Video Transcript: The Patriarchs

We're continuing to focus on the redemptive historical story of the Old  Testament. That today is the last part of the beginnings of that study. We're  looking at the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Abraham in particular is a  central figure in the Old Testament and he often figures in the teachings of Christ and His apostles in the New Testament. God's work with Abraham or Abram as  he's called at first marks the beginning of his special work with a particular group of people, the Hebrews, who trace their descent from Abraham through his son  Isaac, grandson, Jacob, and great grandsons who became the heads of the  tribes of Israel. God works intensively with Abraham's descendants to help not  only them but the whole world also realize the potential God had in mind for  humanity since the very beginning of time. Abraham is held in the highest  esteem as the ancestor of the Jewish people. Although it should be noted that  he's also held in high esteem by Muslims who believe that the Prophet  Muhammad descended from Abraham through Ishmael, and also that  Abraham's religion was Islam. Abraham was born in Ur of the Chaldees but at  some point after he married, he left there with his wife, his father, Terah and  nephew Lot to move to Canaan. They didn't make it all the way, however, getting only as far as Haran, in what is today, northern Iraq, Iraq, where they decided to  settle down, Terah would die there. But God had another plan for Abraham. In  Genesis 12, the first three verses, the Lord had said to Abraham, leave your  country, your people and your father's household and go to the land, I will show  you. I will make you into a great nation and will bless you. I will make your name great and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever  curses you I will curse and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you. We  don't know how the call to Abraham came, whether it came audibly, or in another way, or whether it came once or with insistent repetition. But Abraham acted in  faithful obedience to the command of the Lord. He traveled with his wife,  nephew, servants and possessions to the land of Canaan, believing that he  would be blessed thereby. It was the first step in a lifelong commitment to and  fellowship with the Lord. God told Abraham that out of all the world's inhabitants, he was picking him to become the father of a special group of people who would be a living witness to the world of the way things were supposed to work in  God's world. And out of this people, as we now know, would come Christ the  Redeemer, the offspring of Eve, who as promised, right after the fall of the  human race into sin would strike the serpent's head. As you listen to the story of  what God did with Abraham and his descendants, and perhaps put yourself into  their shoes, consider both the privilege and the hardship of God's call. Maybe  the hardship of it impresses you more. Look at what Abraham had to give up. He probably had a good life and got along just fine where he was. But God called  him to leave his secure surroundings and strike out for another place. His  responsibilities were undefined, but Abraham was no dummy. He knew that  allegiance to the Lord was required and such loyalty can be costly. On the other 

hand, look at the privilege that God's call represented. It was an amazing  opportunity of God could be believed. Abraham was fully as privileged as Noah  and his family had been to escape death in the flood. And you know, the most  amazing thing of all, God didn't deserve the grace. Abraham didn't deserve the  grace of God to him. In both Ur, where Abraham had been born, and in Haran,  the place from which God called him, the religion of choice was one devoted to  the service of idols. The citizens there made sacrifices and offered prayers to  the moon god and Terah's family felt right at home there much later, before  Joshua's death in the Promised Land. He recalled for Israel the story of their  origins in in Joshua 24:2, he said to all the people, long ago, you're forefathers,  including Terah the father of Abraham, and Nachor, live to be on the river and  worshiped other gods, idolatry. If God had been looking for an especially  righteous person, he might have gone to Melchizedek to whom were introduced  in Genesis 14, this king of Salem, later called Jerusalem was already in Canaan, where he was living up to his name, king of peace, and serving the Lord. The  author of Hebrews says of Melchizedek that he was the priest, a priest of God  Most High and greater than Abraham. No, God did not choose Abraham  because of his superior religious habits. Nor did God's choice reflect Abraham  and Sarah's physical potency. Sarah, you may remember was barren. Abraham  could never become a nation unless and until he could have a son by her. But  that's as God wanted it. His new people would not come by natural generation,  but only as he himself overcame the obstacle. That's Sarah's sterility  represented. Objectively speaking, God's call was pure grace. Abraham had  nothing to offer God. God had everything to offer Abraham. This, again is what  God offered, as found in Genesis, the first three verses of Genesis 12, I will  make you into a great nation. This is a specific promise of offspring, God would  open Sarah's womb and give Abraham a son somehow this son would, in the  process of time grow into a great multitude, a nation. Second part of that  promise, I will bless you and make your name great and you will be a blessing.  What the Lord would do for Abraham was sure to fill people with admiration,  they would say, May God make me as blessed as Abraham. A third part of the  blessing I will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you or disdained  you I will curse. God would take special interest in Abraham, he would actively  intervene on his behalf to show favor to Abraham supporters and disfavor to his  enemies. And finally, God promised that all peoples on earth would be blessed  through Abraham. This part of the promise seemed to apply to specific people  depending on their attitudes. The previous part of the promise seemed to apply  to specific people about blessing and cursing and so on. But this fourth part of  the blessing was much broader. Somehow, God said, all people would find  blessing in the person and actions of Abraham. In this promise, you can see a  progressive buildup in the good that would result from obeying God's  commands. Abraham alone is blessed with the promise of nationhood, 

Abraham's name would be recognized as great and itself used as a as a way to  bless others. And since Abraham was under divine protection, his blessers  would be blessed. And finally, all families would find blessing in Abraham. What  a great promise. Abraham obeyed and followed God to Canaan, his first official  act in the new land was to build an altar to the Lord. He arrived at a famous  landmark of the area, the great tree of Moreh at Shechem, which is described in  Genesis 12:6 that may have well marked the sight of a holy place. But Abraham  did not worship the local deities. Instead, the Lord who had appeared to him  from this time on what Abraham looked for in life was a fulfillment of God's  promises, while others worship the evidences of the divine and the heavenly  bodies and in themselves. Abraham committed himself to God's worship, and  staked his future upon God's existence in faithfulness. Abraham faced significant challenges in his life with God. One of the first was a friction that developed  between his household and that of his nephew Lot. friction that was eased when Lot decided to move to the fertile lands in the vicinity of Sodom. Another  challenge was the absence of an heir for Abraham and Sarah they had no  children, and increasingly, no hope of children as they were both quite old. At  one point Abraham determined to make a servant Eliezer his heir, but God  appeared to him in a vision to tell him that not Eliezer but a flesh and blood son  would be his heir. To confirm this promise, God made a covenant with Abraham.  That's described in Genesis chapter 15. In it he repeated his promise of  descendants and a land for them to inherit. We're going to look more in detail at  this covenant in a in another lecture. Abraham must have been reassured by  this covenant ceremony, however, after some time had passed, and Sarah still  had not become pregnant, he agreed with Sarah's suggestion that he take her  servant Hagar as a second wife. At that time, in those days, the mistress of the  house could lay claim to any child born of servants. And so technically the son  that Hagar later bore Ishmael was Sarah's son. And technically, Abraham and  Sarah reasoned, God's promise could be fulfilled through Ishmael, but God had  another idea. He told Abraham about it when Ishmael was 13 years old. At that  time, he again confirmed his covenant with Abraham and informed him that not  Ishmael, but a blood son of Sarah would be his heir. Abraham didn't really  believe it, but nevertheless obeyed the Lord's command for himself and all the  males of his household to be circumcised as a sign of their loyalty to God.  Shortly after this, Scripture records a special meeting between Abraham and two Angel messengers from the Lord. They were on their way to execute God's  judgment on the wicked city of Sodom. Abraham showed hospitality to his  visitors, and learning of their mission took it upon himself to plead that the city  be spared for the sake of the righteous who live there, his nephew Lot being one of them. Frozen. Far from being irritated by Abraham's persistent and ever  bolder requests for mercy, the Lord valued Abraham is concerned. Actually, they  reflected his own and demonstrated that Abraham was entering into an ever 

closer communion with his covenant partner, the Lord finally agreed to save the  city if only 10 Righteous could be found there as it turned out there were not  even 10 righteous in Sodom and its companion cities were destroyed by God.  Isaac was born the following year to 100 year old Abraham and is almost as old  and barren wife. It was a miracle of God that Abraham and Sarah took as a  guarantee that all God's promises of the Covenant would be fulfilled. A decade  or so later, however, came the greatest challenge of Abraham's life when the  Lord told him to sacrifice Isaac as a burnt offering to Him. We'll look at this  challenge in more detail in this in the lecture on sacrifice and atonement. For  now, suffice it to say, that Isaac's life was spared only by God's provision of a  ram to take his place, on the altar of sacrifice. Afterwards, God again repeated  his covenant promises to Abraham, and Isaac. One of the last things Abraham  did before he died was to arrange a suitable marriage for Isaac, who then  assumed his father's place as head of the Covenant community. Isaac and  Rebecca, in turn had two sons, Esau and Jacob, the oldest and the one due to  inherit the blessing was Esau. But through the trickery of Jacob and his mother,  Rebecca, the blessing went to Jacob. Although God did not approve of the way  it was accomplished, he did approve of the blessing going to Jacob, who,  despite his many faults, highly valued God's God's covenant blessing. Jacob  was enthusiastic about God's plan of founding a nation by which the whole world would be blessed. Jacob, in the wandering so the next year suffered for a sin  and through years of chastening come out, came out a great man. His name  was later changed to Israel, a prince with God. As a Genesis 32:28 tells us and  this became the name by which God's chosen people would be called Israelites. Isaac and Rebecca had made the mistake of playing favorites with their two  sons. And Jacob did the same thing in the favoritism he showed Joseph, which  arouse jealousy and Jacob's other sons that resulted in Joseph being sold by his jealous brothers as a slave when he was just 17 years old. This was more than  a family tragedy for threatened the fulfillment of God's promises to Abraham, the descendants of Abraham, how could they become a great nation and find  blessing for themselves, let alone become a blessing for the world under such  conditions. A further challenge Abraham's descendants was a severe famine  that afflicted the entire ancient world. 20. Some years later, Jacob's family faced  the prospect of starvation, except for the intervention of a ruler of Egypt, who  invited them to come and live there, where conditions were better. That ruler  was Joseph, who after 13 years in Egyptian slavery in prison, had risen to  prominence in Egypt and had the God given foresight and opportunity to help  his adopted country prepare for the famine. As Joseph himself came to see the  whole ordeal from the betrayal of his brothers and the mistreatment by various  foreign masters, to his position of favor with Pharaoh had been by and because  of the overruling providence of God. Genesis 50:20, says, has this conclusion of Joseph you intended to harm me he told his brothers, but God intended it for 

good to accomplish what is now being done the saving of many lives. For his  confidence in God and for his role as savior of his whole family, Joseph is  understood to be one of the most important types or Old Testament models of  Christ. There are said to be at least 130 parallels between Joseph's life and the  life of Jesus, one of the most important of which was Joseph has unwavering  commitment in every trial of his life, to serve God, and to give him credit for  every ability and opportunity he was given. As a result, wherever Joseph landed, the people around him were blessed first Potiphar's household in the prison,  finally, all of Egypt, it was a preview of the final province of blessing God at first  given to Abraham, you will be a blessing all peoples on earth will be blessed  through you. The emigration of Joseph's family, from Canaan to Egypt saved  their lives and enabled them to become prosperous. In the next 17 years, they  acquired property and were fruitful and increase greatly in number, a great  improvement even if they could not yet legitimately be called a nation. On the  other hand, they were no longer in the land of their father Abraham, the land that God had promised to make their own. Nor at this point did they see how God  would fulfill his promise to bless the nations of the earth through them. So this  time in Egypt was a mixed blessing. In his old age, Jacob was reflecting, as  recorded in in Genesis 48:3-4. He says, God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in  the land of Canaan, and there he blessed me and said to me, I'm going to make  you fruitful, and will increase your numbers I will make you a community of  peoples and I will give this land as an everlasting possession to your  descendants after you. And He also expressed his dying wish, to Joseph is  recorded in Genesis 47:29-30. He said, Do not bury me in Egypt. But when I  rest with my father's carry me out of Egypt, and bury me, where they are buried  with that, Jacob passed on the blessings of the Covenant heritage had received  from Abraham and Isaac, all of Jacob's sons were blessed to be part of the  future God and planned, part of a holy nation settled in its own country and  devoted to God. But some sons were more blessed than others. Joseph, for  example, got a double blessing because both of his sons were blessed as if they were sons of Jacob. In general, the blessing that Jacob gave to each son was  connected to the conduct of each one in his life. And then when Jacob died, all  of his sons, as he had requested, carried his body back to Canaan, and buried  him in the family burial cave along with those who had gone before Abraham  and Sarah and Isaac and Rebecca and Leah. It was a testimony not only of love for their father, but also a faith in God's promises regarding the land to which  their descendants would someday return. In a way, however, it seems that the  story of the patriarchs ends in failure. The only ones in the Promised Land are in a burial case. And all of the living descendants of Abraham are in Egypt. They  have decent enough homes, to be sure, but they don't have a land of their own,  and they certainly haven't seen the fulfillment of God's promise that they will be  a blessing to the world in the envy of it. Even Joseph is powerful and well 

situated as he was for the last 70 years of his life knew that he and his people  had not yet received all that God had in mind for them. Mindful of this, just as his father Jacob had done with him. He extracted a promise from his family. In  Genesis 50:24-26. He said to his brothers, I'm about to die, but God will surely  come to your aid and take you up out of this land to the land he promised on  oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And Joseph made the sons of Israel swear  an oath and said, You must carry my bones up from this place. And so Joseph  died at the age of 110. And after they embalmed him, he was placed in a coffin  in Egypt. And that's how the book of Genesis ends in a coffin. In Egypt. God's  plan reaches what looks like another crisis point. How would he fulfill his  promises to his chosen people?