"To Abraham and His Seed" 7       This is an edited version of the lecture titled, "To Abraham and His Seed," which was preached on June 23rd, 2007.   For it is written that Abraham had two sons: the one by a bondwoman, the other by freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and he of the freewoman through promise.    Galatians 4:22-23        Ears that can Hear a Hymn and RejoiceJesus said, "If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear" (Mark 4:23). In Jeremiah, it talks about the circumcision of the ears (see 6:10). Another verse says, "Take away the foreskins of your hearts" (Jeremiah 4:4). When we contemplate verses like these, we realize how blessed we are to be able to hear God's words through our heavy ears. We are truly blessed.Our ears are limited in that we can only hear a few octaves of notes. I thought about why it has to be this way. Why would it be? When Adam ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, his eyes were opened; his ears were not opened. Functionally, man's ears are inferior to those of animals. A certain doctor wrote that human beings sense danger with their eyes while animals sense it with their ears. It makes me think about how true the words of the Bible are: "She took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked" (Genesis 3:6-7).What would be the reason God made ears on our bodies? Our ears have limited sensitivity to music and sound. I thought about what joy it would be to hear music when we are in the new body, which will be given to us by God. I wonder how the notes we hear now will sound then.When we thoroughly examine, through the Bible, the blessing that has been given to us as well as our current circumstances, our thoughts on what we see and hear during our lives in the world can become much more advanced than those of people of this world. When we hear music that we used to listen to when we were young, it brings back memories of our childhood and we may even feel nostalgic as we yearn to go back. When we look at the body of the resurrected Jesus through the Bible, we get a brief glimpse of how He lived in a body for which everything was reality. Therefore, we should think deeply when we listen to a piece of music. Even today, as I was sitting here, the people leading the hymns sang,   Change and decay in all around I see; Thou who changest not, abide with me. Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes;Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies;Heav'n's morning breaks and earth's vain shadows flee;In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me. (Hymn 531)   As I listened to these words, I thought that this one hymn was much better than all the songs that I have sung at the top of my lungs and all the music that I spent picking and choosing all night for several nights. Our ears can hear this hymn, which sings of what Jesus has done for mankind, for every one of us. How grateful we should be that these ears have been given to us! We have a tendency not to realize how precious hymns are since we sing them often. We sing many songs throughout our lives. We sing popular songs, contemporary songs, and songs from another century as well as children's songs. Some of you may play music, but can all that music replace the words of the hymn,   I'd rather have Jesus than silver or gold;I'd rather be His than have riches untold. (Hymn 102)   No, it cannot. We have ears that can hear such hymns and realize what Jesus has done for mankind. We are living in such grace, and on the day we meet Jesus, we will sing an incredible song that we have never experienced in our lives. It is different from the songs that we know now and listen to carelessly. The songs we may diligently sing now are of no use; no song is better than a song that we present to God.   The Land that God PromisedLet's talk about Genesis chapter 15 now. Genesis chapter 15 repeatedly refers to a particular land. God says to Abraham, "I am the LORD, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to inherit it" (verse 7); He talks about the land. Then, Abraham asks, "Lord GOD, how shall I know that I will inherit it?" (verse 8). Abraham falls into a deep sleep, darkness creeps in, and he shakes with fear. Then God says to him that his people, that have yet to be born - the descendants of Abraham, the people of Israel - will go over to the land of Egypt, live there for four hundred years, and return after the fourth generation. A burning torch passes between pieces of animals, and then God says again that He would give the land from the River of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates, to Abraham's descendants; He talks about the land again (see verses 12-21). The story of the land cannot be separated from the destiny of the descendants that would be born from Abraham's body. They are directly related.However, as we keep reading the Old Testament, we can see that the meaning of the word, "land," occasionally changes. Some verses make us wonder, "Is this referring to the earth in which we are living right now, or is it the new earth and the new heaven that will come about in the future?" Some other verses make us wonder if they refer to this land called the earth or to the land of Israel. Depending on the context, the word "land" may seem to have a slightly different meaning. The land that Genesis chapter 15 refers to is neither a land like the Arab Emirates to the east of Israel nor Turkey in the Mediterranean. The land has been specified clearly as Canaan, from the great River Euphrates to the River of Egypt. The River of Egypt refers to the river that begins at the end of the land of Palestine. God was referring precisely to that piece of land. He clearly said that these people will return to that land and that they will flourish in that particular land. There is a reason I am telling you this. If we go on reading the Bible without clearly understanding the definition of the "land" in Genesis chapter 15 - which we are reading now - then many books of the Bible that follow, such as the books of the prophets, Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, and Psalms will become confusing.The book that we consider to be the most difficult amongst the prophetic writings is Revelation. It talks about the great tribulation that will take place in the land of Israel in the future. There is similar content in the book of Daniel. It says that a terrible war will occur in a place called Armageddon, and it refers to 144,000 Jews, and other such complicated matters. However, because many people in this world do not understand the Bible correctly, they interpret the Bible however they please and say that they are the 144,000 or that we are already living in the time of tribulation. When you read what God said to the Israelites, you can see that His words are precise, like an arrow that an archer shoots and hits the bull's eye. All of God's words are unraveled precisely.When you read Numbers chapter 35, you find the words of the law that says, "So you shall not pollute the land where you are; for blood defiles the land" (see 35:33). He who causes blood to be shed cannot cleanse the land except with his own blood. In other words, if someone sheds his blood because you stab that person with a knife, then the land cannot be restored unless your blood is shed. When they nailed Jesus on the cross, what is the promise that they give? They said, "His blood be on us and on our children" (Matthew 27:25), and they let Jesus Christ's blood be shed on the land of Israel. The Jews and the Gentiles committed this sin together, but God first holds Jews accountable for this sin. Jews committed this sin, and this event, which took place in the land of Israel, is recorded in the Bible as a historical event. When the time that God has determined comes, there will be, in that very place, a great tribulation, and the price for the blood will be paid. This is the content of the book of Revelation.What I would like to emphasize is one fact about God's promise. When God makes a promise, not many people are terribly interested in how the promise is fulfilled. They simply believe that it will be fulfilled because God promised it. However, if we diligently examine the Bible in detail, then we come to realize that God's promises with their particular conditions are fulfilled and sorted out throughout history in an orderly manner, in the same way that you might pick up particles of dust from the ground.If we do not believe in God in this way, then on what grounds do we believe that Jesus died on the cross and completely forgave our sins? If we make clear distinctions as we read the Bible and if we consider to whom God makes which promises in the Bible, and through which method He fulfills these promises, then we can see our fate. Just as the Bible says, "Either to the Jews or to the Greeks or to the church of God" (1 Corinthians 10:32), we have privileges that God has granted us. We are now living in times when such privileges are being realized. Many passages in the Bible are tangled up like spider webs, and they are complicated, but we come to have the assurance that the blessings that He has granted us will be fulfilled, at the same time that God fulfills His promises. Through the passage about the land in Genesis chapter 15, we should be able to see clearly that God gives a promise and fulfills it in a precise manner. We should also be able to put our faith in it. Because the Bible says, "And in you all the families of this earth shall be blessed" (Genesis 12:3), some people believe that God does not send anyone to hell. They say that in the end, everyone will go to heaven. Perhaps they say such things because of the verse, "All the families of this earth shall be blessed," but that is a case of people interpreting the Bible as they please. However, when we carefully follow the words that God spoke to Abraham, we can see clearly with our eyes how accurately God explains His promises and how persistently He fulfills them.The land that was promised to the Israelites is the land that the people of Israel are occupying right now. The Bible says that Jesus came to that land, and that the place called the kingdom of heaven - which the Bible promises - will begin in that land. So the people of Israel return to the land, just as a salmon swims upstream to lay their eggs. No matter what kind of circumstances they are in and no matter what kind of hardships the people of Israel encounters, Jerusalem is the place for them; the focus is always on the land that God describes to Abraham in Genesis chapter 15.  This has been true historically as well, and thus the nation of Israel - as we know it now - has been established in that land. They have returned to that place and established a nation.       Abram Heeded the Voice of SaraiLet's turn to Genesis chapter 16. Genesis chapter 16 deals with an event that happens to the family of Abraham.   Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. And she had an Egyptian maidservant whose name was Hagar. So Sarai said to Abram, "See now, the LORD has restrained me from bearing chi

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