"To Abraham and His Seed" 8       This is an edited version of the lecture titled, "To Abraham and His Seed," which was preached on August  18th, 2007.       "As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you, and you shall be a father of many nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you a father of many nations."    Genesis 17:4-5           God's plan seen through the history of a familyEvery time I face the book of Genesis, I think about how this book contains all the answers on how we should read and understand the entire Bible. At the center of this story lies the history of Israel. We can discover the incredible things that God wishes to tell us mankind if we closely examine the ways through which God manages the history of Israel.But even when we try to read the Bible from this perspective, we often have a hard time understanding the Bible. The book of Isaiah is not hard to grasp when we first begin to read it from chapter one, but becomes harder to understand the further we read into it. Chapter one verse one begins with "The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem," but suddenly chapter 13 declares that "The burden against Babylon which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw." We continue to read thinking to ourselves, "Well I guess this is a warning about Babylon", but the more we read, the more we become confused whether this is the kingdom of Babylon during the time of Isaiah or the Babylon of the book of Revelations. In chapter 12, verse 14 says, "How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, You who weakened the nations!"  There are times when we are at a loss as to how these verses should be interpreted. In another part of the Bible, Ezekiel chapter 28 records that the king of Tyre reigned over a certain region to the north of Israel. But the story suddenly takes an entirely different turn with verses 13 to 15, with "You were in Eden, the garden of God; ... You were on the holy mountain of God; You walked back and forth in the midst of fiery stones. You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, Till iniquity was found in you." (Ezekiel 28:13-15)Immersed in these prophetic words, timeless verses, and passages that seem to contain numerous layers of meanings, it's easy to forget where this Bible is leading me. The contents of the Bible are expansive. While the Bible contains words written by people who were inspired by God, ultimately it is the word of God, with some of the passages appearing to be looking down from a place on high. Thus whenever I read this book of Genesis, I get the feeling that it is acting as a guide that allows us to read and understand the plan of God that He is revealing to us through the life of one man who appeared in Genesis.In Genesis chapters 15, 16 and 17 are hidden several stories that allow us to understand what happened when God created the heavens and the earth, and how the events transpiring today to mankind have resulted from this creation. However, there is something we must know before we can proceed with these passages here. We must think about what God is telling us through the entire Bible. We must first understand what the Old Testament is telling us, and what God is telling us through the church that newly appears in the New Testament. The Epistles to Ephesus and Colossians contain the mystery of the church. One of the main elements of this mystery is that God already had in His mind the plans for the church. Colossians states in chapter 1 verse 26 that "the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to His saints." It says that God from the first predestined a body (see Ephesians 1). He predestined a body with Jesus as the head, and this is the Church. This plan was already in the mind of God even before the world was created, before there was even a Bible. The heavens and the earth were created to fulfill this purpose, and for this reason the history of mankind was started. This is the history that appears in Genesis, and which we have been studying. However, during the course of this history, a man created in the image of God makes a mistake akin to knocking down one side of a building. He ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that God told him never to eat. God's answer to this incident beings to unfold itself in Genesis. How does He address this incident? He says something very poignant to the snake.   And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.  (Genesis 3:15)   The "woman" in this passage represents the history of Israel that appears in the Old Testament which reveals itself little by little beginning with the book of Genesis. The people of Israel is shown in the form of this "woman" in the entire Old Testament.Then, are the people of Israel the Church that God had intended from the beginning? No. The people of Israel disobeyed the word that was given to them, and failing to recognize the Messiah that came to them, crucified Him on the cross. They refused to heed the gospel that was being spread by the apostles, which opened the door of salvation to the Gentiles. This church that began on Pentecost is a new congregation that is unrelated to the people of Israel. This is the plan that was in God's mind, hidden within Him from before the ages, before this world even began, This plan was announced to us through the ChurchIf we know these things before reading Genesis chapters 15, 16 and 17, we can see that God reflected in the family of this man named Abraham the plans that He will fulfill through the history of mankind. If we look at Genesis chapter 16, it says that Sarai told Abram to "Please, go in to my maid; perhaps I shall obtain children by her. And Abram heeded the voice of Sarai" (Genesis 16:2), and a son was born as a result. This is Ishmael. If we look a few chapters back, however, in Genesis chapter 12, God made a covenant in verses two and three, calling Abram from Ur of the Chaldeans and telling him that "I will make you a great nation; ... And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed" (verses 2-3) Even though this covenant is clearly different from that found in Genesis chapter 17 verse 6, "and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you", many people fail to see the difference between these two promises. The book of Romans records, "... Abraham, who is the father of us all" (Romans 4:16), which leads some people to simply think that "Yes, Abraham is our ancestor."However, we must first know the purpose for which God called Abram out of Ur of the Chaldeans and led him to the land of Canaan. The family history of this Abram contain incidents that determine how we see and understand the process of the creation of Israel and the flow of the history of that nation and people. For this reason, a close understanding of these incidents as seen in Genesis is very helpful in understanding the larger history of Israel.To reiterate, God had an original plan, and the history of Israel is a tangent off of his plan that occurred because man disobeyed the word of God during the process of the fulfillment of this plan. As this history followed its course, a new person called the Church that was originally part of God's plan appears. We know this fact, and we are living in times where this plan is being carried out. God shows how this plan will be carried out and fulfilled through the history of Israel via the life of this man named Abram. For this He first calls him out of Ur of the Chaldeans. God called out Abram in order to establish a nation. He called out Abram to bring a nation named Israel to this world, and it was at this time that a certain incident occurred. God promised a son to Abram, and Abram believed in this promise and God accounted it to him for his righteousness. When Abram asked God how he would know that he would inherit the land promised to him, God told him that his decedents would return to this land within four generations, and there appeared a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed through the pieces of meat that Abram had cut in two as an offering. However, despite all of this, Sarai makes Abram get a son through her maidservant. Abram heeded his wife Sarai, and a son named Ishmael was born. This Ishmael is the shadow of Israel.  Now let us consider the entire history again. The people of Israel appear in the Old Testament as the betrothed of God. They live in this world as the bride and chosen people of God entrusted with His Word. However, God's plan was somewhere else. The Jewish people refused to accept Jesus and crucified Him, and there appears a group of people in this world who become born again through the blood shed by Jesus on the cross. This was God's original purpose. And while Ishmael was born and lived as a son of Abraham, he was not the son promised to Abraham by God. Thus God promises another son (see Genesis 17:16). However, Abraham said, "Oh, that Ishmael might live before You!" (17:18) God, however, said, "No, Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his descendants after him.  And as for Ishmael, I have heard you. Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly. He shall beget twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation. "But My covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this set time next year" (Genesis 17:19-21). The son that was thus born is Isaac. In Galatians chapter 4 Paul says referring to the Church, "Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are children of promise" (verse 28). Through Abraham and Sarah then is carried out the original purpose of God calling him out of Ur of the Chaldeans and into the land of Canaan. While this was simply a small event that took place in a family, it was through this occurrence that the history of Israel began to bloom. This is an important point. When we examine the history of the people of Israel from this perspective, we can understand that all of the events that happen to the people of Israel enable us to diagnose how and in what form our individual spirits are standing before God.   From Abram to AbrahamLet's read Genesis chapter 17 from verse 1.   When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to Abram and said to him, "I am Almighty God; walk before Me and be blameless. And I will make My covenant between Me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly." Then Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying: "As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you, and you shall be a father of many nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you a father of many nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you." (Genesis 17:1-6)   In these verses we should note the fact that "Abram" was given a new name, "Abraham." It wasn't that God changed Abram into Abraham simply to make it sound more dignified. This event is not a trivial matter at all. Genesis chapter 17 is a focal point because this is when Abram and Sarai are given new names.   Then God said to Abraham, "As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. And I will bless her, and also give you a son by her; then I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of peoples shall be from her."  (Genesis 17:15-16)   When God changed their names into Abraham and Sarah, He said, "Kings of peoples shall be from her." The history of Israel is not the history of the Church, which God predestined. It was after the history of Israel began that the history of the Church was announced. When we, who have come to know the history of the Church precisely, look at the history of the Church, we can see that there have been many nations in history who have been blessed. Among them are first people of Israel, the Jews in the Church, and then the Gentiles who have become members of the Church. We are included there as well. The Jews, whose forefathers are featured in the history of the Old Testament times and who crucified Jesus will nevertheless also be blessed some day, although they will not receive the same blessing reserved for the Church. We

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