Well, when I was growing up, we went camping. Every July 4th, it seemed, we went camping on the coast. Where I'm from, we don't call it the beach. There's very little sand. Instead, it's volcanic rock that goes down to the ocean, except for a few places where you have sandy beach. But we would camp in a campground there and had a delightful time every year. Camping was so much fun. Playing with sparklers, it was July 4th, and simply being out in the beach area with my family. We had a family of five in a big tent. It was a lot of fun. And then occasionally, I don't know how many times, I can't remember that far back, we would go to the mountains. And there's a little lake up there we'd always go to and there was a campground and a little gift shop or, you know, you could buy snacks and bait for the lake. And we would camp there at the campground along this mountain lake, you know, with water so pure you could see to the bottom. You could actually drink the water if you didn't mind the fish in there. I mean, this is a mountain lake, similar to what we have here in the Sierra Nevadas. And it was a delightful time. I mean, I remember the food my mom cooked, you know, over the campfire, all of that. It was just so much fun. But then we go home. We go home to our house. And we go home to regular food. No more cooking over a campfire. Marshmallows are fine, but there's a limit, even for kids. And you know, camping is a good thing, but only if it's temporary. What do you think that Abraham expected? when the Lord called him out of his homeland, where he grew up and had possessions and a home and safety and family all around, to a foreign land, and he lived in tents his whole life. His adult life, you know, the part we hear about, a very long time, he's living in tents. Living in tents is fine temporarily. I mean, camping is fun. But then you go home. When Abraham went home, he went home to a tent. And you know, where we camped growing up, my family and I, There were no wild animals left. I mean, even in the mountains, if there were any bears up there, I never heard of them. And they were probably very few and far between. There were no wolves. Where Abraham lived, there were lions, and there were bears, and there were hyenas. Really scary predators and tents don't make much protection for those kind of predators. You have to stand watch. You have to have people with clubs and spears watching all night to make sure these wild animals don't approach the tents. Otherwise, they get in there and they kill people. A very serious danger at night and during the day. You're out walking in a lonesome place, you can be hunted down and killed by some of these wild animals. Living in a tent your adult life, the romance quickly wears off. Quickly wears off. And so Abraham probably expected to take over one of the towns in Canaan. This is probably what he expected when he left his home then. Well, maybe one of those towns will have a famine or plague or something. Everybody will die and we'll just take over the buildings and we'll populate it and it'll be great. It's not what happened. He lived in tents. Year after year after year, he's living in a tent. And then, sequentially, the Lord meets with him, assures him, swears to him, makes covenant with him. I'm going to give you this land. This land is your land. And at first he just, you know, he goes to Canaan, a pretty large area. He's not really, Abraham's probably not really sure what little section, what little segment of this town, maybe a place, you know, a smaller, what we think of as the county size area. And then the Lord meets with him and makes a promise by covenant. No, I'm gonna give you from the Mesopotamia down to the Nile. This is like huge area, relatively speaking. You know, towns controlled rural areas in the ancient world, really up until about 120 years ago, you didn't really have agricultural technology. so that you can support big towns. I mean, the idea of Los Angeles and the size of Los Angeles, you know, 150 years ago, it's unbelievable. You couldn't believe it. Because how are all those people going to eat? What are they going to eat? They're not producing food, generally. So any ancient town, you know, has to control territory around the town to grow food of various sorts, primarily grain, then some sort of fruit trees, usually, olive trees, maybe some vegetables, a little bit, mostly grain. And then, like us, you know, Canaan is an area similar to our geography, actually. You have these hills rising full of granite. You can't grow any grain up there. You've got to feed, you know, sheep and goats by any pasturage you can find up there. So Abraham thought he was going to take over this region. And it's going to be this huge country. It's big. It's bigger than expected. Normally, it would be a town in the middle of a 100-mile-square area, so 10 miles by 10 miles. That's kind of roughly what you expect in the ancient world. you know, 10 miles by 10 miles around a town is owned by people in the town and controlled by them for raising food. You know, when you came to church this morning, it would be National Geographic of the ancient world. But, you know, wherever I go, I carry the ancient world with me. It's the nice thing about being an antique, a living and walking antique. So, but this is a reality of the biblical world that helps you understand the dynamic of what's going on here. Abraham, if he's going to receive that huge territory from the Mesopotamia to the Nile, he's got to have a big population of people. He's got to have a huge, enormous family, as it were, if that's his territory. You've got to defend it from foreign invaders, and you've got to produce food in it. It's just this really incredible promise to Abraham. We kind of take it for granted, but in ancient world terms, it's like baffling how this could happen. And so the Lord adds to that. and I will make your descendants as numerous as the grain of sand on the sea, as numerous as the stars. That's how he's gonna inhabit that land. He's gonna have descendants who are incredibly populous, and it's gonna be this really big nation, unlike any nation size in Abraham's day. There was no nation that big in Abraham's day. from the Mesopotamia River all the way to the Nile. There was nothing like that. So this promise is really something. And Abraham lives in tents. And he has a son in his old age. And no other son, Esau, comes later. This is like This is just not the stuff of success, earthly success. The Lord didn't bless him with land. Now, he had a lot of property, moving livestock, silver and gold, we're told, but he didn't have a place to put it. He has no bank, he had no firm area to inherit, but Abraham caught on. You know, the Lord was teaching him by making him live in tents. He was teaching him an object lesson in life. Oh, I have a land for you. Yes, I'm gonna give you and your descendants this land, but I'm gonna make you live in tents because I want you to learn, Abraham, I want you to learn that the homeland that I'm preparing for you is not of this creation. I'm going to prepare for you a place that's permanent. The problem with living in tents, you can't put down roots. You don't have fields to plant, to put in grain to feed your family. You have to buy it, because you don't own any fields. Maybe you can rent some pasturage, but, you know, the people in the area, they have to raise their own food. They're not going to give you their food. Abraham's being taught, look, I have a place for you, and you will be filled. You won't be hungry in the land I prepared for you. And Abraham confesses. But until the Lord gives him that land, Abraham's living in tents. And in chapter 23 of Genesis, this is right at the, really the whole chapter 23, moving right into chapter 24 that we read the first part of, Abraham gets a plot of land. It's the first and only field that Abraham buys. And it's because there's a grave there, you know, a cave, a tomb, and he needs to bury Sarah. So that's all he has. All he has is a field with a tomb in it to bury Sarah. So all Abraham has in the Promised Land is a graveyard. It's kind of appropriate. The promised land itself is a graveyard for him. It's a dead end place. It's a place where you leave it behind when you die and you go somewhere else. And that's what happened for Abraham. He found a resting place for Sarah. And he knows Abraham, our father, Romans 4, and Sarah, our mother, Galatians 3. They knew this. They understood life in this world has lots of stuff in it. Here you are wearing masks. Here we are surrounded. You know, you're going to have to leave the building next week and bring a tent. Bring an awning. And then remember this. You don't have a permanent place in this world either. Oh yeah, you may have a home, but it's temporary. You won't take it with you. You should regard it as a stucco tent. Because it's a place the Lord has provided for you because he's preparing a better place for you. This is what Abraham and Sarah confessed. I'm a stranger, an alien in the land. That's what Abraham actually says in chapter 23 when he's buying that field. I'm an alien in your midst. I'm a stranger here in this land, the land of promise. And he is confessing that he has a homeland that the Lord is providing. So you know by his words. Now in our chapter, Now in this little section of chapter 24, we see the actions of Abraham confirming his words. You see, this is what Hebrews says, you can tell by their actions and by their words what they believe. The same with you. You can, people have to be able to tell, not just by your words, but by your actions as well, what you believe. And Abraham believed that God had prepared a better place for him. And by his actions, he confessed that. So, now we look at our passage briefly. he wants to find a wife for his son Isaac in his old age. So as we read, he took his oldest servant and sent him north to his kindred up north, Haran. And he was gonna find a wife there. You remember this story, I just read it for you. And this servant is asking a legitimate question. Because he's going to go up to Haran to a family that's living in buildings, homes. and has property undoubtedly, and he's going to find a young woman, probably a girl. In the ancient world, you know, if you're a student at the seminary, I apologize, I say this all the time, I'm trying to drill in your head, you know, the life in the ancient world. Girls were made around 14 to 16. That's reality in the ancient world, because they didn't live that long. Grandmothers in their 30s and then they die around mid 30s. That's typical for women in the ancient world. A lot of different reasons. So they're married early. And so there's this girl, this 13 or 14-year-old girl, let's say 14, that is going to be asked to leave her family and all of her possessions and the security that her family provides and go down to a land she doesn't know anything about. Family members, yes, but they're living in tents. There's a lot of insecurity in that. So the servant says, look, I know what it's like here, and we're living in tents still, Abraham, so what if she doesn't come? And he asks a legitimate question. Should I take Isaac up there? And then, you know, he can be reunited with his family, have, you know, build up property there, and everything would be fine. You know, life would be good. And Abraham's response is really interesting. I tried to bring it out in my reading. So this is verse five, the servant perhaps, the woman won't go. Verse six, Abraham said, see to it that you do not take my son back there. The word in the original is actually pretty strong. It's the same word that Pharaoh uses to Moses when he is sick and tired of him. He says, no, see to it you don't come back here. Make sure you don't come back here. It's actually really a strong expression. So Abraham, he reacts to the servant in a very strong negative way. No way! Don't do that! And then he says it again. He says, you know, only you will not take my son back there. That's verse eight. So twice, he says in the very short narrative, twice he says, no, you're not gonna take him back there. Why did he do that? He's confessing his faith. The Lord had promised to his descendants, including Isaac, No, this is your land, I'm gonna give it to you. Now, the Lord had not told Abraham to stay in the land. We know he went down to Egypt during a famine, but he came back. This is Abraham's confession of faith. This is Abraham holding on to the promise of the Lord by staying in the land. He's telling you what he thinks about the Lord's promise. He's promised me this land as a heritage, and I'm living in tents so I know this isn't the only thing, but this is what I got. It's a signpost. You hold on to the signpost. The Lord gives you a token. He gives you a round silver token and he says, admit one to heaven, right? You hold on to that. If you lose it, things get a little rocky when you approach the pearly gates. Hold on to that token. Well, the land is that token for Abraham. And he wants to make sure on no uncertain terms that Isaac has the same faith and confession of faith because the land represents that. The land represents holding on to the Lord's promise and holding on to the Lord. You know, I don't think we appreciate the fact that the people around Abraham are pagans. I don't know if you know about pagans. Real life, 100% true pagans. These are the kind of pagans that eventually developed, if you keep reading in Genesis, and then you move into other parts of the Old Testament, these are the same group of people that developed into Molech worshipers. And Molech required that you offer your children in sacrifice to him. These are the same people who took their children to an altar and killed them. and sacrifice to their God. This is what Abraham's avoiding. You will not take a daughter from that group of people. Because they are not going to keep his heart steadfast to the Lord and his promise. Don't take him out of the land and don't give him a wife from these people, these pagan people. Because Abraham is growing his understanding of the Lord and his worship. See, it's interesting The Lord had required of Abraham that he sacrifice his son just like a Molech would. And then he spared the son and basically taught him, look, I don't do that. This is not my ways. I will provide the sacrifice. You don't sacrifice your son to me or any other of your children. That's offensive to me. That's what the Lord is teaching Abraham. He's growing in his understanding of the Lord and his ways. He's righteous and upright. He's a good God. We sang that earlier. We said that. The Lord is good. He doesn't do evil like that. He doesn't require these evil things of you. And so Isaac's heart has to be kept whole. Now you're thinking to me, yeah, what about Laban? So the servant goes up, he finds Rebekah, Rebekah agrees to come. That's as our story proceeds. So you can just keep reading Genesis 24 this afternoon. I mean, I invite you to read that whole big section of Genesis. It's marvelous. But the servant goes and he finds Rebecca and she agrees to go down to marry Isaac down in this foreign land. Well, her brother's name is Laban. And later on, she sends Jacob up there to find a wife from Laban. I mean, that's where he ends up. And you may recall that when Rachel comes down with Jacob, she steals some of the household gods of Laban. So he's a pagan too. So these people are not pure in their worship. But they're starting to get it in their mind to have a single-minded devotion to the Lord. And what represents that is this promise of the Lord, this gift of this token, this signpost. It's a type. It's a thing that points him ahead to a homeland. You're gonna live in tents here because I'm preparing for you a place to live, and a place that's bigger than you can imagine. Yeah, Mesopotamia down to the Nile. Yeah, but I got something bigger in mind for you. But that's a nice size to start with if you want to get some idea of just how big it is. Because in Abraham's world, that's far more than enormous. Now, now he's starting to get a sense that the land that the Lord is preparing for him is bigger than he can imagine. Now, The nice thing about what I've just been telling you is this is what the author of Hebrews says. I read that text, I often read it in connection with these stories because here we have a divinely inspired interpretation of the Genesis narrative. So I'm just repeating what the author of Hebrews says. By faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called out to a place he was to receive as an inheritance, but he didn't get it, and he was living in tents. This is what Hebrews 11, nine says. As in a foreign land, living in tents. These all died in faith, and they didn't receive the things promised. But then they acknowledged that there's strangers and aliens in that land the Lord has promised. Here's what Hebrews says then. These all died in faith, not having the things received, not having the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having confessed that they are strangers and exiles on the earth, for people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they'd been thinking of that land from which they'd gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country that is a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. They have a desire, which when you're living in tents full-time your adult life, that desire gets bigger and bigger. And they had this desire for a permanent homeland. And the Lord says, oh, oh, I've got one for you. How about if I build you one? I tell you what, I will make a covenant with you. I will swear to you that I will give you that land. I swear to you on my life, and I can never die, and I can never lie, I will give you a land. I will give you a homeland where you belong. I think this last year has been interesting. There's a blessing, probably various cultures have it, may you not live in interesting times. We've been living in interesting times. It's not like the ancient world. The ancient world, they really do plagues. They do pandemics in a big way. We're talking a third of the population dies. That's ancient pandemics. This is nothing compared to the ancient world. I can name some of those pandemics. They were well known in the ancient world. And famine? When did you ever go hungry on purpose? I know you may be dieting, but. When did you go to the supermarket and there was, Only toilet paper. Why do people buy toilet paper? I don't know. It's crazy. People just do crazy things. Brothers and sisters, this is not our home. This has been a good reminder for you. This has been a good reminder for you that the Lord has prepared for you a place too. That promise to Abraham is because he's our father in the faith. To Sarah, she's our mother in the faith. Because he has you in mind too. He's preparing a homeland for you as well. Now hold fast. Hold fast to that token that he's given to you. Your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Because God's covenant that he has a homeland for you has been sealed by the blood of his Son. He will not go back on that promise. He has prepared a homeland for you as well. And Hebrews says that at the end of chapter 11. And all these though commended, they received testimony through their faith, did not receive what was promised. Like Abraham didn't receive the land. since God has provided something better for us, that apart from us, they should not enter into the state of entry into his presence, being perfected. Brothers and sisters, he didn't give the land to Abraham because he had something better for Abraham and for you, so that he wouldn't inherit apart from you. That's what Hebrews just told you. Because we're all together on this camping trip. Long camping trip in this world. This world is a camping trip. It's got nice things. We like the marshmallows. But you can't live on marshmallows. You need solid food. We're going to have solid food in a moment. Food that will sustain your life to eternity. Hold fast to your most holy faith like Abraham. You too confess and act in such a way that you know you have a homeland the Lord has provided because he will deliver. He will deliver. He has it for you and he will deliver and he will hold you fast to that day if you trust in him. Let us pray.