THE PROMISE & THE
PILGRIM
“All
the land which you see I give to you and your descendants forever.” Genesis
15:3.
Introduction
I’m sure you’re familiar with the saying, “The best
things come to those who wait!” Well, that’s the way it is for Abram in our
text, and that’s the way it is for each of us. The LORD promised him an
inheritance some 4,000 years ago. Abram’s still waiting to receive it. The LORD
promised him land and descendants. He lived long enough to see a few
descendants. However, Abram died and was buried without receiving the
inheritance of the land he was promised. So, either the LORD made a promise and
failed to deliver, or the promise is still good.
In the following I hope to demonstrate that the LORD’s promise to Abram is still good. The general gist of what we’ll be looking at is: Faithful saints hold fast the good promise of the LORD.
The Promise
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Now, this is the third time the LORD has come to Abram
promising him land and descendants. The other two times are recorded in Genesis
12:1-3 where it says, “Now the LORD had
said to Abram: ‘Get out of your country, from your kindred and from your
father’s house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation,
I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will
bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all
the families of the earth shall be blessed.” And again, in Genesis
12:7a, “Then the LORD appeared to Abram
and said, ‘To your descendants I will give this land.’” This is the
third time the LORD has promised Abram land and descendants, and it’s not the
last. The LORD confirms this promise to Abram again in Genesis chapters 15, 17
and 18.
If the telephone company or somebody thinks you owe
them money they keep on sending you reminders. One time we received a couple of
reminders from somebody who got their wires crossed. So, you notify them and
you get it all straightened out – or so you think, until you get another
reminder in the mail! But here’s the LORD for the third time, in the text
before us, reminding Abram of His promise to him and to his descendants.
Abram doesn’t even have any descendants, and Lot, his
next of kin, has separated from him. However, the promise is to Abram and his
descendants, not to his next of kin. Therefore, land was promised to Abram’s
descendants.
So,
we ask: What land was promised to which descendants? Well, Abram’s descendants were promised the land as
far as Abram’s eye could see. We take it that he’s on some hill or mountain.
And the LORD is telling him to pan all around. “Lift your eyes now and look from the place where you are – northward,
southward, eastward, westward...” (Gen. 15:14).
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Lot, as you know, lifted his eyes and he saw the
well-watered plain of Jordan. He saw what looked like the lush land of Egypt.
It was like the Garden of Eden (Gen. 13:10). But the LORD didn’t invite Abram
to look at rivers, green grass, shrubbery and that sort of thing. No! Abram was
invited to look at the dust – the dust of the earth. “I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth; so that if a man
could number the dust of the earth, then your descendants also could be
numbered” (Gen. 15:16).
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In the Hebrew, the word eretz can be translated either
land or earth. Dust of the land, dust of the earth, eretz – land or
earth. The word is used in the first verse of the Bible, “In the beginning God created the heavens and
the eretz.” You wouldn’t translate it
‘land’, would you? So, usually the context determines whether the Hebrew
eretz is to be translated land or earth. And we find these words recorded in
Genesis 15:18, “On the same day the
LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying: ‘To your descendants I have given this
land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates.’”
As Abram walked the length and breadth of the land, between these two
great rivers, what would he have been thinking? He would be thinking: “This
is some promise the LORD’s given me and my descendants! The LORD’s shown me the
land as He promised. Now He’s saying that we are heirs of this land, that my
descendants and I will inherit it!”
No wonder he moved his tent and built an altar to the
LORD. Abram’s hit the jackpot! You see the way some people carry on when they
win a million bucks. They leap and jump all over the place kissing and
slobbering over anyone standing next to them. But hang on a minute. All Abram
has at the moment is a promise. All he has is the LORD’s Word. And is that not
all that any of us has?
I remember as a new Christian trying to come to grips
with eternal life. “Wow! I’ve got eternal life. So, this means... what does it
mean?” I remember thinking, “What good is this eternal life? I still have to
die.” Then I began to understand what Jesus was on about where He says, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who
believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and
believes in Me shall never die” (John 11:25-26). So it’s the promise of
eternal life I have. And who’s the One who’s making this promise to me? Well,
it’s the same LORD who made the promise to Abram and his descendants. And what
did the LORD promise Abram and his descendants? Genesis 13:15 again, “All the land which you see I give to you and
your descendants forever.” Take note at this point, the word descendants
may also be rendered seed as in one or many. However, since we’re focusing on
the promise, we need to ask to whom was this promise made? In other words: Who are the descendants of Abram? We
take it that at this point in time Abram didn’t know. He didn’t know because he
didn’t have any descendants at this time. And we find in the chapters up ahead
that Abram first off thinks that one of his servants will have to be counted as
his offspring. Then the LORD tells him that Abram himself will be the father of
a child. So, he gets tangled up in the mess with Sarah’s servant Hagar. Then
the LORD tells him that his, up till then, barren wife Sarah is going to bear
his child. But for now, all Abram has is the LORD’s Word he will have
descendants like the dust of the earth. And in 1 Kings 4:20-21 we read, “Judah and Israel were as numerous as the
sand by the sea in multitude, eating and drinking and rejoicing. So, Solomon
reigned over all kingdoms from the River [i.e., the Euphrates] to the land of
the Philistines, as far as the border of Egypt.”
So, we see that, at the time of David and Solomon
Abram’s descendants are innumerable. They are living in the tract of land
promised to Abram and his descendants. And apparently, it was much the same
again during the inter-Testamental period. But were all those people really the
ones to whom the promise of the land was made? Remember, the promise was made
to Abram and his descendants.
Was Rahab, the harlot who was rescued from Jericho, a
descendant of Abram? Was Ruth the Moabitess, who married Boaz, a descendant of
Abram? Well, according to the Apostle Paul both Rahab and Ruth were descendants
of Abram. He says, for instance, in Galatians 3:29, “And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs
according to the promise.”
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“When [John the Baptiser]
saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them,
‘Brood of vipers! Who has warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore
bear fruits worthy of repentance, and do not think to say to yourselves, We
have Abraham as our father. For I say to you that God is able to raise up
children to Abraham from these stones” (Matt.3:7-9).
Paul in Romans chapters 3 and 4 goes to great lengths
to tell the Jews their fleshly decent counts for nothing In Galatians 3:7 he
says, “Therefore know that only those
who are of faith are sons of Abram.” Both Rahab and Ruth were of faith,
as were all the Old Testament saints. So, to cut the long story short, the
descendants who receive the promise of the land are only those who believe
along with Abram, the father of all believers (Rom. 4:11;16).
Right then, if the LORD is giving the land to Abram
and his descendants and we Christians are his descendants, then the land is
ours, right? Does this mean that all Christians should start chartering
airplanes to the land of Israel? Should we go there and demand that the present
Christ-denying occupants give us our promised land? If that’s what you’re
thinking, you’re missing something, something very important. Hopefully it’ll
become even more clear to you as we move into our second point. But just before
we move on, let me recap what we’ve looked at.
The LORD has made a promise to Abram. He has promised
him descendants as numerous as the dust of the earth. We’ve taken note that the
New Testament stipulates that Abram’s descendants are like him, i.e., believers.
That Abram is the father of the faithful, therefore it is faith and not race or
ethnic origin that makes a person a descendant of Abram. It’s faith and not
flesh that counts with God.
And we’ve seen, in particular, that the land was promised to the descendants of Abram, i.e., you, me and every believer that has ever lived or will live. So, let’s move on.
The Pilgrim
The
land was also promised to Abram. Yet Abram never took possession of the land, did he?
But look at what the LORD says to Abram, “All the land which you see I give to YOU” (Gen. 13:15). Look also at Genesis
13:17, “Arise, walk in the land through
its length and its width, for I give it to YOU.” But Abram remained a
pilgrim, a sojourner, in the land until his dying day. In fact, Abram had to
buy a field with his own money as a place of burial. So, in order to help us
understand what’s really happening here, we need to bring the rest of Scripture
to bear on this text.
Now, this is what we’re doing, we’re trying to
understand what the LORD has in mind here. We are NOT trying to see how well
Abram understood the LORD’s promise. We have the benefit of the rest of
Scripture to help us understand this promise. However, you might be surprised
at how much Abram had grasped already.
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Always keep in mind that the LORD revealed His promise
to Abram in one lump sum as recorded in Genesis 12:1-3. Then as a preacher
expounds and opens up the Scriptures to his congregation each week, so the LORD
opened up the understanding of Abram to what He has already said. The word of
promise remains the same but under the LORD’s tutelage, Abram’s understanding
grew by instalment. Like every other believer, Abram would grow in grace and
knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ only so far as He had revealed
Himself at that time. But as I said, we’re not trying to see how deep an
understanding Abram had of God’s Word. Rather we’re seeking to understand what
the LORD means by the promise of land and descendants.
The promise was made to Abram, and we Christians today
testify that we are Abram’s descendants. Abram lived to see the birth of Isaac
and other children. But you wouldn’t say he saw descendants as numerous as the
dust of the earth. And neither did he receive the land the LORD promised him.
Speaking of the land, listen to what Stephen says about it, “And God gave him [i.e. Abram] no inheritance
in it, not even enough to set his foot on. But even when Abram had no child, He
[the Lord] promised to give it to him [i.e. Abram] for a possession, and to his
descendants after him” (Acts 7:5).
Just think about that for a moment. We see that Abram
was to receive this land, and the LORD promised it to him and to us. Therefore,
the question we need to answer is this. How or when is our father Abram and we, his descendants, supposed to receive this promised land?
I was at a funeral where a man said that he was not
going to miss his friend who had just died. He said that he wouldn’t miss his
friend because his friend would be with him always in his heart. Is this how
Abram was going to inherit the promised land? Was Abram carried around in the
bosom of his descendants? Is this what the LORD meant when He promised the land
to Abram? Is this what the LORD means when He promises the land to us? What do
you think?
Look again at the words of Genesis 13:15, “For all the land which you see I give to you and your descendants FOREVER.” So, that word FOREVER sounds like a long time, doesn’t it? But did Abram ever possess the land even for five minutes? No! Have any of us possessed the land for any length of time? No! So there must be more going on here than the naked eye can see. Look at Abram. He was a pilgrim, wasn’t he? Like the words of the hymn,
Guide me, O Thou great
Jehovah,
Pilgrim through this barren
land;
I am weak, but Thou art
mighty;
Hold me with Thy powerful
hand:
Bread of heaven, feed me till my want is o’er.
Abram was a pilgrim in a barren land. His nephew and
fellow believer Lot, well, he spied the well-watered plains of Jordan. He
rushed off to the place that was lush like the land of Egypt, like the Garden
of Eden. But Abram was to walk the length and breadth of a barren land looking
at and counting particles of dust. This was the land which couldn’t support
Abram and Lot and their herdsmen. As Abram looked at the dust he surely must
have wondered how this land would ever support a multitude like the dust of the
earth! How would this land ever feed them? It couldn’t even sustain a bunch of
herdsmen and their livestock. So Abram must have had a few questions running
around in his head. Not the least of which was, how was he supposed to possess
the land forever. I mean it’s all very well for the eternal God to say to
Abram, “I’m giving you some land FOREVER.” “Oh! That’s nice, but it’s just a
pity that I won’t be able to live forever to enjoy it forever!” At least Abram
got to see it for a few years. But what about you and me? When you look at a
passage like this, you’re thankful you’ve got the whole rest of the Bible.
So, as we begin to tie
things up into a nice big bow, let’s shine some
New Testament light onto the subject. Speaking of the Old Testament saints
(including Abram) the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, “These all died in faith, not having received
the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced
them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth” (Heb.
11:13).
So, Abram died along with Isaac and Jacob after him
without receiving their inheritance. But as a sailor catching a glimpse of land
in the days of the old wooden ships, so Abram saw the substance of God’s
promises in the far off distance – “Land ahoy!” So rub-a-dub-dub, three men in
a tub, Abram, Isaac and Jacob, have yet to inherit the promised land, the land
they saw far off in the distance. So, when then are they and we for that
matter, supposed to inherit this land? Well, first let’s see if we can get a
better idea of the length and width of this our inheritance.
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But what about what Jesus says in Matthew 5:5? Even
the NIV renders it, “Blessed are the
meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” But alas! The Greek word for
earth used there is sometimes also used for land. So maybe we should charter
some planes and boats and trains to the Middle East and claim our inheritance.
But hold the phone! Let’s ask the Apostle Paul to help us. “For the promise that he would be the HEIR of
the WORLD was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the
righteousness of faith” (Rom. 4:13). So faithful Abram and his faithful
seed, yes, even you and even me, are HEIRS of the WORLD!
But wait a minute. Does that word world really mean world,
or does it really mean land? Well, the New Testament Greek word Paul uses is cosmos,
the same word used by Jesus in John 3:16 “For God so loved the WORLD (Gr. cosmos)…”
And I’ve yet to see any Bible commentator translate the word cosmos as
land. For God so loved the LAND? No, He loved the cosmos! And as Paul uses it in relation to
Abram it means the earth. So, the LORD has promised Abram and us the world, the
universe!
So, here’s the tricky bit, how or when are we and
Abram supposed to receive the earth or the world? Abram’s been dead for 4,000
years or something. So the LORD’s going to have to resurrect Abram, isn’t he?
The LORD’s going to have to raise Abram from the dead in order to present him
with the earth. And if you don’t think that Abram believed in the resurrection
of the dead, then ask yourself what Abram was doing placing Isaac on an altar
as a sacrifice? Hebrews 11:19 says Abram was, “Accounting that God was able to raise him [Isaac] up, even from the
dead.”
And don’t forget that Abram has already seen a
foreshadowing of Isaac’s resurrection. “Sarai
is barren” (Gen. 11:30).
Her womb is dead. Therefore, any child conceived therein and born therefrom is rising
from the dead as it were, “as a root out of dry ground” (Isa. 53:2).
“Now Abraham and Sarah were old, well advanced in age; and
Sarah had passed the age of childbearing. Therefore Sarah laughed within
herself, saying, “After I have grown old, shall I have pleasure, my lord being
old also?” And
the Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, saying, ‘Shall I surely bear a
child, since I am old?’ Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the appointed
time I will return to you, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have
a son” (Gen. 18:11-14).
Abram’s body crumbled back to the dust, so did Isaac’s
and Jacob’s after him. Your body, my body, all our bodies are going to crumble
back to the dust, aren’t they? All of the children of Abram sleep in the dust.
So will we. But what does the Prophet Daniel say? “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some
to everlasting life, some to everlasting shame” (Daniel 12:2). And what
does John the Baptiser say to the Pharisees and Sadducees? “Do not say to yourselves, ‘We have Abram as
our father.’ For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham
from these stones” (Matt. 3:9b).
But none of this makes any sense without Christ.
Christ is the true
descendant of Abram, isn’t He? Those words of the Lord’s Apostle Paul, “Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises
made. He does not say, ‘And to seeds,’ as of many, but as of one, ‘And to your
Seed,’ who is Christ” (Gal. 3:16). But again, Galatians 3:29, “And if you are Christ’s, then you are
Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”
If we belong to Christ, then whatever belongs to Him
belongs also to us. Therefore, the promise of the earth is made to us in
relation to Christ. Only those who trust in Christ, as did believing Abram,
will receive their inheritance in Christ. And doesn’t Psalm 2:8 say that the
nations are His inheritance and ends of the earth His possession? And where do
the nations live? In Palestine? Between the two great rivers? No! The nations
are scattered over the whole face of the earth like dust; Christ’s inheritance
is Abram’s and our inheritance in Christ.
And Christ’s resurrection guarantees Abram’s
resurrection and our resurrection and secures our inheritance. And it’s through
the spread of the Gospel as the poured out Spirit applies it, that the LORD
raises up the children of Abraham from the dust of the earth. As the flood
waters in Noah’s day were God’s poured out judgment-curse upon the
earth, so the Holy Spirit in our day is God’s poured out blessing upon
the earth. So this means that even those dry and parched nations will yet turn
to the LORD, for they, and all the ends of the earth belong to Him. This was
the promise the LORD made to Abram when He said, “All the land which you see I give to you and your DESCENDANTS forever.”
The whole world and everything in it is ours in Abram’s Seed Jesus Christ.
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Conclusion
God has promised that faithful Abram and his faithful
offspring, even you and me, will inherit the earth. He has given His promise to
pilgrims. The promise given Abram is the promise given us. We are the heirs of
the world. The meek SHALL inherit the earth. So, even though Abram’s body, like
ours, was made of dust and crumbled back to dust, the promise of God remains.
So like Abram our father, we look forward to that day when all the graves shall
open up. As Jesus Christ says, “Do not
marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves shall
hear His voice and come forth” (John 5:28).
Oh what a day that’s going to be! And father Abram is
going to look into the faces of all his children, including your face and mine.
But he won’t be able to number us. We’ll be as numerous as the dust, the dust
of the earth, the earth we’re inheriting for our habitation forever.
We’ve seen then that the LORD’s promise to Abram is
still good. And that we too, like our father Abram, should hold fast the good
promise of the LORD, because the best things come to those who wait. Therefore,
wait on the Lord Jesus Christ.
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