally have my topic suggested to me in that way

secondly I knew that Abram is a very difficult and big topic but it so impacted me when he mentioned it that I couldn't get rid of it and I'm going to be honest

with you there were several times in the past year where I wanted to write to the committee to change the messages because I was finding it simply too difficult to

cope with the sheer size of Abraham but that voice kept coming back Abraham is important you should do Abraham so I feel it right to acknowledge the friend

that suggested it to me so I stand as a deor to so many people and I say that to encourage you I couldn't have begun to think of doing these things had someone

not taken me under their wing years ago and of course I'm indebted to my wife but I told you about her the first day didn't I so important to get another

perspective and you know it's worth hearing even from your wife you can't say that to get another perspective and particular women's

perspective because our audience is mixed isn't it so with those preliminaries we're going to go back to

the final section of This Magnificent story that runs from chapters 20 to 25

of the Book of Genesis and we'll see in chapter 20 that

Abraham having had the experience of dealing with ishmail in his home and then the awful Devastation

of Sodom and gamorra now faces the Supreme test of his life and incidentally the scripture is full of

twists we look at Sodom and we revolt against it and yet 20 centuries later Jesus stood in a

village in Galilee and he said woe to you kazim woe to you Betha for if the mighty Works had been

done in Sodom and Gomorrah that were done in you they would have repented therefore it will be more tolerable in the day of judgment for them than for

you I leave you to work out what that means Abram stood and watched the demise of Sodom the man who believed God

lot ended crawling into a cave with his two daughters and

yet those daughters are children one of the children was a man called moav

Moab Lot's wife look back and centuries later there was a lovely

woman and she said to the moabit girl go back and Bruce said no I'm not going

back and she became an ancestress of Jesus Christ Our Lord out of that cave ladies and gentlemen so there stood

Abram in his faith in his confidence in God and there was Moab born in the most unseemly situations both of

them ancestors of the Savior how do we cope with that kind of a god it's magnificent

isn't it and I'm thankful for Davi over there who told me about this yesterday it's lovely when people in conferences come up to you and tell you things you

haven't seen before that enriches life so now leaving that those deep lessons about the flesh we come again to Abram who's learned all

his lessons and never makes any mistakes again no we plunged straight back into another denial of his wife and calling her his

sister before aimc king of gar and he sent and took Sarah and God immediately intervened of course he did

because what Abram I was doing was imperiling the identity of the seed and if aimc had slept with Sarah you'd never have known who the father of

the seed was would you and God intervened and Abram makes a feeble

attempt when um ABC accuses him and he calls Abram and said what have you done and how have I sinned against you that you brought Me In My Kingdom a great sin

you've done to me things that ought not to be done what did you say that you did this thing I did it because I thought there is no fear of God at all in this

place and so on and Abram makes three mistakes in his evaluation of this Pagan he mistakes

facts he mistakes values and he mistakes the man's motivation those are all judgments ladies and gentlemen

we've just come from a section where judgment is the key thing but now it moves into another level of judgment and we're all engaged in

judging other people all the time I'm afraid even at this conference aren't we if I were to take out of your or my conversation all the evaluations of other people you've made in the last

four days how much would be left are all those judgments accurate fact

are they accurate in terms of understanding motives are they exact in terms of values of H and we're

learning to follow God's way and his City and Abram was delivered a hard blow and some Scholars say how could this have happened the second time this must

be simply a retelling of the first incident but they don't read the text because Abram makes the point that he'd made this a settled

policy he did it again do you know I find that so encouraging have you done it again the most debilitating thing as we

seek to walk after the spirit is when we do it again isn't it and this should give us courage just think of the experience this man has had

of God and yet he does it again and God doesn't write him off but lifts him up and protects

him because he is a purpose for him and so for you don't allow doing it again to destroy

you and to hold you down permanently we repent and come back to him we can get up even if it happens

twice or more and so after all this the Lord visited Sarah and she conceived and bore him a son in

his old age he was 100 and she was 90 it's fascinating isn't it when you think of Sarah being beautiful enough at 90 to have to be protected from a pagan

King that is actually quite interesting scientifically because the age of maturation seems to have decreased over the centuries but you need to ask the

experts of that we've had a seminar on it here actually this longevity that slowly

reduces so that at that time you could still be beautiful at 90 well I wasn't beautiful at 20 so it's been a fairly

serious descent but anyway Abram give to his son the name Yak which means he laughs and Sarah said

God has made laughter for me everyone who hears will laugh over me who would have said to Abram that Sarah would nurse children yet I have borne him a

son in his old age so there was another person

laughing and that was Ishmael he laughed not perhaps the laugh of Joy but the laugh of mockery and Sarah said cast out the

slave woman and Abram was very upset at this because of his son Ishmael he come to love him and God said to Abram don't be

displeased do what she says because Isaac has got to be the one in which your Offspring is named but I will make a

nation of the son of the slave woman also because he is your offspring God was interested in Ishmael and in his

persistence and future existence and role on this planet so Abram gets up early in the morning and gives her some

bread and a skin of water what is this this is one of the wealthiest men in the

region this is his son and he gives her a bottle of water and a bit of bread when he could have given her a whole train of donkeys

and camels and food and an inheritance and he doesn't do it why not perhaps because he secretly hoped she'd come back that

evening he didn't give her enough to last a day let alone a lifetime I don't know because we're not told but we do know that very rapidly

the water ran out and she put the child under one of the bushes and went out of earshot so she couldn't hear the child screaming and the voice came again what

troubles you Hagar for God has heard the voice of the boy up lift him up and hold him fast with your hand for I will make him into a great

nation God does not forget Ishmael in all his love for Isaac and we should

remember it with the descendants of Ishmael in our contemporary world and then we go back to the story

of Abram and it's aimc again and there is difficulty about a well of water that

aimc servants have seized from Abram and this begins to introduce us increasingly to the last major topic of

this part of the book security if you're going to survive you need water especially in a desert

country and losing a whale was a very serious business so Abram reproved AMC and they came together and they had a

discussion and they made a covenant not a covenant about salvation but a covenant about the use of the well

it's very important by the way this word covenant gets bandied about a great deal not all covenants in scripture are even

about the same thing the first Covenant with Abram was about the land and it's important important to distinguish things that differ this one

was about having a well and Abram planted the Tamarisk and beeva the Seven whales and called there on the name of

the Lord the Everlasting God and with that we come to chapter 22 and we're told that after those things God tested Abraham

it's a test the offering up of Isaac is one of the most profound

difficult stories in the whole of scripture it was hard to let ishmail go the son he loves and whom he'd hoped

would one time be the air now he was to be faced with letting go his second son we've just had a tale of Hagar a

distraught mother and her son driven into the desert and despairing of life being saved by the intervention of an Angel who showed them a well we're about

to meet something much deeper but very similar Abram the anguished father silently obeying an injunction from God to take his son Into the

Wilderness and sacrifice him and he's saved by the intervention of an Angel it's a test but Abram of course couldn't

know it was a test it's a bit like quantum mechanics If You observe the system you change it the one thing he couldn't know at the beginning is that

he was being tested and God said to him Abraham and he said here am

I he said take your son and your only son whom you love and please

go to the land of Mariah please go years before God had appeared to him

in his magnificent glory and said go and now that same God says Abram

please it was a request not a command very unusual and God describes Isaac as

Abram's son his only son the son You love three things about him that bound

the lad to his father with the deepest Poss possible bones take him and burn him

please the word for a burnt offering in Greek is Holocaust ladies and gentlemen how are we to react to this was a devastating moment and we all

know of course has been a focus of a great deal of criticism how can we respect the God who approves the sacrificing a child but is

that really what's involved after all in the event whatever you may say about it Abram did not have to sacrifice Isaac and the Old Testament

is the book par Excellence that describes God is utterly abore aboard with child sacrifice

offering to Molech and so on but you can't begin to tackle those questions before you understand a little bit of what's going

on it's the greatest test of his life an entirely new dimension God had said go God had said believe

me God had said I'm God Almighty walk before me and be perfect and I'm going to give you a son and waited year after

year after year after year and supernaturally a child was conceived please notice that the thing was

Supernatural and the whole context is geared to convince us that it was Supernatural and Abram sought to protect that son he secured the well he secured

a future Hagar and ishmail have been dealt with by sending them

away and Abram's done everything because of course his whole

future is tied up with Isaac and the seed project the project of bringing the line of Messiah into the world won't even get started if Isaac

doesn't get married and have a son and he's only a lad perhaps about 13 at this stage take

him and burn him what's it all about it reminds me a little of Daniel's three

friends who were told that unless they bowed down to Nebuchadnezzar's image they wouldn't live and so everything was on the line their home

their job their reputation their family or their lives this is harder because you see it wasn't Abram's

life that was on the line it was Isaac's that made it so much more

difficult what could it mean and we don't read of any verbal response that he made we do not even know if Sarah knew anything about it

until it was over and there's no record of Abram protesting against what God was asking and pleading for the life of Isaac as he plead for the life of

lot he simply did what he was told the philosopher kard thought that what Abram was asked to sacrifice was reason itself since

there was a complete contradiction between God's promise to blessed the world through Isaac and his request to kill him but now the New Testament shows us

that that was not the case he who received the promises was in the act of offering up his only

son of whom it was said in Isaac shall your seed be called he Abram considered that God was able to raise the

Dead from which figuratives he speaking he did receive him back that's a supernatural Insight of

course into Abram's reasoning and it is immensely important isn't it some people superficially react to this story and say it is so

dangerous because that means God could put it into my head to take a gun and shoot you oh wait a minute have you noticed that people who take

guns to shoot in classrooms that young man did the other day they don't believe their victims are going to rise from the

dead we mustn't confuse things that are profoundly different in their Essence the New Testament assures me that Abram had got to the point in

his thinking that if God asks me to do this I don't understand why because it seems to ruin all the promises therefore the

only logical possibility is if I have to kill him he'll rise from the dead I'm amazed at that you know Abram didn't know aund of what we

know in this room not a hund have we got got there to that

stage Abram had experience of this of course his body good as dead sah as good as dead can God bring life from the

death was the big issue cing the birth of Isaac it now gets even bigger the very same

issue can God generate physical life so Abram is thinking that Isaac must live not Isaac must

die he sees the ultimate goal although as a father he must have been Torn to Pieces psychologically

inside he took with him two Lads as well as Isaac and the order is so odd he Saddles the donkey before he splits the wood a 100y old

man in the whole confusion of the thing you saddle the donkey last of course normally but you imagine what's preying on his

mind as he picks up an Axe and cuts the wood and knows it's going to be used to burn his son that would confuse anybody to get the order wrong there was a three-day journey to

mount Mariah days passed over in Silence with what turmoil and perplexity in Abram's mind we don't know and

then with his spine tingling he recognizes the outline of the mountain that God had told him

of and he knows that the time has come so it tells the two Lads to wait while I and my

son go to worship and we will return to you Isaac was old enough to be involved in worship he

wasn't a child we will return is that a

prophecy is it a despairing hope or is it an expression of a trembling face that God's going to raise the boy

from the dead and Abram puts the wood for the fire on Isaac's shoulders and he carries the fire and

the knife thus father and son slowly Ascend the mountain they went both of them

together Yak they went both of them together there's something so deliberate about this a dad and his son the dad and

his son in whom all the hopes of the planet in a sense are resting and they're starting to climb the final Ascent in more ways than

one the Genesis rabah which is a Jewish midrash commentary says that Isaac with the wood on his

back is like a condemned man carrying his own cross and the centuries flit by in our imagination

he went out bearing his own cross but that was a son that had the choice Isaac had none but Isaac breaks the tension of

silence and he spoke to his father AI My Father Dad the first conversation in scripture between a father and a

son here am I myself son dad the fire of the wood where's the lamb dad Isaac doesn't mention the knife

because perhaps is now just the beginnings of the flutter of apprehension in his heart how can Abram now avoid telling

him the horrific truth son God will provide for himself the lamb for the burnt

offering a lamb will be provided is this a prayer a prophecy or an expression of uncommon

trust Abram may be speaking more than he knows and perhaps there's rising in his heart the hope that Isaac won't need to be killed because his words turn out in

the end to be exactly right so they went both of them together what did it sound like to

Isaac his silence is impressive and convey more than a hint that Isaac accepts his father's expanation but also that Isaac may be

slowly realizing that he is the intended sacrifice nothing is said he was led as a

lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before its hearers was

D so he opened not his mouth he didn't know much he wasn't able to say my God my

God if it is possible let this cup pass from me but in silence he goes up the mountain and

Isaac sees the knife in the hand of his father why didn't he simply stab him in the back so the boy never saw the blade that was

coming oh no he binds him and Jew is thinking this is The Binding AK of

Isaac Isaac was a tough young man who could easily have outrun a 100y old father The Binding suggests to me that

it was done willingly and cooperatively what did Abram feel what did Isaac feel it's a turmoil of emotions that I'm

it leaves me far behind I can't begin to to to penetrate this taking the lad whom he loved and in

whom all his Hope was and with trembling hands getting him to lie down on the wood and then Abram takes

out his knife and took it to slay his son he lifts it up the whole of Heaven

watches this is the highest point of drama that the Bible has got to so far in its storyline and Abram's prepared to bring

it down and he's tensing his muscles when suddenly Abram Abram and his knife hand is Frozen in space and time as the

voice speaks once again to him do not lay your hand on the boy or

do anything to him for now I know that you fear God seeing you have not that held your son your only son for

me and Abram lifted up his eyes and looked and behold behind him was a ram caught in a Thicket by his horns that he went and took the RAM and

offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son so Abram called the name of that place the Lord will

provide as it is said to this day on the Mount of the Lord it will be provided I do not know what it means that it was a ram the father of a

lamb that was caught in the thicket but it seems to me to underline the sheer complexity of what's going on here it's

not simply a Son suffering it's a father suffering as we watch that what a magnificent Triumph I'm

reminded of what we sign on the Mount of crucifixion fountains opened

deep and wide through the fgets of God's mercy flowed a vast and gracious tide Grace and

love like Mighty Rivers poured in incessant from above and Heaven's peace and perfect Justice kissed a guilty

World in love oh this is very big stuff isn't it I almost trembl to talk to you about it

I feel I'm on the holiest ground because time seems to collapse as we think of the other

father and the other son who went up in all probability the very same Mountain together and for the

knife was allow to fall it's our Salvation this is the gospel This Is Our

God oh Abram as he watched that night as the Covenant was made in chapter 15 the horror of a great Darkness as God with

his lamp went through the pieces it was a symbol but this is the reality and we all watch as Christ didn't go through the

pieces he became the pieces this is the reality of which all of this speaks now I know says God what do you mean he

knows isn't God omnicient now this is very important ladies and gentlemen because the New Testament tells us that what happened

here was that Abram was justified by his works and that doesn't contradict his justification by faith it is that God expects

the reality of our faith to be demonstrated in what we do you see there's a common notion that we are Justified before God by faith and

before Men by our works but that isn't true this is the paradig incident there were no other men there it wasn't that men would know it's

now I know says God when I was a child I'd heard about Siberia that was very cold I believed it then I went to Siberia and discovered it

was very cold but there's a difference in knowing it by reading books about it and experiencing it now you can argue from

now to Eternity philosophically about the nature of God's omniscience but when I read here that God says now I know I

believe it's true that God expects the evidence that Abram's faith is real and God expects the evidence that my faith

and your faith is real we talk about Mountaintop experiences ladies and gentlemen we should be careful this was the Mountaintop

experience have you been up a mountain with God recently God wants to know that you're real he wants to know that I'm real there's so

much hypocrisy in my heart so much deceit so much pretend so much playing the

religious game and in the end God in his wisdom will test us this was a unique test of course

because it is so huge ramifications I'm not Abram and nor are you but at our lesser level God requires

the evidence doesn't he and in that sense he was justified by his

works that is his activity what he did confirmed the reality of his justification by faith it didn't cause it it confirmed it

and God demanded the evidence and then God swears and that is quoted too in the letter to the

Hebrews God swears to Abraham and the application is very simple and it's said in Hebrews thus Abram having patiently waited obtained

the promise for people swear by something greater than themselves and at all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation so when God desire desired to show more

convincingly to The Heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose he guaranteed it with an oath so that by two unchangeable things in which

it is impossible for God to lie we who have fled for Refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the Hope

set before us we have this as ass sure and steadfast anchor of the Soul a hope that enters into to the inner place behind the curtain where Jesus has gone

as a forerunner for us having become a high priest Forever After the order of mkis there was a dramatic moment and the whole world

changed he'd moved from being a pagan naturalist he'd seen the glory of

God God had did his Grace limited himself in giving him pictures that assured him in terms of covenants but

now after it all he' passed the test and he'd proved that his faith was real it's such a contrast between denying his

wife and offering Isaac isn't it what a shift in such a small space of time and the man stands

forever as a paradigm of what it means to trust God but also as a prototype on that

mountain of the Gospel I want to read a Jewish commentary on this my father took his knife to

me how could he why did he what did the Lord want of him and me yet Isaac knows that his father stopped short that something summoned

him to stop that his father offered up a ram in instead and that his life was restored to him even as it was being given up even if he did not hear the Divine voice he has reason to suspect

that he owes his life less to his father more to gracious Powers invisible that his life like any other human life is an unmerited gift from

Beyond The Heart of the story is the conversation between Father and Son as they went together up the mountain that began with Isaac's

question where is the lamb and ended with Abram's speech that proved prophetic even if Isaac did not hear the Divine voice that soon after saved his

life and even if he subsequently feels estranged from his father and from the god to whom he was offered he will never forget his father's

interpretation of the event somewh in his soul he will always remember that singular conversation of transmission in which Abram counseled

him regarding the Deep perplexities of Life somewhere in his soul he will always

remember that Abram taught him to place his trust not in his father but in God what about us fathers and

mothers have we got it across to our children that God can take them on their Journey of Faith despite our

failures father and son for God so loved the world that he gave his only

son he who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all how will he not with him freely give us all

things but the son is still young he's yet to be married and the grand finale is This Magnificent story of a

bride for the promised seed and Abram calls his servant and the manner of his promising shows the immense trust that

he places in his servant don't take for my son a wife for the local

Canaanites go back to my relatives in Mesopotamia to find find a suitable girl oh says the servant what if the woman won't follow

me and come here must I bring your son back to the land for which you came no says Abram the Lord will send his messenger and guide you but if she doesn't follow you you're clear of your oath whatever

happens don't bring Isaac there what's that all about Abram Longs for a bride for a

son who will repeat his journey that's what it's all about it started with the journey and now the cycle has come the

promised seed has been born and now for the projected seed project to go forward he must have a

wife that will repeat his journey I hope you've got such a wife or a husband oh young men if I may speak to you

frankly whatever you you do find a wife if God has called you to have a wife that will go on the journey that will go on the

journey and so this servant took his camels oh this is a story isn't it and here people say Lennox you've been

talking mythology for 4 days observe this whole story of ab is simply fiction because we all know that

there were no camels available at that time well you know we happen to have in our midst a world expert on these camels I'm sorry that all of you didn't hear

his seminar which I attended yesterday he's Dr Martin haid and he's done us all in the scholarly World a great service by doing

intensive research on these camels and discovered that they are authentic historically Google his name Dr Martin

heida h d on the internet and you can read all about the cbls camels we are not in the area of myth we are in the area of authentic

history now it was quite a journey 21 days by camel or a bit more for the 800 kilometers to the north up from the

Canan to Haram and it's a wonderful story I wish I had time to go through it with you but I don't where the man the

servant prayed that God would guide him and he prayed that a girl would come and give him to drink but not only him to drink his camels so just imagine the

situation this beautiful girl comes and she gives him to drink and they the text is a brilliant bit of Storytelling in the Hebrew form it keeps

the suspense going she gives him a little to drink but is she going to give water to the camels and then she says I'll feed all the camels and fill them with water until they've ended 25

gallons each that's quite something isn't it and there's a tremendous description very Vivid of her doing this a whirl of

activity a subject of 11 verbs of action and one of speech in three verses in the text it's about Hospitality ladies and gentlemen

the test for the girl was her Hospitality it's a big topic you see in this text we're not

forgetting the subjects we've learned he knows in his heart before God that one of the major things is going to be her attitude to the

stranger mind you it was helped when he suddenly produced a beautiful gold set of earrings that that weighed about a

ton you imagine this young girl seeing this and abs I want to tell my mom about this you know and so off she went to her mom and there was laan and laan in a

comical way the text says he noticed the gold and he said oh come in blessed are th of the Lord of course there are people that react like that aren't there they discriminate between people

according to the level of their gold and the all sorts of argument and the man says I got to go now and it's put to rivka to Rebecca

will you go with this man she's never seen her husband to be but she's seen as well and now comes a big

decision I will go and she makes the journey 21 one days of wondering and she comes into the fields

at evening and she sees a man walking in the cool of the garden in the evening who's

that that's your husband oh ladies and gentlemen we'd be dim if we couldn't see what this is about this is what we're about this is

our task like Elie the servant to take the wealth of the master's son and show it to people and say will

you go and encourage them to fall in love with someone they've never seen to make that Journey do you know as

I close let me tell you this where did Christ begin his ministry at a wedding no one must out shine a bride at her wedding that's

pretty basic politeness isn't it but at that wedding at can of Galilee John tells us he revealed his

glory why was Jesus at a wedding because he was looking for a bride he showed his glory and Peter says I was called by That Glory it got me has

it got you is that's what motivated you you've seen some of the wealth and you started a

journey oh may God help us because ladies and gentlemen it started in Babel City a prostitute an Unfaithful

girl of beauty where is it going to end this story that begins in Babel it's going to end and begin with a marriage the married supper of the

Lamb Christ is so big that it's going to take all the millions of Believers throughout all the

ages to constitute his bride and Eternity will begin when we arrive at that wedding

day and I often think you know when I get there my

wife will I turn to her and say Sally if I'd known what it was like I'd have invested far more in

it may God bless you