So I think I'm glad to be here. I know I'm glad to be here, don't you think it? I do feel like the Queen, once they asked her to speak behind the lectern, which was about this poor thing. It's built for tall men. Could we first turn to Genesis chapter 12, verses 1 to 3? I'd like to refer to this passage during the first address. So I want to read just verses 1 to 3. And I'm reading this in the New King James, so I guess we've got different versions. Now the Lord had said to Abraham, get out of your country from your family and from your father's house to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you. And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Now, I'd like to go back to that passage in a moment, but can I ask you to turn to Galatians chapter 3? I want to read from Galatians 3 verses 13 to 18. Galatians 3, 13 to 18. Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. For it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree, that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. Brethren, I speak in the manner of men. though it is only a man's covenant, yet if it is confirmed, no one annuls or adds to it. Now, to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He does not say, and to seeds as of many, but as of one, and to your seed, who is Christ, And this I say, that the law, which was 430 years later, cannot annul the covenant that was confirmed before by God in Christ, that it should make the promise of no effect. For if the inheritance is of the law, it is no longer of promise, but God gave it to Abraham by promise. 12 and verses 1 to 3. In deciding what I should speak on here, I didn't know who I'd be speaking to. I didn't know whether the room would be full of theologians, and I see it is. or young people who perhaps would appreciate something more basic. And so what I decided to do was I would like to speak to you on three things. First of all, I would like to speak to you about God's covenant. And then secondly, in a second address, something about the law of God. And then thirdly, I want to speak to you from a passage in Isaiah. That's what I decided to do. The reason I chose these subjects is because they are fundamental to your understanding of the Bible. And there are some lessons which I've learned when I was in my 50s and 60s, which I wished I'd known when I was 17. And so I've decided to try to give you things that would help you, particularly if you're young, to read the Bible and understand it. through the rest of your Christian life. So, first of all then, in Genesis 12, one to three, here we meet the promises of God. When we read that, we are reading God's promises. And if you look at the text, you can see what God promised on that day. At the end of verse one, he has this phrase, the first promise, to a land that I will show you. not knowing where it is, to a land that I will show you. And then the next clause, the next promise is, I will make you a great nation. So these are the promises of God, I will take you to a land, I will show you, I will provide you a land, I will make you a great nation. And the third promise there is, I will bless you. Now that little phrase, I will bless you, implies that God is taking Abraham as his child. It's the father who blesses the child. In these little words, I will bless you, God is establishing a relationship with him. He's saying to him, I am your God and you are mine. And so the third thing is, I will bless you. And the fourth one there is, and I will make your name great. So God is saying, one of the things I will do, Abraham, is I will make you, your name honorable. I will exalt you. And then finally, at the end of verse two, right through the end of verse three, you have this extension of these things to others. You shall be a blessing. And now, we're now beginning to think of the effect of Abraham on other people. you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and I will curse him who curses you. In other words, how we relate to Abraham will affect us. And in you, this is the final bit, this is all part of one thing, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. So there God is really saying that the blessing of the nations, the blessing of the families of the earth is to be received through or in Abraham. Now those are, shall we say, five things that God promised. He promised Abraham a land. He promised that he would become a great nation. He promised that he would bless him. In other words, his relationship with God would flower and do him good. He promised to make him a great name. And he promised that all of us, all these families of the earth, would be blessed through Abraham. Now, those are the basic promises that God made to Abraham. And I assume, I should assume nothing, but I assume that many of you will know that through the life of Abraham, God brought him back to these things several times. So in Genesis chapter 15, God makes a covenant with Abraham. And in Genesis 17, the covenant is confirmed. So these promises are brought into a covenant that God makes. And then finally, in Genesis chapter 22, God raises his hand, the Lord raises his hand, and swears an oath to these things. So these promises are, as it were, brought together in a covenant, and they are confirmed with an oath. When God brings these things into a covenant and an oath, what he is doing is he is binding himself to keep them. He is giving himself no way out. It says in Hebrews 6, it says, an oath for confirmation is the end of all strife. In other words, when God swore an oath, it settles all doubt. These things are guaranteed. Now that's the first thing. 22. These are very, very important passages. Here we have God's promises. That's the first thing I want to point out to you. These are the promises of God. Before we go on with this, let me secondly remind you, again I'm sure you know this, that there are several covenants of God in Scripture. The covenant with Abraham is not the first covenant. We know that God made a covenant with Noah, and then with Abraham. And then with Israel, both at Sinai and in the plains of Moab. And then with David. And then finally, we have this reference to the new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. So we can go to the Bible and find at least those five divine covenants going through history. Noah, Abraham, Israel, David, and the new covenant. Now some covenants are present when the name of the word covenant does not appear. So if you look carefully at 2 Samuel 7, although we know that God was making a covenant with David, it's not called that. And that just alerts us, when we're reading the Bible, often we mustn't look for the word, we must look for the thing, the reality. And that's important because when we go back to Genesis 6.18, we are introduced the first time to the word covenant, where God says to Noah, I'm going to confirm my covenant with you. But the very language of Genesis 6.18 is telling us that the covenant in question already existed. And so as we read the Bible, we realize that at creation, God made a covenant, effectively, with Adam and this world. There is a creation covenant, even though Genesis 1 does not tell us this is a covenant of God, it is written into the warp and woof of Scripture. So for example, it would be inconceivable that God would create this world, create Adam, and just say to him, now you work out what you want to do. Carry on, invent yourself. That's not how God works. He comes to Adam and he says, this is what you must do, and this is what I am doing. It is imposed. God structures creation, he binds it to himself. The fact that he has given us existence and life means that we automatically, so to speak, owe him everything. And so when we read the scriptures, we must never forget that from the very beginning, as it were, this universe and its existence is structured But we don't even have to stop there. We know from reading, let me put it this way, from reading between the lines in Scripture, that before the creation of the world, before the foundation of the world, God, as it were, worked in covenantal terms within the Trinity. Our Lord Jesus hints at this when he speaks to the disciples in Luke 22 verse 29. He says, But the word bestowed is a word that's linked to the Greek word for covenant. And Jesus is saying to the disciples, my father has covenanted to me a kingdom. He has, as it were, bestowed that upon me in that sense. And I believe that what our Lord has in mind is not just the Davidic covenant in 1000 BC, but the eternal councils. when in the eternal councils God gave to his son a people, and he asked of his son that he would die for them. There were terms, if you like, set out in eternity. The great eternal councils, we can think of them as covenantal. Now, I say that as a framework for your thinking. We are going to look for a moment at Genesis 12. But Genesis 12 fits into the great covenantal character of God's dealings with us. So I want to focus just for a short while now on Genesis 12, 1 to 3. The first, what I'm doing is I want to pick out certain characteristics of these promises which were brought into that covenant with Abraham and confirmed by that oath of God. Now the first thing to say is that these promises in that covenant are everlasting. They are everlasting in their nature. Now it doesn't say that in Genesis 12, but it does say it in Genesis 17. Let me just turn over and read a few. It says, the Lord says to Abraham, and I will confirm my covenant between me and you and your seed after you in their generations for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and to your seed after you. That's Genesis 17, 7. Now the point that we come to in Genesis is this, that the covenant relationship between God and Abraham and his seed will never end. It will never end. What God said and established in Genesis 12 will never end. That's the first thing. When we come to a chapter like Galatians chapter three, and I only read a part of it, we discover that God's covenant with Abraham is still in force today. We are children of Abraham. In other words, we are included in that covenant. These promises have to do with us. When Abraham died, the covenant did not end. And when the Sadducees came to our Lord and challenged him, there will be no resurrection, this is what he referred to. No resurrection. She said, haven't you heard what God said to Abraham? He said, I am your God. Do you think that God will let Abraham go? Because there is this binding relationship between God and Abraham, he must be raised from the dead. And we can go further and say, when the last day of history dawns, and this heavens and this earth are rolled up and taken away, And this universe as we know it ends, God's covenant will not end. It does not end with the end of the world, if I can put it like that. It is truly everlasting. No wonder we have this phrase, the word of our God abides forever. All flesh is grass. But the word of our God abides forever. And that's the first thing we need to grasp about this covenant and its promises. It is truly everlasting. The first thing, it is everlasting. The second thing, the promises of God set out his aims for the history of this world. If you want to know what God is doing in history, look at these promises. This is what he is doing. And when we look at these promises, we find that they are a thread which runs through the whole of scripture. So in other words, if you want to read the Bible, some people come to the Bible, especially when you're a new Bible reader, and there is so much detail. It's overwhelming detail. And you ask the question, what brings all the detail together? You know the phrase, we couldn't see the wood for the trees. We're busy looking at all the trees and we don't see the wood. This is the wood. This is the big picture which brings these things together. And as we read the Bible, and particularly the history of the Bible, we discover that all the time God is pursuing these promises. So he takes Joseph and Jacob into Egypt, and what happens there in Egypt? He makes them a great nation. That's what he promised he would do. But in Egypt, the job is not finished. And we find that the whole of the Bible is really partly about God making that great people. And we get right to the end of Revelation, and in Revelation 7, What are we shown? We are shown before the throne a multitude from every nation, a multitude that no man can number. And there is the great nation. And the whole of the Bible has taken us from that promise to Abraham to the reality of the great multitude before the throne of God. The church, we are looking at that. Again, we think of the promise, I will show you a land. And we come very soon to the book of Joshua. And the book of Joshua is all about the conquest of the land of Canaan and the giving of it to the tribes. They possessed the land, but that was not the end of the promise. That was only the beginning of the matter. God had not finished. In Hebrews chapter 1-2, the writer to the Hebrews is focused on the world to come. He says the world to come of which we speak. He's thinking of Psalm 8. And we suddenly find in the New Testament that the New Testament is still looking at this land, this world to come. And we get to Revelation chapter 21 and John says, Behold a new heavens and a new earth. That new heavens and the new earth is the land to come. But we don't get to that land until the end of the Bible, all the way through. God is pursuing that promise. In Hebrews chapter 11, and this is something I'll refer back to in a moment, it says, by faith Abraham dwelt in the land of promise, that's Canaan, as in a foreign country. dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise. For he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. There was Abraham in Canaan, still waiting for the city that he had been promised. And it says in verse 15, no, 16, but now, you see, they desire a better country, a heavenly country. So Abraham and all those who followed him, though they may have possessed Canaan for a time, were looking for a heavenly country, a better country. And so we can see the promises of God being pursued through scripture. Take, for example, that promise that Abraham would be a blessing. That somehow or other the blessing or the curse of others depends on their relationship to Abraham. And that structure, it floods Genesis. You know the Joseph stories. There is Joseph, carried away into Egypt, but used by God to save a multitude of lives. This is one outworking of that promise. Joseph had an effect on not just his brothers and that early family, but upon the Egyptians and the Canaanites. Many lives were saved through this one man's wisdom that God gave him. And we know, I hope we know, that the great outworking of that fifth promise, the great outworking, really begins from the day of Pentecost. This touches us. If we are believers, if we are Christians today, then we are the beneficiaries of that promise. We are part of the nations, the families of the earth, who are being blessed So that's the second thing. I want you to see this, that not only are these covenant promises everlasting, but they control history. They run through scripture. If you try to understand the history of this world, the whole world now, And if you try to understand scripture without seeing that the business is that God is working out these promises, he is keeping what he said. And when we read the Bible, we need to keep this in mind. So, secondly then, we've said that the promises are God's aims. These are what God is doing. If you want to understand the mind of God, look at the promises, this is what he is about, this is his work. Then thirdly, the promises made to Abraham are spiritual, heavenly and eternal. Now I say this because for example in John Calvin's time there were the Anabaptists, and the Anabaptists made a fatal mistake in understanding the scriptures. They thought that the promises made to Abraham were earthly and temporal promises. They looked at Abraham and they said, there you are, you see, he was promised the land of Canaan and he was promised his people Israel. You see, these are earthly promises And we, by contrast, are looking for heavenly promises. So the Anabaptists made a contrast between what Abraham was looking for and what we're looking for. He had his eyes on Canaan, we have our eyes on the heavenly city. He had his eyes on Israel, we have our eyes upon the church. And so the Anabaptists drove a massive wedge And if you follow that theology, you may as well rip your Bible in half and throw the old away, because it's got nothing to do with you. Or maybe it just, as it were, foreshadows you, but it's not really part of the Scriptures for us. But that is a fatal mistake. The promises made to Abraham were essentially spiritual promises. heavenly and eternal. And I refer you again to Hebrews chapter 11. Those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland, but now they desire a better, that is a heavenly country. The writer to the Hebrews says, and you'll find this running through the letter if you look carefully, you'll find that the writer is saying to Jews, Jewish believers, who are perhaps regretting how much they have lost in terms of their place in Canaan. All the time he's saying, do you know what? We are talking about the world to come. We are looking for the heavenly city. We have an altar that they have no rights to eat of. The entire message of Hebrews is, to look to the spiritual realities that God has promised, not to get trapped, as it were, into the lesser temporal manifestation of them. And so, we have to understand, for the sake of seeing the unity of Scripture, that the Old and New Testaments are one Bible, We have to understand that Abraham's faith was the same as our faith, and the promises that he had been given, the same promises come to us, and the same means as well. So when we look at these promises in Genesis 12, we say these, as it were, they structure the Scriptures, and they unite the Scriptures. God has not changed his course. He has not changed his mind as we go through Scripture. Earlier on I mentioned the many historical covenants. And you know that dispensational theology takes the line that each of those covenants began a new era of history, a new phase. different ways of dealing with Adam and Noah and the patriarchs and Israel and the church, that they were even saved in different ways. And dispensational theology is completely false. It tears the scriptures apart. Anyway, let me not digress too much on that. Fourthly, The fourth thing is that the promises that were delivered to Abraham on that day long ago are really Christ's. They are really Christ's. In other words, these are promises made to Christ. I don't mean now that Christ made them to Abraham. I mean that God made them first and foremost to Jesus Christ. We read just now Galatians 3.16 and I can only say I think it's one of the most important verses in the middle of 66 books of important verses. Galatians 3.16, look. Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. And Paul said, he does not say unto seeds, as of many, but as of one, unto your seed, who is Christ. Now when you shrink that down, you end up with a statement that the promises were made to Abraham and to Christ. And what I would like to say to you is that there was Abraham as it were receiving the promises on behalf of Christ. It's as if he was the deputy that was there for the time being. He was receiving these things, but ultimately they are Christ's. This is Christ's inheritance. The writer to the Hebrews describes him He is the heir of all things. These promises set out Christ's inheritance. That great nation is Christ's church, Christ's great nation. That land is Christ's inheritance. That's why he says he is the heir of all things. It is Christ who is blessed of God above all. This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. These are the promises coming to Christ. He is one, the land. He is the heir of all things. Two, the church. He will be a great nation. Three, blessed. This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Fourthly, what about the great name? What about the honour? What about the exaltation? It is Christ that God the Father has resolved will be honoured, that all men might honour the Son as they honour the Father. He has given him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow. And here to Abraham, yes, Abraham has an honoured name for sure. But here, in that dawn of covenantal history, so to speak, God is indicating to Abraham that his seed will be honored and exalted and his name will be great. And finally, finally, it is in Christ that the nations and families of the earth are blessed. If we are blessed, we are blessed through him. And that's what Galatians says. that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles. So we've said, let me just remind you, we've said that this covenant, these promises are everlasting. They will never, ever end. Not even if the world, or when the world ends, they will not end. We've said secondly that these promises set out for us the mind of God, the aims of God in history, and they thread through scripture. We've said that the promises of God are essentially and ultimately spiritual, heavenly, and eternal. And we've said that they are Christ's inheritance. And then fifthly, just fifthly this morning, the promises laid out there in Genesis 12 recover what Adam lost at the fall. They recover what Adam lost at the fall. There is that great passage in Romans 5, 12 to 21, where Paul compares Adam and Christ. the first Adam and the second or the last Adam the two heads are compared and we look at the first Adam and we find disobedience and rebellion and as a result of that everything is lost you take possession of the earth at creation Adam was given dominion over the earth but you know The wages of sin is death. And death removes us from this earth. We can carry nothing away. We lose everything because of sin. Everything. And then, what about Adam given the mandate to multiply? And yet every one of Adam's children will die. Death will carry them all away. And we see Adam being driven out of the presence of God, and his friendship with God is over. He is an exile, he is a stranger in this world. He has lost the most precious thing of all. Adam's relationship with God was broken. And we think of the fourth promise, a great name, Adam's name was in disgrace. I couldn't, perhaps I shouldn't say this, but I couldn't imagine having a son and calling him Adam. Of all the names in the scripture, if there's anyone called Adam, I do apologize. But, you know, to be connected with Adam! But maybe I'm wrong. But either way, Adam came into disgrace, didn't he? His name was associated with disobedience and the fall. I can see I'm going to be attacked by three Adams after this. If I had more time, I'd tell you a story, but I won't. Well, I was once preaching about the significance of names. And I said, well, I can't imagine anyone being called Adolf. Only to discover that one of them was called Adolf. Anyway, right. You should never, well, be very careful. But you see my point, don't you, that Adam lost everything that was then re-promised to Abraham. He'd be taken away from this world. You will have nothing here. God says, I'm going to give you a land. All your children are going to die, yeah, but you'll be a great nation. Your relationship with God is broken, but I will be your God and I will bless you. I'll be your father. Adam, you're living in disgrace. But Abraham cried, I will make you a great name. I will honor you. And then it spreads out to the whole world. The whole world was, as it were, taken down by Adam. In Adam, we all sinned and fell. In him, we sinned. That's what Romans 5.12 says. But in Christ, we are righteous. He is the righteousness of God for us. So this is just, if you like, an initial meditation on the importance of keeping Genesis 12, one to three, in our minds. Now, let me just close with three points. One, never call your son, oh no. Don't write that down. You can see what they get in Immanuel in Cardiff, can't you? Only two of them came up with me, that's why. What I want to say to you is this. First of all, without seeing the structural place of Genesis 12, 1 to 3, and God's covenant with Abraham, the Bible will be for you a mass of detail that doesn't hang together. If you want to see the big picture, you have to look at it from this promissory framework. That's the first thing. If you don't see this, you won't be reading the Bible in the right way. I think of many people I love whose theology lacks this unity, and they struggle, particularly with the Old Testament. What good is the Old Testament to us? These things unify the Bible. The second thing, I have said to you that these promises of God set out his aims for history. This is God telling Abraham, this is what I'm going to do in history. But I want to say to you that the promises of God also give us a program or aims for our lives. Let me put it like this. If God is about this work, and we are on his side, then this becomes a program for our lives. I'm thinking pastorally now, if you like, how many people waste their lives by aiming for the wrong things? I don't know what aims you have, particularly if you're young, you look at your life stretching ahead of you, and do you ask the question, what are my real aims in life? And often we can live in this tinsel world And we can be attracted to seek things which are entirely secondary. And you can waste your lives by aiming for the wrong things. My father's brother is about to celebrate his 100th birthday. And over 100 years, he's never known God, never known Christ. And you might say, well, he was successful in the terms of this world. He was good at this, good at that. Enjoyed playing golf and all the rest of it. Swam every day in the sea off Sidmouth. I hate to say it to you, but he's wasted his life. And it cuts me to the quick. It grieves me. that my beloved uncle has wasted his life because he didn't have God's aims. He's not thinking of the heavenly country. He doesn't know God as his father. He hasn't come to Jesus Christ to be blessed in him. He hasn't got an interest in the gospel going out to the lost. One of the great things that we have among all this is that we are living in the age when that fifth promise is in the focus. This is the time post-Pentecost when God's grace is superabounding to the nations. Our neighbours are included in that. We can go and speak with confidence because God is doing this. And this can become, if you like, settle the aims for our life. When I've had three children and four grandchildren so far, and for every single one of them I've only prayed one prayer, one prayer, that they might know the Lord Jesus Christ and live for Him. And I frankly don't care whether they're bankrupt, get no degrees, I don't care if their education is a mess, I only want them to know Christ. And the rest is up to him. I will not ask for secondary things. Not for my grandchildren, not for my children. I want them to get the big thing. I want them to know God. And this is what these promises are about. It brings us to God. So, don't waste your life. Tune your aims. Settle your purposes by reference to the promises of God. And then finally, perhaps for now, The fact that these promises, these blessings, are given to Christ means that if we want blessing, if we want part of these promises, then we are locked up to Jesus Christ. There is no other path to blessing. There's no other way. What does he say? I am the way and the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me. You see, all the time God is bringing us to his Son. This is the one. This is the one. Be found in Christ and outside of Christ. You have nothing, nothing. Whatever you think you have in this world will be taken away from you if you do not have Christ. He is the only one, as it were, through whom we can hold on to and receive much more of what God will give. I think that's, I don't know, I haven't got a clue what the time is, Kevin, but I think that's probably sufficient for this morning. I just commend you, if you like, this way of thinking, this way of reading the Bible, this way of understanding Jesus, and this way of planning your life. Plan your life. to serve, as it were, to aim for the great promise of God. It is better to know God as your God and Father and to come into Jesus Christ as the obedient deliverer than anything else that you can ever imagine in this world.