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We begin to read this evening in the book of Genesis and chapter twenty two. Book of Genesis, chapter uh twenty two. And beginning there in verse 15. And the angel of the Lord called unto Abraham a second time out of heaven and said, By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, because thou hast done this thing and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is upon the seashore. And thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my voice. And it came to pass after, uh, sorry. So Abraham returned unto his young men, and they rose up and went together to Beersheva, and Abraham dwelt at Beersheva. And it came to pass after these things that it was told Abraham, saying, Behold, Milcah, she also hath borne children unto thy brother Nahor, Uz his firstborn, and Buz his brother, and Kemuel the father of Aram, and Chesed and Hatzo, and Pildash and Jidlaph, and Bethuel. Bethuel begat Rebekah. These eight did Milcah bear to Nahor, Abraham's brother. And his concubine, whose name was Reuma, she also bare Tebah and Gaham and Tahash and Maacah. And the life of Sarah was one hundred and 20 years. These were the years of the life of Sarah. And Sarah died in Kiriath Arba, the same as Hebron in the land of Canaan. And Abraham came to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her. And Abraham rose up from before his dead and spake unto the children of Heth, saying, I am a stranger and a sojourner with you. Give me a possession of a burying place with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight. Verse fourteen: and Ephron, Ephron answered Abram, saying unto him, My lord, hearken unto me, a piece of land worth four hundred shekels of silver, what is that betwixt me and thee? Bury therefore thy dead. And Abram hearkened unto Ephron, and Abram weighed to Ephron the silver which he had named in the audience of the children of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver, current money with the merchant. So the field of Ephron, which was in Machpelah, which was before Mamre, the field and the cave which was therein, and all the trees that were in the field, that were in all the border thereof round about, were made sure unto Abram for a possession in the presence of the children of Heth, before all that went in at the gate of the city. And after this, Abram buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah before Mamre, the same as Hebron in the land of Canaan. And the field and the cave that is therein were made sure unto Abraham for a possession of a burying place by the children of Heth. God give us insights and good understanding of his holy word. We have now reached one of the climaxes in the book of Genesis, and the story begins to change and take another road. In our last study, we came to Genesis chapter twenty two and that vivid and well-known story of the offering of Isaac by his father upon the altar to God. That great crisis and climax in Abraham's life, when he was proved by God and demonstrated the reality of his faith, demonstrated that his faith was in God and ultimately in nothing and no one else. When he was justified by works, that is, his faith was justified by works and proved to be genuine. When he who had received the promises, which promises were all bound up in Isaac, nevertheless, at God's call and command, was prepared to hand Isaac back to God, that it might be demonstrated that Abraham's faith for himself and for Isaac and for all his future lay not in Isaac, but in God and in God's sure word. And we tasted something of the triumph of Abraham in our last study as he stood on Mount Moriah, and with the grim logic of faith worked it out that if God had given his word, that in Isaac, his seed, should all the nations of the earth be blessed, and now God was asking Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac on the altar, then that must mean that God would raise Isaac from the dead, because God could not contradict his word or fail his promise. And if God was now asking Isaac to be sacrificed, in whom were all his promises for the future, there was only one logical outcome to that, said Abraham to himself, and that must be that God will raise Isaac from the dead. And therefore, staunch and immovable in his faith in God and God's word, Abraham prepared to offer Isaac on the altar. When God had proved Abraham enough, that Abraham had demonstrated the attitude of his heart, then God, as we know, spared Isaac, and in Isaac's place provided a ram for a burnt offering. But that day, Abraham found an increased security. For he found in God one whose word is true, and who was now prepared in response to Abraham's action of faith to interpose with an oath that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, his word and his oath, we all might have strong consolation who have fled for refuge to take hold of the hope set before us. Having therefore found that life security and eternity security is in God and in his word, Abraham returned from the mountain. Twice over, we are told, he dwelt at Beersheba, meaning the well of the oath. Blessed place indeed for all those who are on their pilgrim way to the eternal city, to dwell constantly by the well of God's oath. What a source of refreshment it is. What a source of nourishment and maintenance of our hope and spiritual verve and vigor. The oath of God, by myself have I sworn. Sometime after that, says the history, it was told Abraham saying, behold, Milcah, she also has borne children unto thy brother Nahor. And anyone who has a sense for the flow of a narrative must have often stopped at those verses and scratched his head and said, why now, after those tremendous spiritual heights of Abram's experience on the top of Mount Moriah, do we suddenly descend to an apparently innocent, if not boring, list of names. Why? Because, as I say, the history of Genesis now reaches a turning point. Hitherto, we have been concerned with Abraham's experience in his pilgrimage. He left Ur of Chaldees. He left his relatives, pagan idolaters still, as far as we know, way there in Gentile Ur of Chaldees in Mesopotamia. And responding to the call and vision of God, he set out on his pilgrim pathway, not knowing whither he went. Knowing only this, that he looked for the city that has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Therefore, those gentile cities, Babel and Nineveh and Ur and Rezin and so forth, no longer contented Abraham's heart. Glorious as those cities were, sophisticated as those communities were, yet they left so much to be desired, for they were built on false foundations of idolatry. And Abraham left, called out of God to become the father of a special nation in history, father of the Hebrew nation, father of the pilgrim. And as he journeyed geographically, so he journeyed spiritually, and we have followed his progress in the school of God as he learned his lessons in these three major periods of his spiritual pilgrimage. And now he has reached the climax. The promised seed has come, and Father and Son together have walked resolutely to the altar, and the Son has been offered there on that altar. And immediately, God, who has been watching the developing progress of his purpose, takes our mind back to those Gentiles from where Abraham came out. For the purpose of calling Abraham out from the Gentiles was not to turn him into a monk. The purpose of calling him out and blessing him beyond all others in his knowledge of God was that so through Abraham and his seed, all the nations of the world might be blessed. And God, who never forgot his purpose, immediately the promised seed has come, and the promised seed has been sacrificed. God harks back to his original purpose. And a thought was sown in Abram's mind that night as he went to bed. You know how it is. Sometimes as you crawl into bed after the business of a day, you say, ah, what was that so-and-so told me? Hmm. Must make a note of that to do something about that. Your relatives, Abram, are way down there in uh, Chaldee. Do you know they've been married, some of them, and there's some very pleasant girls growing up in their families. Now fancy that, says Abraham, that uh, you know, I can't think quite what it is now, but it begins to ring a bell in my mind, says he. Turned over and went to sleep. That you can see the tide is turning. And presently, we shall read how that God through Abraham instituted another great movement. For another messenger now would go back to the Gentiles, and out of those Gentiles there would come another great pilgrimage. A Gentile girl who was prepared to take a similar step of faith and a similar journey of faith, that she might be joined to Isaac the true seed and form him a bride. Whereby hands a very eloquent tale. But to come at it, we should must mean, we must now notice two steps in the developing program. In this final period here, Sarah died, and they laid her body to rest. Good old Sarah. Giant of faith. Not that she was always perfect. And some of her schemes, like a good many of ours, were based on fleshly notions and had to be corrected over years of discipline. But a woman of faith. A woman who dared to consider God faithful who promised. And as she contemplated the faithfulness of God and the certainty of his promise, found herself to receive new strength. And in the power of that strength that she received through faith in the character of God, became the mother not only of Isaac, but of countless thousands, numerous as the stars of the heaven and the sand of the seashore. Became indeed the mother of many of us sitting here this evening. Spiritual mother of those who, like her, dare to take God at his word. Now at length, her body is worn, tired, broken, and her body falls on sleep. We are treated to quite a lengthy chapter, as Abraham, with all the courtesy of the ancient East, goes about buying a field for a burying place for Sarah. Quite a fuss is made about this incident, because it was the only little bit of ground that Abraham ever bought in the land of Canaan. It wasn't that he was hard up for money. Abraham was a nomad prince and exceedingly wealthy. But Abraham was on a pilgrimage. He had the assurance from God that one day this land through which he journeyed would be his. But for the moment he was asked to be a pilgrim, and therefore he didn't own not so much as a footprint in all that wide land of Canaan. And now at length Sarah has died, and her body must be buried. See Abram therefore buy the only piece of ground he ever did buy in Canaan for possession of a burying place. That mortal frame was exceedingly dear to him. Yes, Sarah had gone, gone into the eternal world. That isn't to say her bodily remains should be counted cheaply, as though they didn't matter. God's design for humankind is that they should be both spirit and body. And therefore, great pains are taken to buy this field where that body shall lie and go to dust. One day Abraham will come back again, or his posterity, and claim that field, and therefore claim that body. And we do well as Christians to notice the fact, the value that God places on our bodies. Alas, in the Middle Ages, Christendom began- came to be infected by Platonism, as Platonism had been by earlier Pythagorean philosophy. And in the Middle Ages, Christians got it into their heads that our bodies are somehow unimportant, in fact, a positive hindrance in spiritual things. Old Plato urges us, if we would listen to him, to treat our bodies like prison houses and to keep our souls as far away from our bodies as we can, because the body will defile the soul. And therefore, the philosopher's aim is to keep as far from the body as he can now and wait for the day when his soul will be released from the body. And if only he has been successful in keeping his soul pure from, uh, contagion by the body, then he might be excused being reincarnated in his body. But if in this life a man has allowed his soul to get infected by his body, then, said Plato, the soul will have to be reincarnate again in another body, and he be condemned to another cycle of life on Earth. What a nonsense it was, wasn't it? But I say it's infected Christianity on both sides of the big divide. Through both Catholic and Puritan, who got miserably through life, despising the body as though it were evil. But that is not God's idea. God's idea for man is that, uh, his body is an important and integral part of his personality. And even now, though the body feels the consequences of sin and eventually dies and goes to dust, it is in God's program that the very body shall be redeemed and raised and changed and fashioned like unto the body of his glory. I stand in my imagination with Abraham weighing out his silver carefully. Who could put too much value on it? It was only a small field and a few trees. If you've ever stood there, you'll know what I mean. Yet the silver was willingly given for the body that was to be placed in that burying ground was valuable beyond anything money could buy. But as I watch him pay the silver for the burying ground, I think of another. The seed, the promised seed, promised originally to the woman in the garden, who should bruise the serpent's head and rob him of his power of death. I think of him paying not silver for the ground, but something vastly more valuable than silver for the body of Sarah and all the faithful, redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, more than silver tar with incorruptible, precious blood of Christ. She sleeps still, does Sarah? Good old Sarah. Great warrior for God. Great triumphant woman of faith. God keeps watch over that sacred spot where Sarah's body lies, over every little bit of ground on this alien earth, where the redeemed are there, waiting that great day until the trump of God be heard, until those ancient graves be stirred, and with his great commanding word, the Lord shall come. For these all died in faith, not having received the promise, but having seen it afar off and embraced it and confessed they were pilgrims and strangers on the earth, God has received their spirits. One day he shall receive their very bodies. The days of mourning for Sarah were eventually accomplished. One day, as I say, Abel was sitting in his tent out there. Nice, he said. What was that idea I had some while ago? Ah, let me see. What was it now? Oh yes, I know. It was when I came down the mountain, wasn't it, with Isaac? Had received him from the dead in a figure. And I was by the well of you? That's right. Somebody told me about Nahor and Milcah. Way down in there. Oh, Caldes, long time since I saw them. Wonder how they're getting on. I hear they've had a child, Rebecca, and she's growing up too. Nice girl. Hmm. You know, says Abram to himself. Isaac, you know, bit of a crank lad, isn't he? Pushing up now, getting nearly seventy, It's time he got married, you know. But somehow he doesn't seem to be, I don't know what it is, some chats like that, he doesn't seem to be interested. Well, says Abram, now I'm getting very old and Sarah's gone home. Well, ah, nice to see Isaac settle, wouldn't it, before I go home, uh, just to make sure he's got somebody to look after him and wash his socks and so on. Yeah. Well, he says to himself, I couldn't stick these girls around here. I wonder, I wonder. To have a bride for Isaac, says Abraham to himself, ah, with all the rest of the outstanding qualities that these ladies do possess, she'd have to be a girl of equal faith, wouldn't she? Sharing his vision. For whom the unseen and the eternal was a vivid reality. I wonder whether God would do it like he did it for me. I wonder whether God could move in the heart of those old Gentiles, my, my relatives down there, and bring another lot out. Wonder could he? Well, he could do it for me, might do it for them. So Abraham, and you know the story, commissioned his servant to go back to the Gentiles and seek a bride for Isaac. But at this point, my task is getting very difficult. For much as I might try to keep this at the level of past history, many of you are going to get impatient with the history and see it as a prophecy, aren't you? So I better give in to you. Please note all my critics, that I do believe in the validity of the story as an ancient bit of history. And please observe that I have done my best to preach these chapters as practical, straightforward lessons. But you know, just as we must not allow typology to rob us of the rich, practical historical lessons of history. So we mustn't allow our pseudo-intellectualism to rob us of those rich double meanings of Holy Scripture. Or, as we said in our first study, behind the actual historical happenings, with all their valid practical lessons. There's still a God designing those ancient events that they might be prototypes of bigger things. And so I ask you now at this juncture to go back in Genesis with me, back right to the beginning of Abram's experience, to read the history again, but this time with an eye on Abram's future. Abraham was called out of the Gentile and came into the land of Canaan. And then he went down and sojourned in the land of Egypt for a while. And after his sojourned in the land of Egypt, God brought him back again. And he came back into the Promised Land. And in the Promised Land, he fell to Sarah's suggestion and took Hagar, and Ishmael was born. And so the slave woman and her son were now imposed on Abram's family until the promised seed came. The moment the promised seed came, Ishmael began to persecute the promised seed. And Ishmael and Sarah, at God's command, had to be turned out. And immediately, as far as the record is concerned, the promised seed was taken. As father and son mounted the hill of sacrifice, and the promised seed was offered on the altar. In a figure, says Hebrews eleven, Abraham received him from the very dead. And what next? The promised seed offered and raised again. Sarah died and was buried. God began a movement once more to take from the Gentiles a person or his name. You would be rather dull, wouldn't you? If you could read that story without your imagination being kindled of a bigger story. For what happened in those far off days to Abraham and to Isaac happened in a bigger way to the nation that came of Abraham. Descended from Abraham, dwelling in the Promised Land, they eventually went down with Jacob into Egypt. And sojourned in Egypt, where they came, became a big nation. Eventually, they came out with massive substance, and coming out they stood by Sinai to receive that ancient covenant, the old covenant at Sinai, covenant of the law. Saint Paul is at hand to tell us that Hagar and Ishmael in their way help us to understand some of the basic principles of that old covenant, which genders to bondage. And then, just as Hagar and Ishmael were in Abraham's home until the promised seed was born, so was it with that ancient covenant given on Sinai. The Jews were under that ancient covenant right until the promised seed came, Jesus Christ our Lord. When he came, two things happened. The Israel that was born after the flesh, born under the law, the nation as a whole began to persecute the true seed and hunted him to his death. God's answer was his own purpose to set aside Israel after the flesh, and to have done with that old covenant, to cast out Hagar and her son. For Israel after the flesh should not inherit with the son of the free woman. And a new covenant was instituted. On what base? We'll follow the Genesis pattern. The s- true seed came and forthwith went to Calvary. God spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all, so that his death should form the basis of a new covenant. And the new covenant being established through the blood of Calvary, then God did then what he had always intended to do from the time he chose Abraham. God began another movement, a vaster, bigger movement. As he sent his Jewish missionaries to the four corners of the earth to preach again the gospel of the glory of God in the faith of Jesus Christ and bring out from the nations a vast host of Gentile believers as a bride for his son, the promisee. And you say, why do you bother with things like that? Well, I tell you the double effect it has on me. As I read those ancient stories and see how they form prototypes of that bigger movement in history that leads to Jesus Christ our Lord, I say to myself, hello, old chap. There's more than a human brain behind Genesis. And there's more than a human brain behind this bit of history. And I find my faith being strengthened not merely in the inspiration of holy writ, but in the truth of this great plan, purpose, and fact of history, the coming into our world of the promised seed through that singular and special nation, the nation of the Jews. And when I think how that Jewish nation through whom Messiah came rejected their very Messiah, and in consequence the gospel went to the Gentiles, I say to myself, yes, with Paul, but what is that but the fulfilling of these ancient prophecies. And faith goes strong. You cannot follow cunningly devised fables. Here is God's watermark in his word, as it stands also in history, of this unique plan for the blessing of the nations of men. And with the tide thus turned, you'll have to permit me now to come back to this, uh, court, uh, ship, love and marriage theme of Genesis twenty four and do my best, uh, to, uh, cope with it and grapple with it. For Abraham, it was a practical thing, and if I had the wisdom of some that sit before me, I should preach a very practical sermon at this juncture to my young fellow believers. If you're going to walk closely with somebody through life, do make sure they share your same vision. Do make sure that for them the unseen is a reality, and they know God, and that they are traveling the same direction as you, on to that great eternal city. It will be a difficult pilgrimage. One of you is walking one way, and one the other. One of you, by faith, can see the New Jerusalem and its foundations, and the other cannot see beyond the streets of Belfast. But you see, I'm not qualified to preach a sermon like that. How could I be? So I don't. And I must content myself with those deeper and double meanings that theologians galore have seen in this chapter. How that the Father sent a servant to get a wife for Isaac. Now, it was a very nice thing to do, wasn't it? When Abraham thought about getting his girl to be a wife for Isaac, he didn't, uh, send her a photograph and a map and say, my dear Rebecca, you won't know me, my name's Abram, but I'm related to your parents, and, uh, I just heard about you. Um, I wonder, my dear, would you like to come and be a wife for my idol? Now, here's a photograph of him. Looks nice, doesn't he? Now, if you would be interested in this, well, now here's a map, and if you care and, uh, you get yourself from where you are to our place and turn up here, I think my dear girl will have a chance. No, no. No, no. He sent his servant down to that land to preach that gospel. When the girl said yes, to accompany her all the way home. What a lovely gospel message it was, wasn't it? Even if it in its historical and practical sense. Wasn't every day in Ur of Chaldees or Mesopotamia, girls got an offer like that. The servant was charged to serve my master is exceedingly rich, and he has one son, and to him has he given all that he has. You can to be my master's son's wife. As we read the message of the servant to the woman, we cannot help remembering that other message from the serpent to the woman. What a difference. Said the serpent in the garden to the woman. You know, I'll tell you why God, uh, forbids you to eat of that tree. If you were to eat of that tree, God knows that in the day you ate thereof, you should be as God, knowing what to eat. You would rise in God's universe. You will attain your independence. You no longer need to be dependent on God and God's judgment about things. You can make up your own mind and be free. You will be as God. And the woman listened. It sounded good. And she took the fruit and ate it. And at once she knew she was naked. Rise in the universe. Then there came the servant from the father. He said, my master is very rich. But hear it in its true reality. God's answer universally to the slanderings of the servant. Father Father loves loveth the the Son son. and has given all things into his hand. Would you not care to become part of the bride of God's Son? Who shall express it? For mortals, born mortal, made of clay, rise to the level of God's son in heaven, become his queen and his bride forever. It was a great step of faith. It meant believing on someone she had never seen. Love sing- loving somebody she would not be able to see for days and months ahead. To help her in her faith, the servant brought out clothes and clothed her. Oh, my dear young friend, it's not Satan that's interested in your personality, to enhance it, to make something dignified and glorified of it. Watch what Satan does with men, and how he degrades even human relationships and turns them more and ever still more nearer the mere animal. It's your God who made you has the most fantastic designs for your personality, although longs to close your nakedness and banish your shame, make you a glorious personality fit to be part of a bride for his own son. Not only covering her with a garment, but then he pulled out the earrings. He couldn't have been an old Puritan, could he, that's so. Pulled out the earrings and and and dropped a few pearls, you know, oh, what was that? Oh, an old string of pearls. Oh, well, never mind that, we'll leave it there, you know. Hinting that there was more where they came from. You didn't have to be too careful about a pearl or two. As he enticed that girl with an earnest of what the riches were at her. You'll not need me to interpret the pattern. How that the Holy Spirit has come. His chief object to glorify the Lord Jesus. To make us know, as he himself said before he went, that all that the Father has is mine. Carpenter of Nazareth, so they called him. Said he, the Holy Spirit would come to bring it into our hearts, burning hot and real. Jesus is Lord of all creation, and all subsists in him, and he holds it together by the word of his power and is heir of all things. The offer is that you should be part of that blessed community that shall be his queen. Eternity. Yes, it will mean stepping out in faith. It will mean counting on the unseen as something real. That's what faith is. Substance of things hoped for. Evidence of things not yet seen. Then, thank God, we're not left to go it alone any more than that, uh, girl with devil. No mere map and a photograph. Servant to travel. Every step until he got home. Thus has the Holy Spirit come. Please observe what it means when it says the Holy Spirit has now come. It doesn't mean that he never visited earth before Pentecost. He visited earth many times and did many things with many men. But when our Lord Jesus went back, the Holy Spirit came. In a sense, he had never come before. Let us help ourselves to understand it by the analogy. Our blessed Lord, as the angel of the Lord, visited earth many times before Bethlehem. But Bethlehem was different and distinct, for at Bethlehem the Word of God came and stayed, and came incarnate in human flesh and stayed here, and in that sense was absent from heaven. When our Lord went back to heaven, the Holy Spirit came to stay, not incarnate himself in his own human body, but incarnate in ours. For the path we tread home to heaven is not merely a chronological path, is it? No, I got saved when I was seventeen and a half, well now, or seventeen and a half. Who? Back, the Holy Spirit came. In a sense, he had never come before. Let us help ourselves to understand him by the analogy. Our blessed Lord, as the angel of the Lord visited earth many times before. But Bethlehem was different and distinct, for at Bethlehem the Word of God came and stayed, and came incarnate in human flesh and stayed here, and in that sense was absent from heaven. When our Lord went back to heaven, the Holy Spirit came to stay. Not incarnate himself in his own human body, but incarnate in ours. For the path we tread home to heaven is not merely a chronological path, is it? You know, I got saved when I was seventeen and a half, well now, Lord, seventeen and a half? Oh, well, I shan't be quite ready till about I'm eighty two and three quarters, so Lord, I'll be around when you call, just filling in the years. No, it's something more than that, isn't it? The distance between us and glory is not measured in years merely, and certainly not merely in geographical miles. The difference between us and glory is a moral difference, a spiritual difference. My dear fellow believer, think what it will mean to have to act the queen to God's own son. And as his bride to entertain the intelligentsia of heaven. And to help him run earth as earth ought to be run. To cover that kind of distance, does the Holy Spirit come to indwell every believer, and footstep by footstep, to walk the whole way home to glory with us. It is God's purpose, says Paul in Romans chapter eight, that we be conformed to the image of his son. Therefore, God's Holy Spirit within us starts his gracious work of getting us to that glory. What changes there must be? What, uh, advances in spirituality there must come. Left to myself, my own wayward heart would be chasing this bauble and that bauble, and getting lost in the wilderness and making no progress, but rather going backwards. Were it not for the Holy Spirit who intercedes within me, and with his strong desires prays alongside me. I know not what to pray for as I ought. How do I know whether the next step in the journey that's needed for me would be a period of sunshine and blessing, or whether the, the next step for me ought to be a time of difficulty and puzzlement or even bereavement? I don't know. But he who dwells within me knows. And he prays. Yet he will not overmaster my personality, for he wants my prayers to be my desires, that I long for Christ and long to be like Christ, and it's really me who does the longing. Prays alongside my weakness, inspiring my desires till they really become my desires. He who searches the mind of the Spirit, as we grope for words, scarce knowing what to say or how. He who knows the mind of the Spirit reads his will and our desires, by this holy fellowship brings us those advancing steps of spiritual progress through life, till he shall set us down in the presence of Christ, somebody that Christ can be satisfied with. And when you start to talk like that, God's present purpose of calling out of the Gentiles a queen for his son, then, of course, the subject and the story begins to change. It's though the train were running over the points, about to take a curve in another direction. What are we going to do when we get home to heaven? Bride of the Lamb, yes, there'll be a marriage supper of the Lamb, and what glory and joy it'll be. But then what do we do? That's where the newspaper stories of weddings, uh, sort of fall short, don't they? They tell you what the bride wore and, uh, who the best man was and bridesmaids and all that, and then the couple eventually left for a honeymoon in Jodhpur, full stop. I know they got on when they got back. What are we going to do as the bride of Christ? For this, we shall have to recur, of course, to our, our, our, our, our textbook and to God's original purpose as given. He made man, giving him not only life, but giving him dominion and telling him to develop the earth and subdue it and organize it and make something of it glorious. And then seeing the man stand there by himself, he said, well, he won't manage that by himself. He better have a help meet for him. To rule and to reign and to make something of earth for God. The man sinned. He lost two things. He lost his life. The day he sinned, he died. And he lost a good deal of his dominion, became defeated and a slave to death. Now we have been listening to the great story of reconstruction, how that God is in process of giving man back his life. And we've watched it in Abraham, that has been his dominant theme, hasn't it? Life! Life out of the very dead. A child to dead old Abraham and dead Sarah, a veritable life from the dead. Life. The son offered on the altar and given back by God. Justification of life, as Paul would phrase it. Abraham and his seed, right with God, and entering into this eternal relationship with God alive. Let's dwell a moment to enjoy it. After Isaac got his bride, Abram was sent out to play. Which was rather nice, wasn't it? He'd learned his major lessons in life. There's very little more said about Abram. After this, he, he married sundry other folks and, uh, bore these and those children. God sent him out to play. Then Abraham died, and he was buried. I suppose you'd call it dying, but, uh, the chapter tells us, it's chapter twenty five, verse eleven, and it came to pass after the death of Abraham that God blessed Isaac his son, and Isaac dwelt by Be'er Lachai Roe, which is funny sounding Hebrew for simple English, the well of him that lives and sees. Abraham died as to his body, but uh, all live to God. When our Lord was here on earth and they were asking him about, uh, the resurrection, he said, well, of course, my good men, there's a resurrection. Don't you know what, uh, God said to Moses at the bush? I am the God of Abraham. I am the God of Abraham. Not I was the God of Abraham. I am the God of Abraham. For in that man's lifetime, God entered into a relationship with him, and he with God, and God's relationships are eternal. All the wonder of that. God is not like some of our friends who pleased to know us for a few months or years, and then subsequently pleased to forget us. So that we meet a chap down the street, we say, oh, he's also so, haven't seen him for years. Remember the days when we were fast friends together? Well, we don't meet now. Oh well, pity. God isn't like that. You enter into a relationship with God today through faith in Christ. It's a relationship that you'll never cease, never be broken. It is eternal life to know God. When Abram died and was buried, his son lived for a while by the earth well of him that lives and sees. Yes, the first part of this, uh, pilgrimage, Abram's life, is all concerned with the topic of life. Now the, uh, train changes, goes over the points, and we're coming to another big section of Genesis. And what's that going to be about? Well, it's going to be about the other thing. When man sinned, he lost a great deal of his dominion. But see God now, not content to restore man's life, but now begin the great process of restoring his dominion. This section of Genesis, as I have labeled it, is this. It's that period during which Hebrews were turned into Israelites. You see, once upon a time, Abraham wasn't even a Hebrew, was he? He was a Gentile. But coming to a personal experience of the living God and stepping out as a pilgrim, he became a Hebrew. Now the next big stage. Hebrews turned into Israelites. You say, what does that mean? Well, we will remember the story how Jacob wrestled with the angel and the angel with him, and Jacob's name was turned from Jacob to Israel because he had power with God. Became father of the Israelites. We cannot go far into that story this evening, but to prepare our minds for our future studies, let me remind you of some of the salient features of this great next period of Genesis. What kind of thing happens? Well, Jacob went out to get a job, fell asleep on his stony old pillow and had a vision. And he saw a ladder set up on earth, and the top thereof reached to heaven, and God stood beside the ladder, and God said... As Jacob looked, he saw the angels of God in their myriads ascending out from the divine presence and returning down to the divine presence. And Jacob woke from his sleep and he said, surely God is in this place. I knew it not. This is the house of God. This is the gate of heaven. We better remember that he was an ancient Semite. Therefore, when he said this is the gate of heaven, he wasn't thinking of the gate so much as a way in, or if he was, he didn't try to get in. There's a lot of business to do it yet. He was thinking rather of the gate in its ancient eastern sense as the place where the elders of a city would meet, as they had met Abraham when he came to buy the plot of land for Sarah's, uh, burying ground, and he met them in the gate. The elders used to sit in the gate. At the great excavations at Dan last year, they discovered not only the gateway, but the old bench on which the elders used to sit in the gate of Dan. And says Jacob to himself, as he saw that vast civil service, God's great administration, the angels of God ascending and descending, with a ladder connecting earth and heaven and bringing the very government of heaven down to earth. Says Jacob, this is none other than the house of God. This is the gate of heaven. This is the spot where heaven centralizes its government, or the control of the affairs of earth. Yeah. Jacob. Old trickery dick Jacob. Yet before God is finished with him, Jacob will have a part in that very city and that gate. For Genesis tells us that Jacob went down to Laban and worked and got himself, uh, two wives and two concubines, and sons were born to him. And we are treated to a list of their names and what their names meant. Ah, listen. Hebrews tells us that Abraham looked for the city that had the foundations whose builder and maker is God. New Jerusalem. And Jacob, what did he do? Well, he supplied the boys' names that should go on the gates of that eternal city forever. Or when John the Seer was given to see a vision of that great new Jerusalem coming out of heaven as a bride adorned for her husbands. He was told to look at the foundations, and glorious were the foundations. On them written the names of the apostles of the Lamb. For the foundation of that great community life, that is the New Jerusalem, the holy city, the foundation of it is the sacrifice of Christ. The message of redemption through the Lamb of God. And we built upon that city through personal faith in God. But then the city shall exist to be God's center of administration. And as the nations of the earth come, they shall bring their glory to that city. They shall be met at the gates by those whose task it then will be to govern with Christ for God. Names on the gates, names of the twelve sons of Israel. Oh, what a story it tells. How that this life presents us with the opportunity to be saved, to be justified, to be at one with God. And this life also presents us with the opportunity so to walk with God, so to be trained in his Holy Spirit, that we be prepared in character, actually, practically, to take over the government of earth with Christ and reign with him in that coming day. You see, that is what means to be his bride. We must give heed to these lessons. They would be exceedingly practical lessons. They will not hesitate to enter our homes, drawing rooms, bedrooms, our workshops, our business markets, our sport, our recreation, our studies. As God's spirit will take these chapters of Genesis and point out how sacred ordinary life is. How sacred our day-to-day jobs are. How sacred our human relationships are. Because in these things, we are daily being trained for our part of the government in the age to come. Listen, and with this I close. If you go back to the sheet a moment. We come to the point again that Abraham was brought up in Isle of Cadiz, in that general area where man built those great cities. He left those cities. He looked for the city. And in all that complex of cities, the most famous of all was Babel, that we better know in our English translation, Babylon. Abram left it. It was already an old idolatrous city. He left it to walk with the living God, looking for the city. In his earthly seed, there came Jerusalem City, and down the centuries, Jerusalem City and the literal Babylon stood the one over against the other. Jerusalem standing for faith in the living God against idolatry, and Babylon standing for the counterfeit idolatry. And by the time we come to the last book of the Bible, these two literal cities become figures of something infinitely bigger. There is the great new Jerusalem, bride of the Lamb, of which all that are Christ are men. And there is still Babylon. False religion and idolatry that eventually shall be completely apostate. And all who are religious are working, working for the one or the other. Please, when you think of Babylon, mystery Babylon the Great, don't throw too many bricks over the community divide, will you? For Protestantism with its Freemasonry is more idolatrous than Rome knew how to be. And it is Protestantism that has been more apostate than Rome has yet learned to be. Denying the deity of the Lord Jesus, denying his virgin birth, denying his pre-existence, denying his atonement, denying his literal resurrection, denying his second coming. As Protestantism in the parts thereof that have become apostate, professing godliness and denying the power of God. It becomes us who trust the Savior and believe that one day we shall form part of his bride. We see that in life we are loyal to our absent Lord, that we are cooperating with his spirit in the lessons of daily life. We may weave those garments of our personal righteousness that we shall be allowed to wear when we are presented to him at the marriage supper of the Lamb. The Lord, therefore, bring us to our remaining studies, if it please him, with eager, active, and practical mind. Now, of course, tonight we are especially honored by a dear old friend of this church sitting down here in the front, who, uh, first welcomed me to this country and consoled me in my early days, and has been my lasting friend since then, and used to hire the same tools I sit on still in, actually, Dr. John Boyd himself. I shall ask Dr. Boyd to close this meeting in prayer. Please, Dr. Boyd. Father, we thank thee for what we have heard tonight. We thank thee that there has shown to us something of thy plan for us in the early days of this world, part of thy plan for us from before the world was. But Father, we pray with thee that we might learn just now before we go away from this place, take these things into our hearts, to think of them as they apply to the future, and what a future that is going to be for us. But oh Lord, we feel that there is something for us to do for thee down here. We might serve the utmost of our good, and serving thee, we might rejoice in the law and know something of the blessedness that is to be found in it. For we thank thee that the day is coming, and we who are of the citizenship of heaven, we shall be changed. For the Lord shall come. He shall change these bodies of our humiliation, cast them back onto the body of his glory, and we shall then be fully conformed to Christ as we form his bride. What a day that would be. However, we thank thee for this lesson we've learned tonight. We pray we may take it home with us, make good use of it in our daily life before thee. So bless us, we pray, we learn. We pray thou take us each one in his home and safety in each difficult day. Everything we ask is in the worthy name of our Lord Jesus Christ.