So just a quick question. I'm not going to do a big review today because, again, I want to kind of keep it trimmed today. But have you found the review helpful to kind of come back and go over things? I hope so. So the promise that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the seed of the serpent, what was the other part of that? What was the converse of that promise? Who remembers that? The serpent will bruise the heel. And what does that mean? This is often mistaught even in our own circles. What does that mean if you have a serpent bruise your heel? That means you die. Not that you got injured, but really the snake got killed. And we know this is true because Jesus actually died. He didn't appear to die. He really and truly did die. And all the more remarkable then that He was resurrected from the dead. Thinking back to apologetics, this is off the cuff, I'm not here. Just off the cuff, what's the difference between the resurrection of Jesus and what happened to Lazarus after he died? Permanency. What was the word that we used for Lazarus? Resuscitation. Resuscitation. That's a resuscitation. Jesus is a resurrection. There were some people in the Old Testament that came back from the dead, but Jesus is the firstfruits of the resurrection because He was the first to be raised to new life, not in a corruptible body, but an incorruptible body. Okay, and then very interesting, I've been thinking about this since I found it. Who crushes the head of the serpent? Yeah, the church, which I'm still, I've been thinking about this and it's still a little uncomfortable to say because I just want to say it's what Jesus did on the cross. But in fact, the only time that I have seen that literally uses those words is Paul telling the Romans. that you will soon crush Satan under your feet. And so I think that, as I've thought about that, I think the best way to understand that is in our union with Christ, which tends to be somewhat downplayed, I think, in Reformed circles. You know, we often talk about, you say, well, I don't have any righteousness in myself, but in Christ I do. I'm like, okay, so show me you in yourself. And now show me you in Christ. Like, there is no me outside of Christ. Now, is there a body of sin and death that I still carry around with me? Yes, there is. But it's not like I can switch off. You know, people act like it's a switch. Like, I'm in Christ right now. Now I'm in myself. Now I'm in Christ. Now I'm in myself. I think our union with Christ explains how it is that it's the church that can crush Satan under her feet. Okay, so we move on to Abraham. And what is our creation? Abraham, so what would be next? Sinai, I know you guys, you saw what was going on here. But this is Abraham. Years are 2100 to 1450 BC. And there's Abraham with Isaac. We're looking ahead a little bit, but that's our symbol for Abraham. All right, so I've got a lot in the, what's the, Tom, what's the trick to give me a separate display? It's always done it, and this time it didn't do it. So that I'm looking at the little preview thing, do you remember? Oh, and it's back. Sweet. Can you go touch my car, too? God's called Abram the son of Terah. There we go. No, it's a melon. Abraham was living in Ur, so if you turn to Genesis 11.31, it's early on in the Bible there, just 11 chapters in. We see in 27 that Terah fathered Abram. And this is important if you're going to just rewind a little bit to connect the Tower of Babel with Abraham. Remember, we've gone through the Tower of Babel, the whole world there gathered together, and then they were scattered. And then in 1110, we get the generations of Shem. So from whom is, most notably, from whom is Abraham not descended? It's from Shem, not from Ham, right, because Jews don't eat ham. So he's the bad brother. And so in 1010, I'm sorry, 1110, we read the generations of Shem through Arshapeshad, Shelah, Eber, Peleg, Sirug, Nahor, Terah, and then Abram. And Abram is in Ur, and we have the name of Abram's wife, Sarai. She hasn't yet been renamed. And then we get this. So he's in Ur. Now, in 12.1, the Lord said to Abram, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. We don't know how God called him, if it was some unnamed prophet that came to Abram, if it was God speaking to him in an audible voice. This isn't clear. Some pretty clear instructions, though. Well, what was Abram doing at the time? We read this in the book of Joshua 24. Joshua said to all the people, and this is kind of a review of how they got there, so this is much later on. Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, long ago your fathers lived beyond the Euphrates, Terah the father of Abraham and of Nahor, and they served other gods. They served other gods. Back to this question, why was Abram called? Because God chose him. It wasn't because of his piety or devotion. Abram was not serving the Lord. He didn't know Yahweh. He was serving foreign gods, and God simply chose him. Now, there's a few points that this should really bring out. This is why we believe that ultimately salvation is God's sovereign choice. Is the will of man involved? Absolutely. Read the Westminster Confession. We affirm that man has a will and that he utilizes it in the course of his salvation, but the first cause is always God. God chose Abram. He didn't choose any of the generations before Abram. He didn't choose any number of people who were living at the time. He simply chose Abram out of His free grace. One salvation always has been, always shall be. So Abram started as a pagan. And right there at the call, God gives him some promises. In fact, you see the first one there is a great nation. Let me have somebody just start with the text. And as you look through the text, let's see what the promises are to Abram, okay? So the first one here is, I will make you a great nation," in verse 2. What's the next one here? That He will put out a blessing upon you. Yeah, what's next? He'll make His name great. And, of course, a name. Remember, names are everything in the ancient world. Why were the people trying to build the Tower of Babel? They wanted to make a name for themselves. So by way of contrast, at Babel, they wanted a name for themselves. Here, God's promise is, I will make your name great. God will be the one in charge of the naming. And we're going to see how this, well, let me just give you a preview. Later on, we're going to see how all of this is fulfilled in the new covenant. But one of my very favorites is in Let me see if I can find it here. In Revelation, I can't remember if it's 2, 3, or 4. I can't find it. That's what I get for trying to find it offhand. 2, 3, or 4. Jesus says, to those who overcome, I have for them a white stone with a new name on it, which only, which will be revealed, I'm paraphrasing a little bit, which will be revealed only to them. And so this idea is picked up all the way, years, thousands of years later in Revelation, that God has a name for you too. Now, I first heard about this verse because I had a charismatic guy say, God told me my name. I'm like, no, he didn't. Well, he couldn't tell me because it says only he who's, it was just only for him. What is it? Bob. Sort of expected something better. Your new name is Bob. You're a very poor swimmer. So anyway, so promises. It'll make your name great. What's the next one? There it is, right in order. And following that? Bless and curse those who bless and curse you. Which is another way of saying, God is saying, I will be your advocate and your defender. I will unite myself to you so that when someone comes against you, they come against me. This gets very interesting later on in scripture when it is the people of God themselves who start cursing themselves, that God, in fact, curses them. You could look at the Levitical blessings and curses as this idea simply applied self-referentially. If you curse yourself, then God says, I will curse you. But he does it in order that he might make their name great. I didn't ask, but all families of the earth shall be blessed through Abraham. Now, this is a, listen, yeah, this is a monumental claim. This is tremendous. For Abram to receive this and say, hey, you, Guy, worshiping other gods in the middle of nowhere, every family on earth will be blessed through you. By the time we're done with this, I'm convinced that you're all not only going to be Paedo-Baptists, but also post-millennial, if you're not already, because this is just tremendous. Okay, Genesis 15. So what God is doing here is He's making a covenant. And the covenant with Abraham comes in three different places. These are really important to memorize. Some of the most important chapters in Genesis in the Old Testament. Those chapters are Genesis 12, Genesis 15, and Genesis 17. And parents, you should quiz your kids. They should know Genesis, Abrahamic covenant found in Genesis 12, 15, and 17. Write it down. Remember it. I'm going to ask you later. You're going to have to know this one, 12, 15, 17, Abrahamic covenant. Further promises are made. Genesis 15, your son shall be your heir. And remember, Abram at this point is pretty old and so is his wife. It doesn't look like anybody's going to be having any children here. Sarai is at what we would call an advanced maternal age. And here it is. So your son, your own son, shall be your heir, not a member of your household, but your son from your body. Your offspring shall be as numerous as the stars. Again, post-millennial hope here. And then looking on to Genesis 17, God tells him that I will establish covenant with you and with your offspring. Very, very important here. The covenant is established not only with Abram, Not with Abraham, and then some people, Abraham, you just go tell about this covenant. If they want to join, they can. But the covenant is with Abraham and with his offspring. It's an everlasting covenant. So oftentimes we'll hear, especially in Baptist circles, that this is simply a land-grant covenant. But we know that's not the case, that can't be the case, because number one, it's an everlasting covenant, and number two, Abram was not simply looking for a piece of real estate in the Middle East. The whole world was promised to him, as we'll see later. Canaan granted his possession in the immediacy. Now, when we talk about these, all these promises, do you recognize any of this? Establish covenant with you and your offspring, everlasting covenant, make your name great, you will be a blessing. Families of the earth shall be blessed, etc., etc., etc. We've heard that, we've done this already. We're only in Genesis 12 and yet we're already cycling through. Remember this? What does the creational mandate, how does it relate to this here? Yeah, it has to do with all the earth. Numerous offspring, of course, Adam was instructed to, Adam and Eve rather, instructed to fill the earth, to multiply and fill the earth. Think about it like this. As you look at everything here, if Adam had not sinned, all of this would have been established, right? Minus the curse, of course. If there was no sin, if Adam and Eve, you know, whacked the snake, multiplied, reproduced, started to fill the earth, take dominion, They would have been one great nation. There would have been no Babel dividing them into different nations. There would have been no sin making them self-centered. They would have come together as one great nation filling the earth. God would have blessed them. The name of Adam would have been great among all the earth. There would have been no need for a Redeemer because Adam would have been the one who passed the test. We would all look to Adam and say, wonderful job, grandfather. So Adam's name would have been great. Adam's obedience would have been a blessing to the entire earth. Of course, all would have been blessed, so the curse doesn't really apply. All the families of the earth would have been blessed. They all would have descended very easily from Adam, as of course we all do, but there would be no cursing there to intervene. The offspring would have been as numerous as the stars, it would have been an everlasting covenant, the whole world granted to him. So what we're looking at here then is simply that reapplied to Abraham and ultimately fulfilled eschatologically, ultimately fulfilled in the end. There it is, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on earth. So those promises become the Abrahamic covenant. They're incorporated in. So now what God is doing here in the Abrahamic covenant is He's taking the covenant of grace, He's taking the promises of redemption, and He's weaving in His original intent for the earth. Now this is so brilliant, it just strikes me that no mere man or group of people could have sat down and written this, to take these two ideas, God's grace and His original intent, and bring them together. And ultimately, as we'll see in a couple weeks, these are all being fulfilled and will be fulfilled in the church. Okay, this one's got a lot of animation here, so we'll see how we do. The righteousness of Abraham. So we read, the Lord said to Abraham, go from your country. He gives him his command and all these covenant promises. And then in 12.4, so simply stated, so beautifully stated, so Abraham went. as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him." The simplicity of this is really staggering to me. So Abraham went. When you're looking for pictures of stuff like Abraham leaving Ur, it appears that the Mormons do a lot more illustration than anybody else. So I think we've borrowed this from the Mormons, but yeah, I make sure there's no Mormon-y stuff in any of them. So that could be anybody. Maybe the Mormons borrowed it from Reader's Digest. I don't know. In any case. So this is fashion. This is Abram leaving Ur. He's got his camels and his family and his household. And that was easier than it looked. It's not that impressive. So, so Abraham went. Now we read in Hebrews 11. Hebrews 11 explicates what's happening here. By faith. Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out of a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. So, remember, Abraham was in Ur, and that was his place. That was what he was going to receive as an inheritance. What he's saying is, okay, son, the farm here, the land, the great ranch here in Texas, it's all yours. It's all yours, son, just stay here with me on the ranch, work it, and when I'm ready to retire, it's all going to go to you." And the son says, dad, I got this ministry opportunity in New York City, and I'm gonna go do that. He says, but son, I can't give you the ranch if you're not here to learn how to work it. I'm gonna have to give it to someone else. He says, dad, you gotta do what you gotta do. That's okay. Tens of thousands of acres, you know how these Texas ranches are, 12 acres, that's like, that's just the manure, the 12 acres. These gigantic ranches, right? And the son says, dad, I don't blame you at all, that's okay. You do what you gotta do with the ranch, but I've received this call and I can't turn it down. So by faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out of the place he was to receive his inheritance. He went out not knowing where he was going. So back that up a little bit. I don't have a ministry opportunity in New York. It's more like saying, Dad, I got to leave the ranch. The missions agency accepted my application. They're going to send me. Well, son, where are they going to send you? You know what? I don't know. They haven't told me yet. But they promised that they're going to send me, so I'm going to go. Around the country? Around the world? Beats me. By faith he went to live in the land of promise as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations. whose designer and builder is God. So when God spoke to Abraham, Abraham wasn't simply up for a land grab. He wasn't simply like, kings? That sounds better than what I've got going on here. He sacrificed tremendous amounts of prestige and wealth and security to follow God, to go somewhere he did not know because he was ultimately looking for the city of God. Now that just has to sink in with you. What did that even mean to Abram at this point? To say God has spoken to me and he has a city and he's the designer and builder and that's the one that I want. And he went there not knowing where he was going and never actually receiving the thing that he was promised. He went into the land but he never possessed it. The greatest possession of that land was during the reign of Solomon and it lasted for a precious short amount of time and then it was gone. And yet we still walk in that promise because the promise was more, this is far more than a land grant. This is far more than a simple little strip of land along the east coast of the eastern side of the Mediterranean. Abraham was looking for an eternal city. And we have the full promises of that. A city whose builder and maker is God, kept for us in heaven, that will descend from the heavens like a bride adorned for her husband. So he went by faith. And so in Genesis 15 we read this, Abraham says, So, of course, this is reiterating the promises are that your own son will receive your inheritance, that you will have offspring. And Abraham's saying, well, how's that going to happen? Because we're kind of old and we don't have any kids and we never have kids. And it looks like this guy, Eleazar of Damascus, he's going to be the one to take over the stuff after I go. And God says, he doubles down. Again, consider the kind of faith that it would take to receive this. This man shall not be your heir, your very own son shall be your heir. God takes him outside. You wonder what that was like. God takes him outside. You almost picture him like, come here, let me show you something. See those stars? Now remember, this is not light pollution Vancouver. My kids look up at the night sky, they're like, look, two stars! That one's moving. Son, that's an airplane. I'm sorry. It's really hard. I saw a map of light pollution. You have to drive about an hour and a half to get away from all but the lowest level of light pollution. To get away from any, I don't know that you can do that in Western Oregon or Washington. There's always low levels. Has anybody ever been in zero light pollution? It's, and did you see this? Hopefully it wasn't a cloudy night. That's very disappointing. It's just tremendous. It's impossibly gorgeous. The sky just, you know, you can see the Milky Way. I've only seen it like that once in my life, and I'm not even sure that that was purely free of light pollution, but it's really incredible. And of course, so you know, all the stars that you can't see here in Vancouver, Abram could see, and God says, see those stars? Your offspring will be like that. And it says, and he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness. Abram is looking up and he says, okay, Lord, you say so? Good, I got it. The importance of this cannot be understated. Right here in the middle of the ancient world, where all the gods of paganism, all the false gods, have always done a tit-for-tat mechanism of payment. You sacrifice this much, I'll bless you this much. You sacrifice more, I'll bless you more. You earn, and in all honesty, all the gods of today, all the false gods. This is how you can tell a false god from a true god. Every false god needs a payment. Every false god needs a payment. If you want a false god of greed, then you make the payment, you're willing to sacrifice anybody who gets in your way economically. You're willing to exploit the poor for your own gain. If you're a feminist, you're willing to sacrifice your babies, and certainly a bloody sacrifice. They're laid on the altar. If your idol is nationalism, you know, Sorry, James Kennedy. But if you're like, hey, everything we do in the U.S. is right. We can bomb who we got to bomb. Well, you're willing. I mean, it's amazing how many American Christians are pro-life until it comes to bombing the bad guy. They're like, yeah, just nuke them. The pregnant ladies as well and their babies. I'm not a pacifist. There is such a thing as lawful war. But nationalism is willing to obliterate anybody who crosses us and gets in our way. That's certainly a sacrifice. You name the false god and just think a little bit, you'll be able to find the sacrifice. But here in the middle of the ancient world is this unheard of thing. His belief, his faith is countered to him as righteousness. Now, not surprisingly, the New Testament picks up this point very not undramatically. I'm sorry, this looks a lot less green on my screen than it does on yours. So if you can't read that, I'll just read it to you. From Romans 4, 9 through 11. Is this blessing then only for the circumcised or also for the uncircumcised? For we say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised." In other words, Abraham, in Genesis 17, when he received the covenant of circumcision as a seal of the Abrahamic covenant, received a credo circumcision. This is a Baptist's circumcision. Abraham himself would have been, it was like being baptized as an adult. He received the seal of the promise of what? of his righteousness by faith, not of his land grant, not of God's help to make him a military nation. He received the promise by faith, and God countered that to him as righteousness. You also receive the promises of God by faith. God counts your faith now because we have more information in the Lord Jesus Christ. Abraham ultimately did have faith in Jesus. He just didn't have enough information to name Jesus and to know what he did and what he taught or when he would come. But Abraham had faith and his faith was counted as his righteousness. You have faith. Your faith is ultimately counted as your righteousness because of Jesus. And then he received the sign of circumcision as a seal of that righteousness that he had by faith. He is an adult who comes to believe in Jesus. That's the equivalent. And then he gets baptized when he joins the church. And then what happens? And then the promise, and then the covenant of circumcision is not just for Abraham, but for all of his household, but for his sons. Instantly, Abraham becomes a Presbyterian. Right? Maybe not with the church government, but instantly, that same seal, you would think, If we're gonna read this as a Baptist, you would think that God would say, now explain the promises that I've made to you. Take your son Isaac out and show him the stars and tell him, Isaac, God is going to make my offspring and your offspring as numerous as the stars in the sky. And if he believes that, then circumcise him. And do that with everyone in your household, all the males. Take them out, and if they believe my promises, Then circumcise them. But he says, no, actually, circumcise them as infants. Before they have demonstrated the capacity to accept or reject or believe or hear, they receive the sign. Kirby's got a smile. You can ask me questions later. Again, and look at that. I'm trying to go fast, and we're still running out of time. All right. Romans 4. Again, no unbelief made him waver concerning the promises of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. This is why his faith was, quote, counted to him as righteousness, end quote. But the words it was counted to him were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him, who raised from the dead Jesus, our Lord, who is delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. Those words, see, this is, I'm sorry, Romans 4. is the great connection between the promises to Abraham in the Abrahamic covenant and the promises to us in the New Covenant. These promises come together here in Romans 4 as Paul takes these promises to Abraham and says, this faith, the faith that justifies, the faith that saves. See, when God says in Genesis 12 that his faith was counted as righteousness, It is not simply, I'm sorry, Genesis 17, it is not just for their benefit but for yours. You have the same faith that Abraham had, you just have more data, you have more information. If Abraham lived now, he would certainly be a Christian believing all the same sorts of things that you do as a Christian. Romans 4 highlights this and says that that faith that was counted to Abraham is the same faith counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord. The same in essence and yet the seal of that covenant was for Abraham and his offspring. Now that the assumption there I think it's fair to say, is not that you simply go through a blind ceremony. I have no idea what this means or what it is, but we're just going to do it and now we're done. But the idea connected with that seal is that you teach your children. When they lie down, when they rise up, as you walk along the way, you teach them the promises of God. You remind them of the things of God, that in all ways we are raising our children as Christians. assuming their faith in the sense that we say, oh, well, they're Christians, so I don't have to do anything more with them. That's a terrible thing to do to a Christian. We shouldn't be doing that with any believer, saying, oh, they believe, so now we're good. Nothing more to do with them. What it simply means is that just as Abraham was to disciple his children, to teach them the meaning of the seal that they received, so we too are also supposed to raise our children in the fear and admonition of the Lord. Not as pagans outside the promises, as inheritors of the promise, but always teaching, always compelling. Listen, your kids need the gospel today, they need the gospel when they're adults, they need the gospel of Jesus Christ long after they have clearly and obviously received the Lord by faith and are walking with Him. If there's such a discernible moment in the life of your children, they're going to need the gospel 50 years after they had that discernible moment, okay? So this, and I hate the fact that so often this idea comes from this concept that Christians need the gospel to get in, you know, people, non-Christians need the gospel to get into the faith and then they can come back to the gospel when they fail at the faith. I think that is really at the heart of the whole Baptistic project. that we get in by the gospel and then we carry along by our own works. And I think the more that we proclaim the gospel is for every Christian every day from new birth until death, at which point the gospel becomes fully real for them. I think that we will have a far deeper understanding of what it means to raise our children within the covenant that God has brought them to. Lastly, Galatians 3. So as you're thinking about the covenant with Abraham, there's five chapters to remember. Genesis 12, Genesis 15, Genesis 17, Romans 4, and Galatians 3. And remember, if you can remember Genesis 12, 15, 17, you've got three, and your fourth is, remember, Romans comes before Galatians, Romans 4, and Galatians doesn't have that many chapters, so I don't have a good memory trick for Galatians. You just have to remember it's Galatians 3. But for a long time, I was getting Romans 4 and Galatians 3 mixed up, and it was a really helpful little trick. Genesis 12, 15, 17, 4 is Romans 4, and then Galatians 3. Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Just as. So the Spirit supplies you in the same way that Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.