This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

Bibleline Bibleline, here God’s word on Bibleline, here God’s truth on Bibleline. Welcome to Bibleline with Dr. Ralph Yankee Arnold, pastor of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida. Clearly declaring the gospel of Jesus Christ through the radio and the internet. Your regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the You can reach us toll-free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the BibleLineMinistries.org homepage. We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ and that today’s first part of this two-part message will be a blessing to you and your family.

Good to have you here, and I hope that that we’ll learn a little bit about a fellow named Abraham. Everybody knows about Abraham. We are, the Bible says, the children of Abraham. Now where does it say that in the Bible? We are the children of Abraham. Is that in the Bible anywhere? Are you sure? Maybe I made that up. Well, it’s possible that it’s in the Bible. Look there in the book of Galatians in chapter three. Galatians chapter 3, this is on page 1245, because we’re going to be looking at what did God promise Abraham?

As we go them through the great men and women of the Bible, he’s the next one in line. And what a man he was. Every one of them is different and they’re all unique and God did different things in their lives. But this man, the Bible says, here in Galatians in chapter 3, look there in verse 26. Verse 26 says, for ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. Now you’re not all the children of God and then leave it at that.

He is our God and our Creator, but He’s not your father unless you’re born into his family. So the only way to become a child of God is by faith. So he makes a statement in verse 29, look at verse 29, and if ye be Christ, then are you Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise. So there’s a promise that evidently the Lord made. what was the promise? He made a promise to Abraham. Now look what he says in verse 14 because God wants this blessing that came on Abraham to come on the rest of us.

So there must be something to it. So he says in verse 14 of chapter 3 that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ that we He might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. God promised something to Abraham and you and I can be part of that promise. And if God makes a promise, God doesn’t lie. So I wonder what He was promising. Well look what He says. In that verse 15, brethren, I speak after the manner of men, though it be but a man’s covenant, Yet if it be confirmed, no man disanulled or attitude.

In other words, you don’t change it afterwards. Once you have an agreement, you’re supposed to have an agreement. Years ago, people used to shake on it. Now they got to do a background check and check your credit and get 15 signatures and got to do a mortgage and a guarantee for the rest of your life. And maybe three or four people assigned with you are for you. But anyway, that’s what he says. in verse 16, now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made.

So we know that God made a promise and he says, he saith not and to seeds as of many but as of one and to thy seed which is Christ. So God made a promise to Abraham that he would have a seed which would be Christ, that would be a blessing to the whole world. That’s what he said. But now 450 years later God gave the law to Moses. He’d the law to Moses 400 and something years later. So look down in verse 17.

And this I say that the covenant that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was 430 years after, cannot disanolve. That it should make the promise of none effect. So the law could not annull the promise, though it was added later. It cannot change the promise that God made. So you hear people say, well, you’ve got to keep the law. Oh, isn’t it? God made a promise to Abraham 430 years before the law was given and the law can’t unknow that promise.

So that sounds pretty good to me. Look what he says in verse 21. Is the law then against the promise? God forbid. for if there had been a law given which could have given life, very righteousness should have been by what? By the law. So evidently, you don’t get eternal life by keeping the law. So the promise that he did make must give you eternal life. Doesn’t that make sense? So he had to have something that he promised that would give you eternal life, that the law can’t do and the law was only given to bring us to Christ.

That’s why it’s so important. Look in verse 24. Verse 24, where for the law that was our schoolmaster, like a schoolbus, to bring us to the schoolhouse that we might be justified by faith, the law only points you to Christ so that you’ll be saved by Christ. The law can’t save you. It only points you to Christ. How does the law point us to Christ? Thou shalt not lie, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not, thou shalt not, and thou shalt.

You don’t do it. You broke it. Alright, I can’t save myself by my works. I need a Savior. So the law convinces us we’ll never live good enough to earn our way to heaven. So God made a promise. Look there in chapter 3 and verse 8. Chapter 3 verse 8 and the scripture, referring back to the Old Testament, foreseen that God get this would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, in these shall all families of the earth be blessed.

So did God preach the gospel to Abraham? That’s what he said. So God preached the gospel to Abraham and he told him that everybody is going to be justified, if they believe, justified by faith, without works. And so the law cannot know that promise. So that God says everybody would be safe. So He made a promise to Abraham. Now what’s interesting is that when Jesus Christ came into the world, Jesus had to be born, Jesus had to live a righteous life.

Jesus had to die to pay for our sins and come back from the dead, or God couldn’t keep His Word. How is God going to keep His Word to justify you and I by faith if Christ had never come? Couldn’t be done. Everything God promised hinged upon that seed that would come. them. And that’s what’s so exciting about all of this. Now, go back to the book of Genesis in chapter 12. Genesis chapter 12. I always like to start off in a way that sometime you can’t figure out.

Now, where is he going? Well, in a world he hid at this time. But now you know that there was a promise made and the promise was he’s going to justify the heathen By faith. In the words, make us righteous. Give us eternal life by faith alone. So here in the book of Genesis in chapter 12, God made a bold statement to a feller that lived in early the calvies and he brought them out and says they’re in verse 2 of chapter 12, I will make of thee a great nation and I will bless thee and make thy name great and thou shalt be a blessing.

And I will bless them that blessed thee, and I will curse him that curses thee, and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed in thee. That in thee is a reference to the seed that would come. Through Abraham God says, you’re an old man, and you’re married to an old woman. But I got news for you. You’re gone, I have a kid. And that must have been a good one. been a shock for old people. Now he was about 75 when he heard the news, but nothing happened.

He didn’t have a son yet. Sarah told him, says, why don’t you go ahead and take Hagar and have a child by her? Maybe that’s what God wants. Well, it would have been better off if she had never given him that advice. Boy, I’ll tell you, we’re still the whole world has suffered the consequences of that one little piece of advice that she gave him. Where do you think all of the Arabs come from? They came from that and from Jacob and Esau from this line.

Hey, Gar, I mean, it just got bad. Worse and worse and worse. Well, some people live and learn and some people live and never learn. So the Lord told him, says, you’re going to have a child. Well, there was a famine that came along and what did Abraham do? The Bible says that he went down. See there in verse 10? In verse 10, he says, and there was a famine in the land and Abraham went down into Egypt, to sojourn there.

For the famine was grievous in the land. Well, no. The Egypt is south of Canaan. Remember God says that Noah put a curse upon the son of Ham, but not Ham, it was on his son, which was Canaan. Canaan settled the land of Canaan. And so God was going to take that land away from Canaan and give it to Israel. After all, who made the world? God did. Well, who made the people? So God gives the land to whatever people He wants to.

He gave it to Israel and it says that it would be for an everlasting perpetual ownership. You’re going to have it. But anyway, they go down into Egypt and lo and behold, His wife evidently was quite a looker. And he says that, you know, you’re a, you’re still a good looking woman. She was only 75. And it wasn’t long before Pharaoh saw her and says, I want her and cause no small stir. Anyway, the Lord had to work that situation out.

Abraham did not always do everything right. Do you? You studied the Bible and everybody does something wrong. I mean, we have a couple people in the Bible that we don’t have anything against, you know, like Daniel and maybe Joseph and, you know, there’s only a few that we don’t have much written about that would be detrimental. But most of everybody else, they got a lot of faults and how would you like to have it recorded in the Scripture for everybody to read forever and never and ever?

You said, well, I wish I lived back in. I don’t. They might have my name in here says, Yank, you did this and this and this forever and ever and ever. So anyway, the Lord is good. But anyway, did he have trouble with his nephew? Lot. Yeah, he had trouble with lot. Then he had trouble with Sodom and Domorrah. And he had trouble down in Egypt. You know, everywhere the guy went, he had troubles. You said, well, if I’m walking with God and I’m doing with God once, it seemed like everything ought to be smooth.

It just doesn’t it worked out of way. It didn’t work for them, don’t work for us. So anyway, there’s a lot of things that happen. And the Lord says, I’m going to bless you with a child. So look there in chapter 15. Genesis chapter 15. So the Bible says one day this is what I want you to do. See there in verse 1, after these things, the word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision, saying, fear not Abram, I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward.”

Now, seeing the previous chapter, they just took care of getting, soldering to more of free from the people, the five kings that came to capture them and got lot back. And they wanted to give him all kind of spoils. And Abraham says, no, no, no, no, no, no. I don’t want to be rich at your account. Unless you say, hey, we made Abraham rich and he’s the none-un-unuh. So the Lord tells him in a couple verses later, Abraham, I am thy exceeding great reward.

I’ve got something for you. Isn’t it amazing that of all the people in the world, most people have heard of Abraham? Even all Muslims have heard of Abraham. Jews have heard of Abraham. People have heard of Abraham. all over the world. And we even had a president named Abraham. Remember that? What was his name? Abraham Lincoln. You got it. That’s where the Lincoln, he’s the one that made that Lincoln car, that car automobile. You didn’t know that. See there, you learn all kind of things coming to the same school.

All right, look at verse 2. Look at verse 2. Abraham said, Lord God, what will thou give me? See, and I go child. Now he knew, hey, there’s a problem here. God promised Abraham through your seed, you’re going to be the father of a great nation. And Abraham says, we got a problem. Don’t I have to have a child? I mean, you’re going to do all of this, okay. But don’t I have to have a child? And I’m childish.

and he says, see, and I go chalet, and the steward of my house is this eliazer of Damascus. Hey, Houston, we got a problem. So the Lord says in verse three, behold to me thou hath given no seed. I Abraham said, behold to me thou have given no seed and lo one born in my house is my near. So how am I going to have one? And we’re old and we’re supposed to have a child and you’re making all these promises.

Hey, you got to work this thing out. Sometimes you may feel like your life is impossible and you don’t see how God’s going to do something. But you know God knows how to work behind the scenes. God already has a plan and God got everything under control. It’s just that we don’t see it sometimes. We don’t know how he’s going to do it. So this is what the Lord did to him. He says in verse four, and behold, the word of the Lord came on him saying, this shall not be thine ear, but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine if you are going to father this child.”

Okay, verse 5, and he brought him forth abroad and says, look now toward heaven, tell the stars, I mean count the stars, if thou be able to number them, and he says unto him, so shall thy seed be.” In other words, he’s going to have a lot of people come from him and he’s got to have a child. So he says here in verse 6, and he believed in the Lord. He believed what God said and he counted it to him for righteousness.

Now that little phrase, he believed God and it was counted unto Him for righteousness. Abraham had to understand what God was talking about from the seed, because it said that in the book of Galatians in chapter 3 and to his seed which is Christ. Abraham knew. Now hold your place right here and turn with me all the way over there to the book of Hebrews chapter 11. Don’t lose your place where you are, but look in Hebrews chapter 11.

And see just what he may have understood. Abraham believed God. Now who knows how long they talk or what all he revealed? I believe God says a lot of things. It’s not recorded in Scripture. The Bible tells us that Jesus Christ when he was here, if it was recorded, everything that he did while he was here, the libraries of the world couldn’t contain it all. Now, but that’s a lot that not recorded. And there’s a lot of things that we don’t know about some of the messages that they preach.

And yet the Bible says, Noah was a preacher of righteousness. Wouldn’t you have liked or heard a couple of his sermons? The Bible talks about Enoch also preached about Christ coming with ten thousands of his saints. this was before the flood and he knew about Christ coming with thousands of his say, he knew that, he preached it. The Bible says it is, but it’s not recording the Old Testament, but it’s recording the New Testament. So there’s a lot of things that were said and done and they understood perhaps a lot more than we’d give them credit for.

So in Hebrews chapter 11 in verse 17 he says, by faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac and he that had received the promises offered up His only begotten Son. Now what was the promise? God promised that through His seed… The Messiah would come and make a payment for the sins of the world, come back from the dead and everyone who would believe could be justified by faith. So now the promise, this is what he said. verse 18, of whom it was said that in Isaac shall thy seed be called through Isaac, not Ishmael, but through Isaac, and on down the line to Christ.

And in verse 19, get this, accounting or believing that God was able to raise Him up, even from the what? If he was to kill his own son, which was Isaac, that God told him to do, he believed that God would raise him up, even from the dead, and get this from whence also he received him in a figure. He knew he was a type. Abraham knew this in advance. And on that very same mountain, Mount Moriah, where he was offering up his only son, he knew this is where God is is going to offer up his only begotten son and believe that he would raise him from the dead if he had slain his own son because God made a promise and it says it would not be through Ishmael, it would be through Isaac and the only way that could happen it would

have to raise him from the dead. You understand what I’m saying? Can you all follow me? The Bible teaches this and it’s not made up. I’m not making this up. This is right there in Scriptures. Now go back there to the book of Genesis chapter 15. So when he makes this statement and he believed in the Lord, that same phrase is found right there in Galatians in chapter three and verse six. Abraham believed God and it was counted on the hymn for righteousness.

It’s also found right there in the book of Romans in chapter four when it talks about what have Abraham our father hath found because he found that salvation was the gift of God. It’s not of works lest any man should boast. And it says that in the first four verses of Romans in chapter 4. So this was a salvation message where God preached the gospel to Abraham and then he says there, there’s all these things going to happen. I look in verse 15, and thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace.

Thou shalt be buried in good old age. Did you realize that after this he lived another hundred years? He was about 175 years old when he died. He was an old man at 75 and God gave him a little bit longer to live. And he had another wife and had a whole bunch more kids. Good night. And how long were they going to be down there in Egypt? Did you know that they even mentioned that? Look in verse 13.

Now this is before Joseph was born before he ever went down into Egypt. It was before Moses was born and looked there in verse 13 and he said unto Abram, no of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs and shall serve them and they shall afflict them 400 years.

So how long were they done in Egypt? About 400 years. And God told Abraham that in advance. They already knew it. And he says here in verse 15, you’re going to die. And then he says in verse 16, but in the fourth generation, So that means each generation was a hundred years long. People are always trying to figure out how long it’s a generation. It’ll only depend on what you’re talking about. Sometimes it’s just a father and then the next generation, the son, and then the grandson.

And that can be a generation. In some places you think it’s 40 years. Another place they say it’s 70 years. Another place well, all depends on the context. Looking for 16, but in the fourth generation they shall come hither again. So he’s telling them you’re going to come back here. 400 years. And then he also makes these statements. I’m going to give you some land. See there in verse 18. In the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abraham saying unto thy seed have I given this land from the river of Egypt, which is the Nile River, unto the great river, the river Euphrates, which is in you Iraq.

That’s over there by Babylon. Did you know that Israel is going to get all that land from the Nile all the way over to the Euphrates River, which is almost an eight, nine hundred miles away? And they got today this one little bitty sliver of land. But God promised them all of that. I believe the days come in when they’re going to get every last bit of that piece of property. God promised them. And it doesn’t matter what the United Notions has to say about it.

God keeps His Word. So people today try to figure out, well, Israel has no right to that land. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Who owns this earth? Who’s it belong to? It belongs to the Lord. God’s Word says, the silver is mine, the gold is mine, the earth is mine, and the thousand cattle on the thousand, he was as always too. It all belongs to the Lord. He can do anything you want to know what he decided to do one day.

God got angry and destroyed a whole earth with the flood. Did you know that? He did that. And the next time he’s going to burn it up with fire, his, and do whatever he wants. And you think they have pollution today? You think you’re talking about EPA not liking some of the decisions? I like to see your Elgore’s face when the Lord says, I’m gonna burn it all down. But what about all that smoke, the pollution? Yeah. Anyway, he may not be around to see it.

Anyway, as you go through here, you find out in chapter 16, Ishmael was born. He was born because of the bond slave Hagar. And so he says in verse 11, And verse 11, and the angel of the Lord said unto her, Behold thou art with child and shall bear his son and shall call his name Ishmael. So she knew she was gonna have a child. And also in verse 12, and he shall be a wild man. His hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him, and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.

So the Lord’s kind of give you a little view about what he’s going to be like. So in verse 15 Hagar bear Abram a son, an Abraham called his sons name, which he got bear Ishmael and Abram was four score and six years old. He was 86 years old at this time. 86 and still he doesn’t have his own son by his wife because ishmael was born of a slave woman. And the rule was the child of a slave woman could not be the heir of Abraham, had to be his own to his own life.

Well, it’s a new month and that means a new offer to those who support Bibleline. And this month we have something really special for you, the brand new book by Greg Steer, the founder of Dare to Share Ministries, called Gospelize. What a fabulous book written about the model for evangelism according to the book of Acts. Greg is a way of teaching some profound truths in simple and easy to understand ways with practical examples that you can use immediately. I could not put the book down and when I finished it I wanted to stop everyone on the highway and tell them of the free gift of salvation and this life-changing book is yours for a gift to Bibleline in any amount.

Our mailing address is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634, and don’t forget to include your mailing address as well. God bless you and thank you again for supporting Bibleline. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline. If you are in the area, we welcome you to visit us. The address for Calvary Community Church is 4081 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. And Now a closing thought from Pastor Arnold. Friend, one day it will happen. The trumpet will sound, and we will be changed.

Caught up to meet the Lord in the air. So live today and every day. Believing that the Lord is coming soon, just keep looking up.