Good to be here this morning. I know when you've missed a couple of weeks, it really, really feels like you're out of a loop. And it's kind of been that way for the last couple of weeks. Let's look to the Lord for a moment and look to Him in prayer.
Our Father, we thank You. For bringing us here this morning, we thank You that we had good weather. We thank You that we've been able to get our walkway opened up and be able to be here today. Thank You.
Most of all that we are here because of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world, the one who gave Himself for us. Thank You that we've had these times to sing these praises to Him. And earlier have various thoughts shared from the Scriptures that pointed us to Jesus Christ. Lord, may we continue to do so.
May we point to Him. And may His name be magnified as we look into the Scriptures this morning. We thank You in Jesus' name, amen. Looks like Sunday School went downstairs today.
Oh, okay, I guess they're finished with Genesis. No. All right. No, no, no, no, no, that's okay.
All right, so we're gonna continue with Genesis. And it's been a while. I looked at my last notes and it was October 27th. So it's four months almost.
I can't believe it's been that long since we last looked at Abraham. So because of that, I'm going to go on a lightning fast review of the life of Abraham. So this thing is showing no signal. Oh, there we go.
Now it's on. So it does show a signal now that it's on. These guys assumed that I know how to work power switches, but obviously I don't. Okay.
So in the first 11 chapters of the book of Genesis, we looked at the events that take place over about 2000 years of history. Genesis is the book of beginnings. We looked at the formation of the universe of life, of mankind, of marriage in the first two chapters. And then we looked at the, what I would say the saddest chapter in all the scriptures, chapter three, which is the fall of man, where Adam and Eve both sinned in the garden.
They heard the voice of Satan and they followed his voice rather than the commands of God. And ever since then, ever since then, we have been in pain, agony and death and all of the things that have gone wrong in this world can root themselves back to that one day when mankind acted in disobedience. And then the first consequence was there was a massive flood that flooded the whole earth. We read of that and the life of Noah in Genesis chapter six to nine.
And then further followed from this, we had rebellion at the Tower of Babel where man said, I'm going to make a name for myself. I will be greater as great at least as God. And we'll build a tower that will be so magnificent, it'll reach to the heavens. Reminds me a lot of what goes on today.
It's, you know, man boasting in their own greatness. And as we saw in the Lord's Supper this morning when John read from Psalm 110, they will be brought down once again. That day is coming. So then from that we saw the formation of languages and cultures and the spread of man throughout the earth.
And then we come to chapter 12. Chapter 12 to chapter 50 encompasses about 300 to 350 years of history. So the first 11 chapters is taken up with over 2,000 years of history. And then all of a sudden the account slows down.
And for the next 39 chapters, it's going to be just slowly going through the lives of people and the nation of Israel and the formation of Israel. We see that it starts with Abraham or Abraham as he's later called. His name means Exalted Father. He was almost 100 years old and had no children.
He's also called the father of those who believe. There are three religions in this world that hold Abraham in very high esteem. Islam, Judaism and Christianity. They look at Abraham as one who is a great patriarch.
He is held forth in a New Testament as an example of justification by faith. And we're going to look at that today in Romans chapter four, Galatians chapter three, Hebrews chapter 11. He's also called a friend of God in Second Chronicles chapter 20 in Isaiah chapter 41 and in James chapter two. Abraham's background, he lived in Mesopotamia in an area in a place called Ur of the Chaldines.
And God told him to leave his family behind to uproot and to go and move to a place that he didn't know where he was going. Destination unknown, as I say. He brings his father and his nephew. That was not what God had planned.
That's not what God had asked him to do, but he did it. He went to Heron and he stayed there and he delayed until his father passed away. Again, that was not in what God had told him to do, but that's what he did. Then his father died and his journey continues.
And then he comes to the land where he's supposed to go and there's a famine there. And Abraham said, like most men, I gotta fix this. And he headed down to Egypt. Again, not what God had asked him to do.
You see, in all of these things, in all of these acts of disobedience, it has this root in doubting what God is saying. That's what disobedience comes from. When I doubt what God says is really true or is really going to happen. Or it really is what he really said that.
And it goes all the way back actually to that very first sin. Did God really say Satan loves to plant doubt in our minds. And so here's Abraham saying, well, this can't be where God wants me to go. There's a famine here.
So I'll take this into my own hands and I'll hit Egypt. And that's what he did. Then a little later on, he obeys the call of God and he says, Egypt is not for me and he returns to Bethel. And then there's a dispute with his nephew that he brought along with him.
And he and Lot, there herdsmen start scrapping with each other and fighting. And Abraham says, okay, enough of this. We, I think we need to part ways. And he says, Lot, I'll tell you what, you're my younger nephew.
Why don't you pick where you want to go? So Lot goes out and he looks around and he goes, pretty dry and dusty here, but look down there. It's so lush and green. I think I'll go there.
I'm going to take the good land. Abraham, you can see what you can figure out with the rock stones and sand that we have here. I'm going down there. Abraham says, fine, you go, you take that land.
And I'll stay here. So Lot goes down there to the area called Sodom. And look at what it says in Genesis chapter 13 verse 13. It says, but the people of the area, this area, this is Sodom, were extremely wicked and constantly sinned against the Lord.
He might have picked what looked like the best land, but that was not Lot's choice. Abraham, then he was called to go on to Canaan. And as he came to this land, a promise of a great nation in many offspring was given to Abraham. And there's this verse that's up there behind me.
It says, the Lord said, Abraham, after Lot separated from him, lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward. For all the land that you see, well, I will give to you and your offspring forever. I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth, that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted, arise and walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I will give it to you. Excuse me while I can get rid of this obstacle.
There. So here's the first promise of a great nation, of offspring for Abraham. Again, Abraham's about 80 years old or so. And he's being told, he's got this name, Father of many.
It seems very, very strange. But this is what God has promised him. And so here we have this promise of God. You will become a great nation.
I'm going to bless you. Your offspring will be many as the dust of the earth. So then we get into Genesis 14. This is going to be the fastest I've ever studied through a chapter, ever.
Genesis chapter 14 is an interesting chapter. I've just put it up for you to try to read. So there arises a battle, a war, between these kings. There are four Hamite kings and there are five Shemit kings.
Do I have that river? No, that's right. Five Shemit kings and four Hamite kings. So what are Hamites and what are Shemit?
Can anybody tell me where Shemit would have come from? Say it really out loud. Shemit, yes. And who's Shemit?
No sun, good. Okay, Bible solvers, awesome. Who was Ham? His other son.
Okay, so the descendants of Shemit, descendants of Ham. And so five Shemit kings, four Hamite kings, and they go to battle. So the Shemit's, they lose. And they're taken captive by the Hamites.
And Lot is taken with them. And he's taken along with them. You read that in 14 verses 11 and 12. So Abraham, where it gets to him, he opened up Google News first thing in the morning and he saw this was going on.
And said, uh oh, my nephew Lot is in big trouble. I have to go and rescue him. So he gets together 318 servants and forms an army and goes to war against the Hamites. He defeats them.
He defeats the Hamites. He rescues Lot and the Shemit's are thankful and they all return to their land. Then after this, he meets this very unusual character. Has anybody ever heard of Melchizedek?
Yes, yeah. A couple people were listening early this morning. I thought John was going to read the expand on who Melchizedek was. So there's this interesting, very interesting priest and king that Abraham meets up with.
His name is Melchizedek. And Melchizedek is the king of Salem. His name means the king of righteousness. But he's a priest and he's a king.
The scriptures say that you cannot be a priest and you cannot be a king at the same time. And you cannot be a king and you cannot be a priest at the same time. You're either a priest or you're a king, but this guy was both. It's very, very interesting.
There's only one other person in all of the scripture that we read of ever that is a priest and a king. Can anybody tell me who that might be? What was that? Oh, yes.
Jesus Christ, yes. So you all sit way back there. And I can't hear you up here. I hope you can hear me back there.
We're going to have to do something about this. We're going to put out like a lot less chairs. That's what we have to do. We're going to sell some of our chairs on eBay.
OK, so here's Melchizedek. So Melchizedek comes along and he gives bread and wine to Abraham, which is, I find, very, very interesting. There are so many things. This whole message could be on Melchizedek, but I'm going to do like one minute, two minutes.
So Abraham comes to Melchizedek and he meets up with him and he honors him. In fact, Abraham gives him a tithe, 10%, 10% of what he owns. So you're thinking, OK, yeah, people do that. They still tithe today in church and they write their check for $50 and they put it in the box at the back or the plate as it goes around, whatever it might be.
Abraham was a very, very, very rich man, a very wealthy man. So could you imagine Elon Musk, richest man in the world? What's he got? Roughly $250 billion, something like that?
That he's disclosed? Whoops, this is recorded. So you imagine if he just said, OK, I'm going to give you a tenth of that. Here you go.
$25 billion, take it and go. $25 billion. So Abraham was Elon Musk of the day. And Abraham said to Melchizedek, he says, 10% of everything I have is yours.
Take it. It was a huge offering he gave him. We have no idea where Musk has it came from. We have no idea how he came to be in Canaan.
We have no idea how he became a worshiper of God. We have no idea about what his background was. We have no idea how Abraham came to know him, but we just know that he was there. And we will read later in the Psalms, Psalm 110.
And you'll read in Hebrews several times that he is a picture of Jesus Christ. Now, there's a lot of debate amongst theologians, of which I don't consider myself. But is he a type of Christ or is this an appearance of Christ before he was born in Bethlehem of Theophany? You know what the thing is?
I don't know. I used to think it was. And then the more I kind of studied it, the more I realized, no, it's not. This was a picture.
This is a picture of Christ. Just like the ark. Remember when we did the ark? The ark was a picture of Jesus Christ, a type.
So Melchizedek, in type, in picture, in illustration, represents Jesus Christ. And he blesses Abraham. Now another king comes along, the king of Sodom. And his name is Barah.
He says to Abraham, I'm going to give you a great reward. I've got lots. I know you've given no hesitics. But it's time for the giving to go the other way.
I'm going to give you, and Abraham says, well, stop. I'll take nothing from you. Nobody is going to say I made Abraham rich. Keep your gift.
And Abraham declines it. So then we come to chapter 15, which is, that's my introduction. Genesis chapter 15, if you have your Bibles there, open and look at Genesis chapter 15, or if you have your electronic devices, which have a Bible on them, which I think is a wonderful thing this day, that every single person walking every street of this nation can have a Bible in their hands on their electronic device. That's an amazing thing.
And how many around the world? So Genesis chapter 15, I want you to know those first two words, fear not. Fear not, oh, it says after these things. After these things, the word of the Lord came today.
Abraham and the division saying, do not fear, or fear not. I am a shield to you. Your reward shall be very great. These are words that Abraham needed to hear.
But think back his nephew Lot left him with his herdsmen and went to a very bad place. Sometimes when you see your children, or your grandchildren, or your nieces, or cousins, or whatever it might be, people who are close to you go to a very bad place. You are fearful for them sometimes. I'm sure Abraham had this fear.
What's going to happen to Lot? He's down there where the men are known to be the worst sinners around. Also, I just went to war after these five kings and four kings fought. Are they going to come back after me?
I mean, we just routed those guys and delivered Lot and brought back the Shemites. Are they going to seek revenge? Yeah, fear of that. All kinds of things to be fearful of.
He just refused a king who offered him a reward. Is he going to attack me? Is he going to come back and seek revenge? Because I dishonored him by not taking his reward.
See, there's a number of things that he could be afraid of. We live in a day where there's a lot of fear. There's a lot of fear around us. There's fearful people around us.
Have you ever spent any time around people who are fearful? It's not fun. It's not good. It's a bad influence.
It's hurtful. It's harmful to you. It's harmful to your soul. Fearful news.
Not to prejudice anybody. I put Fox News in there with CNN just so you know. I don't know how the logo is almost kept shooting across the page from each other. But all these sources of news, if you're a fearful person, I'll tell you what, there is so much to feed that fearful soul of yours.
Right there. I've given you five sources, six sources, to go and fill yourself with fear. If you concentrate and live around the noises that are around you, what it's going to do is take your focus away from God. It's going to put your focus on yourself.
It's going to put your focus on the fearful shouts that are going around you. So fear does a number of things. It paralyzes you. People who live in fear tend to be paralyzed.
I'm not going to go out. I might get sick. I'm not going to. I saw this hilarious, hilarious, hilarious video.
Someone shared with me this guy. He was traveling for a job interview. And he was standing at the airport to collect his stuff. And he said, yes, I'm afraid.
All these airplanes are crashing. I'm afraid to get on the airplane to my crash. And they said, OK. And he continues to, but even if I sit at home and don't get on the airplane, one of those airplanes could fly over my home and come crashing into my house and kill me.
And then maybe that might not happen. But maybe I'm going to drive instead of fly. But my car is going to get smashed up. And I'll be dragged all the way from Alabama to Tennessee.
And he kept going on and on and on about all these fears. And I thought, this guy is absolutely paralyzed with fear. In fact, it gets to the last point there. His fears are irrational.
You see, most people, when you're gripped by fear, there's studies that say that 40% of what people fear never happens. Have you ever had that happen to you? What if? Oh boy, what if we run out of food?
What if I lose my job and I don't have a car anymore? And I have to carry my groceries all the way from Paul Herbert to Lawrence town? I mean, what if? What if?
What if? And you get fearful? It's paralyzing. And it turns our focus away from God.
And it turns on ourselves and on our situation. And then you realize that my fears are just irrational, because they're not even coming through. So God comes and he says, fear not. Fear not, Abraham.
You know, the fear not or a variety of it is found over 70 times in the scriptures. Over 70 times we read it. This is how we fear not. If you want to not be a fearful person, this.
This is what will take away your fears. Give you confidence in God. Give you comfort in God. Maybe you've lost your job.
Maybe your marriage is in trouble. Maybe your health is not good. Maybe you have a dreaded appointment with the doctor next week. Stay in the scriptures.
It will give you help with these fears. There are so many things that we can be fearful of, but God can take away those fears. I'm going to read these. In this chapter we're doing, God says, I am your shield.
Your reward shall be very great. I'm your shield. I'm your defender. He just came from a war.
He wasn't thinking about his implements. I need to think about God as my shield. Not the shields that I made for war, the physical shields. God of heaven is my shield.
He is my rewarder. Psalm 46 verse 2, therefore we will not fear though the earth give way, though the mountains be moved to the heart of the sea. You know, this is written about a time when Jerusalem surrounded and going to be defeated and utterly crushed and wiped off the face of the earth. We will not fear, even if the earth gives way, even if the mountains are moved into the heart of the sea.
Psalm 118 verse 6, the Lord is on my side. I will not fear. What can man do to me? Isaiah 41 and 13, for I the Lord, your God, hold your right hand.
It is I who say to you, fear not. I am the one who helps you. In Luke chapter 2 verse 10, shepherds on the hill. This is these bright hosts of heaven come.
Fear not, says the angel. For behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people. I had to put a black background on this because I wanted to put these letters in red because they are in the red letters in your Bible. These are the words of the Lord Jesus on fear not.
Luke chapter 12 verse seven. Why even the hairs of your head are numbered? Fear not, you are of more value than many sparrows. John chapter 14 verse 27, peace, I leave with you.
My peace, I give you, not as the world gives, do I give you, let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. You know what? I thought I should take that and print that off and put that right above my television, that verse. I watch what's going on around this world and it can bring all kinds of fear to my heart.
But it says right here, peace, I leave with you. My peace, I give you, give to you, not as the world gives, do I give to you, let not your heart be troubled and let not them be afraid. John chapter 14 verses one to three. Let not your heart be troubled, hearts be troubled.
Believe in God, believe also in me, in my father's house or many rooms. If we're not so, what I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you and if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and I will take you to myself that where I am, there you may be also. Talk about taking away your fears. We have the greatest promise and the greatest hope of anybody.
We have a savior who's going to take us to be with himself. We have a promise of eternal life. So as we continue in this chapter, we see that God repeats his promise to Abraham. Now again, Abraham's 85, 90 years old and he's being told that he's going to become a great nation and he's looking around thinking, how am I going to become a great nation?
I don't have any children. Oh, maybe it's Eliezer. My good friend, my servant, my assistant, he's a younger man. Maybe it's through him that I'm going to have this.
So he asks God, God says, no, no, no, no, no, it's not through him. Your son will be a rare. God, I don't have a son. I don't have a son.
I know what my name means, but I don't have not even one. Father of many, I have zero. God says, look what it says in numeric standards first before. Then behold, the word of the Lord came to him saying, this man, Eliezer, will not be your heir, but the one who will come forth from your own body, he shall be your heir.
Just if he declared he on what your son means, it's one's going to come from your own body. So Abraham said to God, is it Abraham? He said, come on outside for a minute. And he takes him outside.
And he says, and every time I get out of my car and I look up, I live in the country, which is great. Until my neighbor moved in, I have a neighbor that moved in next door. Great guy, love the guy. Except he leaves all his up door lights on all the time, creating light pollution.
So I don't get to see as many stars as I used to. But he takes Abraham out and he says, look up into the sky, Abraham, and see the stars. As many as those stars you see, so shall your offspring be. Wow.
He looked up at the sky. He saw all the stars. Now, I mean, we can only see the stars of the Milky Way, where we are. That would be the best we could see on a clear dark night.
And you can actually see, it looks like a cloud going across, but it's billions of stars. Just looking through the Milky Way. There's 100 billion stars, 100 billion stars in the Milky Way. I put the full number up there just so you can see it.
Because when you write out 100, and the word billion afterwards, it doesn't make, doesn't press you as much as what the number actually looks like. There's that many stars in the Milky Way. And God says, that's how many descendants will come from you, Abraham. So what does Abraham do?
Come on. God, you know, I don't have any kids. He didn't say that. It says, and Abraham believed God.
When God told him that, as crazy as that might seem, as outside the realm of possibilities that might seem, it says Abraham believed God. This, I believe, is the key verse of all of the Bible. I think this is a key verse in all of the scriptures. Abraham believed the Lord, trusted God, put his faith in God.
And it says, it was counted to him as righteousness. Genesis chapter 15, verse 6 in the NLT says, in Abraham, believe the Lord, and the Lord declared him right just because of his faith. That's the core of the scriptures. That is the core of the gospel.
That is the most important thing that you could know, that by simply believing and trusting and putting your faith in the Lord, you could become righteous. You see, we have a problem. There are two religious systems in our world. There are only two.
You might say, are you crazy? There's hundreds. No, there's two. There's one that says that I can work my way to heaven.
My own human achievement is going to get me to heaven. That's religious system number one. I will find my own way there, and somehow God will be pleased with me. The other one is not by my accomplishment, but by divine accomplishment.
All of my good works cannot cancel the debt that I owe, but God can account righteousness by putting Christ's righteousness, what he has done to the ledger of those who believe. You see, you might not be an accountant, and you might not understand accounting, but here's the way it works. You have debts, and you have revenue. What comes in to pay off what you owe?
The problem is we have nothing coming in. We have no righteousness to put to the account of the debt that we have accumulated because of our sin. So we have this mountain of red ink against us. And someday, we'll be called in for that.
Anybody who runs a business or works for a business at the end of the day when you give your accounting, and if they look at it and say, you owe, you didn't balance this out. You're in trouble. But you see, it says that Abraham believed God and the Lord declared him righteous. It says in Romans, reckoned to him as righteousness.
It means put to his account, righteousness. Where all I have is unrighteousness, God applies to my account the righteousness of Christ. Christ died, he paid the debt, he took it all the way, and all I have to do is reckon that to be true. And when I do, I am declared righteous before God.
I am no longer in debt to him. Romans chapter four, verses three to five. And these are my favorite gospel verses in all of the Bible. It says, for what does the scripture say?
Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. Now to the one who works, his wages are now counted as a gift, but as he's due. And to the one who does not work, but trusts in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. You see at the end of this week, I'm going to get paid.
My company is going to put money in my bank account. Why? Because I worked for them for the last two weeks. And they owe me money for working.
I've agreed to work for so much, and they're going to put that in my account. I've worked, I've received wages. When my works count for nothing with God. When God says it's not by works of righteousness which we have done.
When he says all of our righteousness, all of our works are filthy rags before him. They're worthless. Then I have a problem. I am unrighteous.
I am unholy. I am in debt to God. How do I get out of that? Well, it says here, Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.
To the one who does not work, but trusts in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. So here we are standing before God today. We're sitting here sitting. Has righteousness been applied to your account?
The righteousness of Christ. Are you debt free before God? I am so thankful I'm debt free with God. And it's not because of anything that I have done.
There was a day I remember being debt free with the bank of novices when I paid off my mortgage. Oh my goodness, that felt so good. But I did it. It was my work.
It was a debt that was realistic that they said, yeah, you can pay this at the very start. Over the next 250 years you'll be able to pay us back. What you owe us for that house. And I did.
But you see the problem with our sins. We have a mountain of debt that we can never repay and we keep adding to it every single time we sin. Whether it's a bad thought, a bad deed, whether it's neglect, whatever it might be. You just keep adding to the debt, adding to the debt, adding to the debt.
If you have a credit card that's maxed out, you're never getting out from under that because you know what? The debt is even accumulating more debt. And that's kind of the situation we are with God. Every time we wake up in the morning and put our feet on the ground, we just accumulate more debt before God.
But there is one way to have that rubbed out. I look at it and say, you know what? All of that sin, all of that death, that certificate of death, God has canceled it. All I have to do is take that at face value.
Jesus Christ died to eliminate that debt of sin. And when I exercise faith and I say, God, I have no way to pay this debt. I repent. I am so sorry that I built up this mountain of death.
I repent of that. I agree with you. It's a problem. That's what repentance is coming to God and saying, I agree with you, God.
I'm a sinner. I have a problem. And my problem with my sin is I just keep doing more of it. I need to turn from it.
That's repentance. Don't let anybody tell you repentance is not part of salvation. It's a hundred percent part of salvation. You come to a point where you agree with God and you say, I can't pay this.
But thank you that Jesus Christ paid for that debt on the cross of Calvary. I take that payment. I put it, I apply it as you have done to my account. And now I am debt free.
The good thing about that is the account's not closed. You can't add any more debt to it. It's wiped out every single one of those sins. Even the future ones have been paid.
God's accounting is wonderful. It's better than mine. I will pay it all past your current sins today and the ones you will commit tomorrow all wiped out. Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.
Have you believed God? Have you believed him? Are you still working and hoping and thinking, I'll go to church and maybe God will be pleased with me and maybe through that I somehow will find favor with him? Or maybe I'll give money.
Maybe I'll just be the best neighbor that there is on the street. Maybe I'll pray every day. Maybe I'll do all of these things. But if you have not come to the point where you say, I will trust Jesus Christ and him alone and nothing else.
You still have that debt? Stop working and start believing. To the one who does not work but trusts or believes in him who justifies the ungodly. His faith is counted as righteousness.
May you come to him today. Father, thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you that you have made a way to clear us of all the debt that we owe. You have made a way to take away our sins.
Just as Abraham that night, that starry night looked up and said, God, I believe you. I pray that if there is some soul here this morning who has never come to know the Lord Jesus, has never trusted him, has never come to you and said, I've been working all my life at the wrong thing. I will no longer work. I will simply believe.
May they do so this morning. May they do it right here today. May they consider these things and put their full faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you that you have made a way to take away our sins, to take away our sorrows and to take away our fears.
And it's all in him. Thank you in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen. Amen.