Exodus • Week Two • Abraham's Promise
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Handout
Sermon Tone Analysis
A
D
F
J
S
Emotion
A
C
T
Language
O
C
E
A
E
Social
God’s character and attributes are changeless. Even before delivering the Israelites out of Egypt, he was the God of the exodus.
We will study the Exodus of Abraham before the Exodus of the Israelites and one will lead to the other.
I will make you into a great nation,
I will bless you,
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
The longing for every human being is to be known. We all find our end in the Lord himself, as He has promised through the Abrahamic covenant, to make His name known through us! Our chief end is found in YAWEH.
All the nations of the world were seeking a “name” for themselves, and YAWEH tells Abraham that through him…
I will bless those who bless you,
I will curse anyone who treats you with contempt,
and all the peoples on earth
will be blessed through you.
And then toward the end of Abraham’s life,
And all the nations of the earth will be blessed by your offspring because you have obeyed my command.”
God called Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldeans, an ancient Mesopotamian man, along with his wife, Sarai, out of exile and initiated a relationship that would be the first of many. Abraham is the first fruits of the exodus.
He also said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.”
I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery.
The Exodus pattern can be strongly seen in the life of Abraham.
He took him outside and said, “Look at the sky and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “Your offspring will be that numerous.”
Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.
He also said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.”
But he said, “Lord God, how can I know that I will possess it?”
He said to him, “Bring me a three-year-old cow, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.”
So he brought all these to him, cut them in half, and laid the pieces opposite each other, but he did not cut the birds in half. Birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away. As the sun was setting, a deep sleep came over Abram, and suddenly great terror and darkness descended on him.
Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know this for certain: Your offspring will be resident aliens for four hundred years in a land that does not belong to them and will be enslaved and oppressed. However, I will judge the nation they serve, and afterward they will go out with many possessions. But you will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”
When the sun had set and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch appeared and passed between the divided animals. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “I give this land to your offspring, from the Brook of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates River: the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hethites, Perizzites, Rephaim, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites.”
This is the Abrahamic Covenant, a closer look from Jeremiah shows the practice of passing between the pieces of the animal for a covenant.
As for those who disobeyed my covenant, not keeping the terms of the covenant they made before me, I will treat them like the calf they cut in two in order to pass between its pieces.
“Plunged into and delivered out of this night of darkness and deathly terror, Abram had experienced a foretaste of Israel’s exodus. Through this vision, Yahweh assured Abram that he would indeed deliver his children out of foreign oppression—and more, he showed him how that deliverance would be accomplished: through the blood of sacrifice, the seed of Abram would pass through walls of death. Yahweh’s passing through the pieces in Genesis 15:17 is described in the next verse as his making a covenant with Abram. By its association with this ceremony, Israel’s Passover meal obtains a covenantal character, and celebrates first of all God’s faithfulness to the nation’s patriarch.” - Exodus Old and New, L. Michael Morales.
Just as YAWEH would pass through the death of the animal, the children of Israel would pass through the death/chaos walls of water with the plunder from Egypt.
More than just the covanental bond and transcendant message through the vision, Abraham literally walked through the exodus story with his wife in a real way.
There was a famine in the land, so Abram went down to Egypt to stay there for a while because the famine in the land was severe. When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife, Sarai, “Look, I know what a beautiful woman you are. When the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ They will kill me but let you live. Please say you’re my sister so it will go well for me because of you, and my life will be spared on your account.” When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful. Pharaoh’s officials saw her and praised her to Pharaoh, so the woman was taken to Pharaoh’s household. He treated Abram well because of her, and Abram acquired flocks and herds, male and female donkeys, male and female slaves, and camels.
But the Lord struck Pharaoh and his household with severe plagues because of Abram’s wife, Sarai. So Pharaoh sent for Abram and said, “What have you done to me? Why didn’t you tell me she was your wife? Why did you say, ‘She’s my sister,’ so that I took her as my wife? Now, here is your wife. Take her and go!” Then Pharaoh gave his men orders about him, and they sent him away with his wife and all he had.
The future children of Israel will be in fear for the lives of the young boys, the Egyptians will seek to keep the woman as slaves, the Lord will judge the house of Pharaoh, and the Israelites have a mass exit from Egypt with all their increased wealth. These stories are parallel.
Perhaps the most significant story in the life of Abraham that presents us with the need for passover.
After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!”
“Here I am,” he answered.
“Take your son,” he said, “your only son Isaac, whom you love, go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.”
So Abraham got up early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took with him two of his young men and his son Isaac. He split wood for a burnt offering and set out to go to the place God had told him about. On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey. The boy and I will go over there to worship; then we’ll come back to you.” Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and laid it on his son Isaac. In his hand he took the fire and the knife, and the two of them walked on together.
Then Isaac spoke to his father Abraham and said, “My father.”
And he replied, “Here I am, my son.”
Isaac said, “The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”
Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” Then the two of them walked on together.
When they arrived at the place that God had told him about, Abraham built the altar there and arranged the wood. He bound his son Isaac and placed him on the altar on top of the wood. Then Abraham reached out and took the knife to slaughter his son.
But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!”
He replied, “Here I am.”
Then he said, “Do not lay a hand on the boy or do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your only son from me.” Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught in the thicket by its horns. So Abraham went and took the ram and offered it as a burnt offering in place of his son. And Abraham named that place The Lord Will Provide, so today it is said, “It will be provided on the Lord’s mountain.”
Then the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven and said, “By myself I have sworn,” this is the Lord’s declaration: “Because you have done this thing and have not withheld your only son, I will indeed bless you and make your offspring as numerous as the stars of the sky and the sand on the seashore. Your offspring will possess the city gates of their enemies. And all the nations of the earth will be blessed by your offspring because you have obeyed my command.”
The opposing forces are worried with making a “name” for themselves, and Abraham is faced with murdering the very essence of his name/future. We see here an incredible progression out from exile requires complete trust and reliance on YAHWEH.
YAHWEH had already passed through the death of the sacrifices and came out on the other side as a pillar of cloud and fire, proving that YAHWEH would provide life out of the death that our exile had produced.
Abraham says in verse 5 that he and Isaac would return… Abraham knew that if he obeyed YAHWEH and sacrificed his only son, that YAHWEH would resurrect him.
We know from the story that YAHWEH provides a ram for the sacrifice. What we have is the first sacrifice that was a pattern for the need to have sacrifice in exile. The Lord promised to give the promised land of Canaan to Abraham, but YAHWEH would shew the need for sacrifice as a prefigurment to ultimately the ONLY SON who would come and pass through the bondage of death and defeat it once for all, leading the human race out of exile and into the eternal Kingdom of God!
This story is a prefigurment of Passover, and Passover is the prefigurment of the cross. Every story of exile and exodus from exile in scripture points to the ultimate exodus that humanity can experience by being buried with Christ in His death and then raised to life through the Power of the Gospel!
Abraham’s faith:
By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed and set out for a place that he was going to receive as an inheritance. He went out, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he stayed as a foreigner in the land of promise, living in tents as did Isaac and Jacob, coheirs of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.
By faith even Sarah herself, when she was unable to have children, received power to conceive offspring, even though she was past the age, since she considered that the one who had promised was faithful. Therefore, from one man—in fact, from one as good as dead—came offspring as numerous as the stars of the sky and as innumerable as the grains of sand along the seashore.
Led to the TEMPLE: Same Mountain
Then Solomon began to build the Lord’s temple in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah where the Lord had appeared to his father David, at the site David had prepared on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
I want us to step back and consider a few things:
Abraham surrendered his life completely to God.
Abraham didn’t allow his new life to change his obedience.
Abraham’s purpose was directed by God’s promise.
If God were to lead you out of something, would you allow Him to continue to lead you to something else?
Are there any places that are off limits to God?
Are you willing to repent for the unclaimed territories of your heart?
Have you considered that the new ground your being led to might be for someone else to develop?