All right, for Sunday school this morning, we will continue our look at eschatology, which is what we've been working on now for a couple of months. We have done an overview of eschatology. We have done a survey of post-millennialism. we've done a survey of all millennialism, we've done a survey of pre-millennialism, and currently we are working on a discussion of God's covenant with Abraham, all right? So when we talk about eschatology, just quick refresher, what do we mean when we use the term eschatology? The end times, right? Anything that deals with the future, some will refer to it as Bible prophecy, but it's always dealing with those things, dealing with the future and what the Bible predicts, right? And we know that within 2000 years of church history, how much agreement is there on said subject? There's literally none, okay? So that's why we have to, when you survey eschatology, we look at the different views, right? And so we've looked at postmillennialism, amillennialism, and premillennialism because those are the three basic systems, correct? Those are the three basic systems. There's obviously deviations, but those are the three basics. Now, we are looking at the covenant to Abraham because in some ways so much of the disagreement comes down to this covenant and how we interpret the covenant, all right? The real issue is who was the covenant made with? Okay, and his descendants. Some focus on his descendants as referring to the nation of Israel. Some refer to his descendants as referring to whom? Us or the church, correct? And well that has a profound impact because on how you interpret it. Has the covenant been fulfilled? Has the covenant not been fulfilled? Is it to be fulfilled literally or spiritually? This leads to all kinds of disagreements in regards to this subject. So we started looking at it, some basic things that we've covered so far. We looked at the importance of the covenant as it relates to eschatology, which I just kind of summarized. We looked at the promises of the covenant, right? There were personal promises. And what were the three personal promises? I'll make you a great nation. I will bless you. And I will make your name great. Now, when we understand I will make you a great nation, then once again, what do we, which direction do we go? Do we understand to make you a great nation, an actual nation, which became the nation of Israel, or do some people see it as a spiritual nation, and some may refer to it as spiritual Israel, or slash, the church, okay? Which these become obviously major, they're major conflict in all of this. So I will make you a great nation, I will bless you, and I will make your name great. Those are the personal promises to Abraham. Then we looked at the universal promises. Number one, the promise of divine blessing or cursing people based on how they treated Abraham and his descendants, okay? Look, that has a profound impact It has, it's had, that concept has had a profound impact even on the United States of America and maybe even our foreign policy and within some governmental leaders, right? Because the idea is we must be what? An ally to Israel, bless them in order to receive God's blessing. But if we do not support Israel and somehow we curse Israel, then we would receive God's Now obviously people who reject that will probably have, you can see how that can have a great impact on your belief about what the United States government should or should not do in regards to Israel. So that has a profound impact on that and a lot of people who don't really know anything about theology or eschatology people who may not even really know a lot about things well may say something like well we have to support Israel and they may not even know where that concept is deriving from or even be able to articulate it they just think that's what we're supposed to do and they may not be able to explain why and well because they have been influenced somewhere somehow by a specific view in eschatology So if you take an amillennialist and a premillennialist, right? An amillennialist typically doesn't see Israel as being significant, right? Because Israel's basically been replaced by whom? The church. So an amillennialist may view what when it comes to foreign policy about Israel? doesn't really matter. In other words, it doesn't have any spiritual implications, right? They may choose it based on what Israel is doing or not doing, whether they agree or disagree. They're going to look at it in probably a very pragmatic perspective, correct? What will America get from it or not get from it? But they're not going to be looking at it from necessarily a theological perspective because they believe Israel's basically been replaced. even though they don't like that terminology, that's what it comes down to. But if you're a premillennialist, premillennial dispensationalist, who believes God made that covenant with Abraham, he's going to keep that covenant with Abraham, and that still is in effect, whether we bless or curse what's going to happen to us, what is your view going to be on foreign policy? Support Israel, support Israel, support Israel. So this has profound impact. And a lot of times people, especially in our culture right now with all of the protests happening on college universities in regards to what's happening in Gaza, a lot of this is because, and a lot of people talking just don't have a lot of understanding about this entire situation. And people say, well, it's just a religious thing. It's a religious thing that's impacted foreign policy and how people understand it for a very long time, okay? For easily over 2,000 years, it's had a profound impact, and especially here in the United States of America. So it's hard when you have these discussions, like as soon as you start talking about it, you can almost catch on really quick, either whether someone understands theology or whether they're coming at it from a non-millennial perspective or a pre-millennial perspective. So this, I mean, this is a very important covenant Even if you're not religious, understanding this covenant gives you a great understanding of many of the issues in that part of the world. I mean, what is happening there, a lot of it comes down to one word, and that word is land. which has everything to do with this covenant, which we'll see here in just a minute, because we've spent a lot of time with this, all right? So the universal promise is that divine blessing or cursing based on how people treat Abraham and his descendants. The second universal promise was the promise that all the families of the earth will be blessed through Abraham, and then that points to Christ, and we've already discussed that. The national promises. Those are the personal. Those are the universal. The national promises are, number one, the promise that Abraham would father a great nation was both a personal and national promise, which we've already discussed. And then here's the big one. This is where everything comes down to. You ready? The promise to that nation of a specific land as an inheritance. All right? And not only that, this land was promises what kind of a possession? An everlasting possession. All right? And according to some, this basically, the boundaries of this land would go from the river of Egypt, which is basically, some believe it's the Nile, some believe it's a different river, but basically Nile to the Euphrates. And you look at a map, that means Israel should possess a whole lot of land that they currently do not have. In fact, we could argue they've never truly possessed it. Now, these promises is made all the way back in Genesis, right? They've never truly possessed it. Some amillennialists will argue they possessed it during the time of Joshua, but even if they did, it was very temporary. It was very temporary if they did, but that's a lot of land. And they were promised to have it as an everlasting promise. Now this is where everything comes down to never-ending conflict in that area, right? If you are a Jew who believes God made a covenant with your people, then you look at that land and you are saying, it belongs to us. If you are a Christian who believes God made that promise to Israel and he will keep it, then you believe that land will be Israel's at some point. So who are you going to support when there's a fight over the land? Israel. Now, if you're an amillennialist, you believe the land promise is what? It's no longer in effect, it's already either been fulfilled, doesn't matter anymore, or it's now transferred over to the church in a spiritual way and it's not physical land. That has a profound impact over there. So when people go, well, why don't they just stop fighting and why don't they just agree to this or agree to that? What do you not understand? This is thousands of years in the making. They're never going to be able to agree because some would, and in fact this gets really complicated, right? Because God made a covenant with Abraham, right? He had two specific sons that everything gets focused on, right? Those two sons are Ishmael and Isaac. Who's the firstborn? Ishmael. So some could argue all the promises and all that should go to whom? Ishmael and his descendants because he's the Firstborn. And Ishmael and his descendants make up the Arab world. Okay? The Jews come along and say, well, Ishmael may have been firstborn, but God did not make the promise for Ishmael. It was to go through Isaac, which would continue the Jews. So now you have a fight. The Muslims, the Arabs would say, the land belongs to us because of because of Ishmael, the firstborn rights, right? And the Jews are gonna be like, but God didn't go that way. And they're like, well, we reject it. No, it's our land. No, it's our land. It's our land. It's our land. And can you just go and go, guys, play nice. Just play nice. You should be able to get along. It's never going to happen. It's never going to happen. When the Jews are there at the Western Wall in Jerusalem praying, what are they praying for? The destruction of that mosque that is sitting there in a big dome, right? Which happens to be sitting where? On top of the Temple Mount. What do the Jews want? That Temple Mount back so that they can rebuild a temple that who are they waiting to show up? The Messiah. This is so complicated. It's so weird when you hear people discuss it, you're just like, you guys have no clue. And it's amazing how many people don't understand it. When I was in the military, I had to give a speech, I think it was NCU Academy, I can't remember which academy. And so we had to do speeches on, I think, certain countries, or I can't remember, some geopolitical something. So I decided to talk about Israel when I gave some of these basic information about the religious theological context, because obviously that's... my area of expertise. All these people, they had no clue. I'm like, how do you not know this stuff? This has been talked about for thousands of years. That's the whole reason that area can't be fixed by American politicians. You're not going to be able to fix it. It's so complicated. And at its very root, what is driving it? Theology. Theology. Theology is driving it, right? And there's no simple way. Now, I think what some Christians do is they want to then basically have the United States of America or some military make it all work, but that's not how we should understand it, right? Our understanding is God made the covenant with Israel and who will ultimately fix the situation so that Israel gets the land. God will. And if we understand the Bible correctly, it will happen. If our understanding is correctly, which we would be looking at more from a premillennial dispensational perspective, when you get to Revelation 19, what happens? Okay, some really messed up stuff happens in Revelation 19. Let's just read it really quick so that we can put this all together so that we can kind of understand how this should work, all right? So if we have any correct understanding when we get to Revelation 19, things get a little concerning here, all right? They get really concerning. In fact, we will start in the verse where everything really kicks off. Revelation chapter 19, and we'll start in verse 11. Revelation chapter 19 verse 11 following. It's a disturbing scene no matter how you look at it. Revelation 19 verse 11. And I saw heaven open, and behold a white horse, and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make just. Now please note, the heavens open, the one coming out on a white horse, we would believe, and I think there's going to be some other indicators here, that this is whom? Christ. Christ is going to come back. Now please note, this is not the United States military. It's not the United States government. It's no other military. Christ is going to return, okay? Now look what happens. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns, and he had a name written that no man knew but he himself. And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood, and his name is called the Word of God. And now, remember who wrote the book of Revelation? John. Who wrote the Gospel of John? John. And how does John identify Jesus in John chapter one, verse one? And the beginning was the word, the word was with God, the word was God. Okay, all right. So clearly he's utilizing the same language. Then look at verse 14. The armies which were in heaven followed him. upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, and out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it it should smite the nations, and it shall rule them with a rod of iron, and treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God." Now, just please note, if you look at it from a non-millennial standpoint, They're going to make this very spiritual, right? So Christ is going to come and basically he's going to kind of do this through the expansion of the church. This is not Christ literally coming back with a literal sword where he's going to literal make war. He does so through the church, right? So that's if you look at it from an amillennial perspective, okay? Well, if you look at it from a more literal perspective, it's about to get really ugly, is it not? Look at verse 16, and he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, another designation that we would say refers to Christ, okay? Then here we go. And I saw an angel standing in the sun and he crieth with a loud voice saying, all the fowls that fly in the midst of the heaven, come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God. Now that's getting really disturbing because now all the birds are called to do what? to eat, and what are they about to eat? Yeah, it's getting to get really ugly. Verse 18, that you may eat the flesh of kings and the flesh of captains and the flesh of mighty men and the flesh of them that sit on them and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great. That's sounding like that you don't wanna be anywhere a part of this, correct? And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army. And the beast was taken with him, and the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshiped the image. These both were cast alive into the lake of fire, burning with brimstone. And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth, and all the fowls were filled with their flesh. So this is Jesus coming back and there is an absolute massive war with great destruction and death. Okay? Yes. Is very symbolic and spiritual language being used? Yes. Now you either have two ways of looking at it. There's no actual death. There's no actual war. This is just the church going forth and the church conquering in some kind of capacity, right? Nobody can really define exactly what that looks like. Or this is a symbolic way of saying Jesus is going to come back. There's going to be a great war and a whole lot of people are going to die. And then what happens immediately in chapter 20? No, not yet. That's 21. And I saw a heaven come down, and I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit, and a great chain in his hand, and he laid hold on the dragon, the old serpent, which is the devil and Satan, and bound him a thousand years. He cast him into the bottomless pit. And then we see, what is set up at this point? The kingdom, right? Some refer to this as? The Millennial Kingdom where Christ rules and reigns for a thousand years. And who rules and reigns during that thousand years from Jerusalem? Christ. And then what do we believe happens during that thousand year reign? All the promises made to Israel are fulfilled during that thousand years. And what would be one of those promises? the land made to Abraham. Then they would have the land for 1,000 years, okay? Now again, amillennialists don't believe this. There's all kinds of disagreements within church history. The point is, even if you believe the land belongs to Israel, the correct biblical approach, if you are a Christian who holds to a fact that they're going to get the land, is that who's going to ultimately get that for them? God will, not us. We don't have to manipulate it. We don't have to, we have to rely on God to do that. And even if we believe God made a covenant with Abraham, and even if we believe they're gonna get the land, this is very important. Does that mean that we just blindly say that everything Israel does is right? No, we do not. Okay, we don't have to agree with everything they do. We can disagree with this strategy or this approach or this approach. It doesn't mean we have to agree with everything. What we say is that God made a promise with Abraham. And when he made that promise with Abraham with Israel, was it because Israel was going to be the godliest nation? The most obedient nation? No, it was a covenant of grace. Because has Israel proven to be the godliest nation? No. The most obedient nation? No. I mean, they did some pretty messed up things, did they not? And that's very important because that once again demonstrates that from Genesis all the way to Revelation, it's a book of God entering into covenant with people based off grace, not based off what they can or cannot do. Because we all will fall short. So there's a major implication there but because we're having so much issues in our culture right now everyone fighting over this we just need to understand that hey if you believe God made a covenant with Abraham and you believe they're going to get the land doesn't mean that you we have to support like all-out war for them to obtain it because God will be the one who will institute the war and he'll be the one who will finish it. Now does that does that mean like whoa that's a great thing no it's a horrible thing to witness right I mean that's a horrible thing to even read how that's described and how horrible and bloody it's going to be there's nothing wonderful about it but we would have to say that's how it's going to work it's not for us in order to try to make it happen. Does that make sense? So now again, not everyone agrees with this view in eschatology. I mean, it's been debated in church history forever, and there's still no agreement on it. But the one perspective is they're going to get that land. So the land becomes a major issue which we've discussed, all right? And just remember the typical, not all amillennialists, but many will argue that Israel got the land and they lost the land because they view the covenant to be what? Conditional. Now, my issue is I'm not gonna sit there and fight that. So what we did is we went and looked at all of the promises to land that are connected with the new covenant, which was made way after the covenant made with Abraham. And guess what we found? The land is clearly promised over and over and over, even in the New Covenant, meaning then the land still, we know from the time the New Covenant was made, Israel has never had that land because the New Covenant is ultimately made when? Basically when Judah's in Babylonian captivity, right? They come out of Babylonian captivity. Do they obtain the land at that point? No, not even close, right? They have a hard time even getting the temple rebuilt, correct? And then by the time you open your New Testament, does Israel have the land? No, in fact, they are what when you open up your Bibles in Matthew? They're under the heel of Rome, right? They're being basically, they have to submit to Rome. And then what happens? Jesus dies somewhere around 33 AD, right? Buried. resurrected, ascends back to the father. And then between 33 in AD and 70 AD, does Israel obtain the land? No, not even close. Things get worse and worse and worse. And then what happens in 70 AD? They're wiped off the face of the earth, gone. Temple's destroyed. It still has remained destroyed. And then Israel was nowhere until 1948. They become a nation again. And then how much land do they have? probably less than Taylor County, right? I mean, they do not have much land, right? And even the land they have, they're constantly fighting to possess. And most of the nations around them want to happen. They want Israel to be pushed into the ocean and no longer exist. So it's a very tense situation, which we have seen. October 7th, what happened? Hamas launches the attack, over 1,000 Israelis are killed, hostages are taken, then Israel decides to launch military strikes and incursion into Gaza, and then it's just been chaos and chaos and chaos since. But the point is, they have never had the land. So either you, if you're a Christian, you have to view it as, well, they're never gonna get the land because they don't deserve it, which you then have to make the Abrahamic covenant conditional, or you have to ignore the promises of land in the new covenant, or you have to say land is not really... and that it's symbolic of the church and its power, which is then just, well, then you have all kinds of hermeneutical issues. So the land is where everything hinges on that. All right, does that make some sense? All right, so that is, the national promises is that Abraham would father a great nation and that they would get the land, and we talked a lot about that. Now, what we're gonna do, hopefully, That was a lot of review, but hopefully we can try to finish this. This is what we're going to try to accomplish today. You ready? We're gonna look at the ratification of the covenant. We're gonna look at alleged conditions in the covenant. I was thinking of another source that talked about possible contradictions, but we're just gonna look at the alleged conditions of the covenant. And then we're gonna talk about viewpoints as to the fulfillment of the covenant. So the ratification, the alleged conditions, and the supposed fulfillment of the covenant. Does that sound good? All right, I think we can accomplish this, maybe, if we move really quick. All right, where is the ratification of the covenant? Does anybody know where that's found in the book of Genesis? Well, Genesis 15 is the main one we're referencing because this is the big one, right? Genesis 15 is where so much hinges on how we understand this covenant, all right? Genesis chapter 15, because something really interesting happens in this section, okay? Everybody knows what happens here? All right. Genesis chapter 15. Yes, okay. Where do we want to start? We'll start in verse nine. I think that's a good place to start, all right? All right, so God and Abram are having basically a conversation here, right? And then what does God tell Abram to do, starting in verse nine? He said unto him, take me a heifer of three years old, and a she-goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtle dove, and a young pigeon. And he took unto him all these, and divided them in the midst, and laid each piece one against another, but the birds divided he not." So some of these animals are gonna be cut in half, and they're gonna be separated, right? Now, from our vantage point, this sounds bizarre, weird, crazy. For this culture, this is not so crazy, right? Because that culture was very much about making covenants, right? Making covenants. Now, sacrificing the animal and separating the animal now connects basically blood, death, sacrifice to the covenant, which makes it very significant, right? Look at verse 11. And when the fowls came down upon the carcass, Abram drove them away. Obviously, after you kill the animals, birds come to try to do what? To eat them, right? And he drives them away. First, and it's interesting that in Revelation 19 we have birds now actually eating. It's kind of interesting, right? All right, verse 12. And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and lo and horror of great darkness fell upon him. Now, if you're getting ready to ratify, getting ready to kind of do something with a covenant, Abram doesn't, he shouldn't be asleep. Like, if you're reading this, you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, something's going on. Abram, wake up! Because typically what would happen, if you made a covenant, and you killed the animals and separated them, both parties, in a sense, would either hold hands or together walk through the divided animals to do what? Saying that they are entering into a covenant with each other, and both parties would have what? responsibilities in said covenant. Agreed? But Abraham is sleeping, right? And then in verse 13, he said unto Abram, know 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 four hundred years. Now what is he prophesying in verse 13? What's going to happen in the next book, which is Exodus, right? The 400 years they're going to be in Egypt. Okay, now I know there's always some debate over 400, 430. Okay, we can get into some arguments over numbers, but 400 years they're going to be there, okay? Verse 14, and also, the nation whom they shall serve will I judge, and afterwards shall they come out with great substance. Well, that's what occurred, right? Israel goes into Egypt, they're there for 400 years, God judges Egypt through all the plagues, right? And remember, each plague was an attack upon an Egyptian deity, right? To show that God is more superior than them. Do they come out wealthy? Yes, they come out with all these possessions, correct? And thou shalt go to thy father in peace, and thou shalt be buried in a good old age. But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. And it came to pass that when the sun went down and it was dark, behold, a smoking furnace and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces. So what happens? Who's the only one who passes between the pieces? God is the only one who passes through. Abram is doing what? Sleeping. And in the same day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given... There we have it. Right there, there's the land promise. And who made the promise? God. Where's Abram? Sleeping. From the river of Egypt unto the great river Euphrates. So God makes this covenant, but he makes the covenant with whom? He makes it with Abraham, but ultimately who's the one that the entire responsibility of the covenant falls upon? God. This is all about God, not about Abram. Not about what Abram does, not what his descendants do. It's all about what God is going to do. He enters into the covenant. Charles Ryrie puts it, he says this about this section. The ratification ceremony described in Genesis 15 when compared with Near Eastern custom indicates that God alone obligated himself to fulfill the terms of the covenant since only he walked between the pieces of the sacrificial animals. So God obligated himself The significance of that is striking. It means that God swore fidelity to his promises and placed the obligation of their fulfillment on himself alone. Abraham made no such oath. He was in a deep sleep, yet aware of what God promised. Clearly, the Abrahamic covenant was not conditioned on anything Abraham would or would not do. Its fulfillment in all its parts depends only on God's doings. So the entire covenant is made by God. He obligated himself from it. Now if that's the case, and then you believe land means land and we looked up all the references to land in regards to this and there's no way to interpret it other than actual land there's no I mean you've got to be playing some really weird hermeneutical games to make land not land when it's used over and over and over and over and over and over and over and so they're then we have to believe that ultimately they will get the land and they have never possessed it they don't currently possess it, so then you either have to say you've got a couple of options. One, God lied. Two, just none of this is true. Or three, God made a covenant and God will ultimately keep it. But the key is to remember who obligated himself to accomplish it? God. Not us! It's not our responsibility, it's God's responsibility. That's very important because a lot of Christians get that really twisted and get it really confused and almost want, I don't know, the United States military to go in and take care. It's not our responsibility, it's God's responsibility. Now, whether as an ally, support, not support, everyone's gonna have their own debate and argument over that. But just remember, God did promise them the land and they will get it. And Revelation 19 is the only place that makes any sense of where they're gonna ultimately get it. Why are they gonna get it then? Because all of their enemies are going to be currently, they're gonna be destroyed. And then God's gonna set up his actual throne in Jerusalem and rule and reign for a thousand years. And then at the end of the thousand years, then we can get into how that all plays out. All right, so there's the ratification of the covenant. Very important, all right? Genesis 15, nine through 17. And guess why that covenant is so important? Because it's a very important picture of salvation, right? Look, we, can we, let's make this very, we'll just do a little, we're gonna take a little sidetrack because this is so important, right? This covenant demonstrates how God operates and it's very important, all right? God gives us his law. He gave Israel his law, right? How did Israel do in obeying God's law? failed, complete failure, failure, failure, failure, failure, failure, failure, failure, failure, failure, failure, failure, failure, over and over and over and over and over. And this establishes a very important philological concept that is somehow lost in a good portion of evangelical Christianity today. God's law, can man keep it? No, because God's law demands what kind of obedience? Perfect obedience externally, and internally. And when Jesus shows up and preaches the Sermon on the Mount, which is all law, even though pastors constantly misinterpret that, he is demonstrating, all he's doing is taking the Old Testament law and expounding it to this way. He's expounding it saying, obedience to my law demands not only external obedience, but internal. That's why Jesus could say, if you even look at a woman with lust, you've already committed adultery. You can murder someone without actually physically murdering someone. You can commit adultery without actually touching anyone. So all of these rules and things, we're guilty, everyone is guilty. No one can keep God's law. No one can. And this is true whether you are saved, and I know this will be very controversial in most churches, Even if you are saved, you cannot keep God's law. No one can keep it. The law was never designed for us to ultimately obey it. It was designed to show us that we can't, and therefore do what? Show us that we are condemned, because what does God demand? Perfection. Even in the Sermon on the Mount, what did Jesus say? Be perfect, as my Heavenly Father is perfect. Immediately, you should just be like, well, I'm finished. What else does, in Leviticus it's stated, and even in the New Testament it's stated, be ye holy, as he is holy. How holy is God? Perfect. Can anyone be holy as God? If you think you can, you don't need church. You need to go to a mental health clinic because you've got mental health problems. You cannot do it. So the law shows us our inability and shows us that we are condemned. So then what are we going to do? God demands obedience. We can't do it. Well, then he enters, in a sense, into a covenant, right? With whom? He makes a covenant, in a sense, with himself. And what is a part of that? We call that the New Covenant. And that New Covenant primarily has something to do with Israel, but because of Israel's disobedience, they're set aside, and then Gentiles are grafted in. And what is the key element of this covenant? That God would send His Son, right? One God, three distinct persons, co-equal, co-eternal, right? Sends His Son, and His Son does what for 33 years? keeps the law. Everyone seems to forget that. Everyone's like, Jesus came to die. No, he better keep the law first or we're in trouble, right? Because him just dying for us does what? Just removes our sin, but we still would not be good enough to get into heaven because God demands perfection. Correct? So Jesus keeps the law for us. And then something really important happens, right? On the cross, our sin is what? imputed to Christ, in other words, accredited to his account, right? So Christ is now declared to be a sinner, even though he has not committed any sin, because he's kept the law perfectly, right? But my sin is imputed to him. God pours out his wrath upon his son, and that wrath is directed towards whom? Us, but now that wrath has been, what's the theological term? propitiated, satisfied, taken care of. When I put my faith in Christ, what is imputed to me? His obedience to the law. His passive and active obedience is imputed to me. My sin is washed away, and now before God, when God looks to me, does he see? He already knows, I'm never gonna keep the law, but my standing before God is not based on my keeping of the law, it's based on what? Christ keeping of the law. Christ obedience. This is like basic Reformation theology that was very much emphasized during the Reformation. Because Luther understood nobody can keep the law. So our standing before God is based on what? God's obligation. God did it. Not on my obligation, because my obligation would send me to where? Hell, God took upon the obligation on himself to do what? To save sinners. That's how he did it. In a sense, it's very similar to the same thing, right? There's a sacrifice, God took the obligation upon himself, by faith in Christ, by faith alone, just faith, right? What happens? His righteousness is imputed to me, my sins are paid for, and I'm declared to be what? Perfect, holy, and obedient, even though I am not. Now, does that excuse my sin? No, but guess what? You're going to sin no matter how much you want to not sin. There's gonna be sin in your life. You're never going to keep the law. And therefore, my entire standing before God is based on what he did, not what we do. And the same is true of Israel. And so many Christians want to say, no, Israel, it's dependent upon what they do. Well, if it was dependent upon what Israel did, then it's gonna be dependent upon what we do and we would all be Out of luck. So this covenant is beautiful because it establishes how God works, right? He makes a covenant with him. All right, now, here are the alleged conditions that some people say, no, this is a conditional one, all right? Are you ready? We're gonna go through these. Yeah, we got time. We're gonna go through these relatively quick, all right? First, I'm gonna read from Ryrie here, all right? The unconditionality of the Abrahamic covenant furnishes an important support for premillennialism, since the land promises need a future time, the millennium, in which it will be fulfilled. Therefore, amillennialists allege that there were in fact conditions attached to the fulfillment of the covenant that make it impossible to view the covenant as unconditional. All right, so now here's the big fight within theology. Was the Abrahamic covenant conditional or unconditional? If it's conditional, what will be the amillennialist argument? Well, it's conditional. Israel did not fulfill said condition, so they don't get the land. and any promises to Israel are now transferred to whom? To us. Now, what would be a logical question then? Well, if they didn't keep it, do we keep it? That would be a good thing, right? So, because if the covenant with them was conditional, why isn't the covenant with us? conditional, right, so that's a big issue. But, and if you make the Abrahamic Covenant conditional, I think you run into a lot of problems, do you not? I think it gets really like, whoa, because you almost have to say the Abrahamic Covenant no longer is applicable, right? Which then, like, I don't know what, that leads to a lot of questions, does it not? I think it does, right? So, let's look at, are you ready to see what conditions they typically throw at us? Look at Genesis 12, one. All right, look at Genesis 12.1 and tell me what you see. You look at it, Genesis 12.1. I'm not gonna read it, you tell me what you see. All right, go forth from your country. Amillennialists believe this expresses a condition that would have invalidated the covenant if Abraham had not obeyed it. All right, now look at Genesis 12, one carefully and see if you see something that would help either support this or disprove this. Look at it verse carefully and tell me what you see. He just tells, okay. Well, the all-millennialists are saying, hey, if he didn't leave the land, then this would have invalidated the covenant. My issue is, when he tells them to get out of the land, he has not made a covenant with him yet, right? tells him to get out of the land so that he's going to show him land. And then he starts making the promises, right? So to me, I don't know if you're going to make this conditional, then you would say it was conditional. It was a precondition to making the covenant. It's not a condition of the covenant. Does that make sense? If you want to make this conditional, they get into the grammatical argument here about how the text is structured, and I'm not going to get into all the fights over grammar because it never accomplishes much, okay? Because other people will then disagree. I mean, within 2,000 years of church history, people can't agree on the basic meaning of words. So you get into a very complicated grammatical argument. I don't think it's going to accomplish anything. I'm going to look at it this way. In Genesis 12, 1, has the covenant been made yet when God says, get out of the land? No. All right. Well, then, therefore, it cannot be a condition of what? The covenant. There we go. That, to me, makes more sense. So I think that that's an invalid argument, and that does not work. You gotta do better than that, all right? The covenant hasn't even been made, and this is a condition, and Abraham, if he wouldn't have done this, the covenant would have never been made. Well, you're arguing about a condition before the covenant was made. That's a precondition. Show me where the covenant is conditional, right? Agreed? All right, I think that's fair. Now I know I'm gonna get emails from amillennialists are gonna be like, no, no, no, but I have a hard time with that. All right, look at Genesis 12 too. Well, yeah, it's all God-centric, okay? But look at verse two and see if you can see a possible condition that amillennialists will point to. To me, I think they have to reach far and hard for this, but okay. See if you can find it. See if you can find it. And I will make of thee a great nation and I will bless thee and make thy name great and thou shall be a blessing. Are you ready for this? The phrase be a blessing is seen by amillennialists to be a condition for fulfillment of the covenant. That's reaching, okay? Now, again, they're gonna make a grammatical argument here, but I'll read it. Grammatically, this expresses a consequence that is expected to occur with certainty or an intention, right? Hebrew grammar cites this passage as an example of intention, not one of condition. But I think it's just like, hey, I mean, the way it's written, I don't even know how you would get here. And thou shall be a blessing. This is just saying that's what's going to occur. You're going to be a blessing. Why? Because through you, I'm going to bless all people in that part of the covenant itself. That's not a condition to the covenant. It's a result of the covenant. Abraham's going to, all people are blessed because through Abraham ultimately comes Well, Christ, right? Ultimately Christ, right? So I don't see how that's a condition. That's crazy to make that a condition. So we got two more. See if we can make any of these work. Go to Genesis 17, one. All right, Genesis 17, one. See if you see something there that they were like, this is a condition. So far, none of these have really worked very well. And look, I'm the first one, just make sure we understand this before we look at this one. Just make sure we understand this. It doesn't matter what theological position one holds, right? It doesn't matter what your theological position is. You always have to be willing to acknowledge when your view on theology, your doctrinal system, when there is a perceived weakness in it, right? You've got to be able to admit, man, That is a problem right there, that's a problem. We can admit that when we say that we're saved by grace alone, through faith alone, because of Christ alone, we have to admit that there's some verses that are very contradictory to that, and we have to acknowledge that difficulty, right? The book of James would almost straight out contradict that, correct? So we have to be willing to admit that. If you're not willing to admit the weakness of your position and the difficulty, then you're just wasting your time in theology. You've got to. So, in this particular case, I think a non-millennialist just has to admit that these are some weak arguments. I mean, you're trying here, right? I mean, those first two did not work. Does anybody see what the third one was? walk before me this is the one now let's look at the actual way it's written and when abraham was 90 years old and nine the lord appeared to abraham and said unto him i am the almighty god walk before me and be thou perfect and i will make my covenant between me and thee now first of all when he says this is 17 has the covenant aren't not already been made Yes, does he say, if you don't do this, I'm gonna take the covenant away from you? He does not say that. And not only that, let's make it very clear, if he has to be perfect, what's going to occur? Oh, it's gonna be failure. Was Abraham perfect? No, he did some pretty messed up things. really messed up things, okay? We won't go into one of the really messed up things. I mean, when you're basically telling your wife, hey, I'm sorry. When these guys come to get you, I'm not telling them you're my wife, you're my sister, and they can have you, and I'm not going to do anything. That's kind of messed up. Can we agree? When you take another woman and basically rape her to try to fulfill God's promise, that's kind of messed up. So we have to understand, Abraham is declared righteous by Remember, he's used as the example of how we are declared to be righteous by faith, not by works. I mean, he's used as an example of that in Romans 4, okay? So, I don't see how this becomes a condition to the covenant. As one person, as Ryrie puts it, some understand walk before me as a condition for fulfillment. However, the grammar is the same as in 12.1 and expresses intention more than anything else. Well, I think yes. Abraham, because of God's relationship with him, he's going to walk before God and he's going to be perfect in his position, not in his practice, because we know he's never that practiced. No one ever is. So I don't see how that ultimately works either. Okay, we got like five minutes. All right, go to Genesis 22. We're gonna have to go through these quickly. Genesis 22, look at verses 16 through 18. Do you see anything in 22, 16 through 18? Anything, do you see anything? Giving you the opportunity to see them. Look at verse 16, and the angel of the Lord, verse 15, and the angel of the Lord called unto Abraham out of the heaven, out of heaven the second time and said, by myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou has done this thing and has not withheld thy son, thine only son. Now you see where they're gonna see this is somewhat conditional. Hey, because you've done this. But again, this is where. It's chapter 22. The covenants have already been made, the covenant's been made and ratified and repeated multiple times before you even get here, correct? That in blessing I will bless thee and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven and as the sand which is upon the seashore and thy seed shall possess the gate of thine enemies. And then look at 26.5. 26.5, I just have to go quickly through these. If you go to verse four, you'll kind of see, now these are somewhat conditional type language. We have to at least admit there is, and the last one, and then this one, you get somewhere close to that kind of language. Look at verse four. I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and I will give unto thy seed all these countries, and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. Verse five. because that Abraham obeyed my voice, kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws. All right? Now again, someone's gonna say, well, see, he had to do all of this in order for God to keep the covenant. Well, we know he did not keep this. God says he kept it. So how do we understand God saying that he kept it even though we know he didn't? Because Abraham believed and it was accounted unto him as righteousness. The Bible literally says that. Abraham believed and it was accounted unto him as righteous. Why was he declared to be righteous and obedient? Because of faith, not because of what he accomplished. Because we know we can go read the Bible and see all his failures, can we not? So again, I don't know, see how you can make that. If you make it conditional, then it would be, the condition was he had to be perfect. All right? And I don't know how else you can get around it. All right, so that will end with this. The way the people view the fulfillment of this covenant, all right? We'll look at the Amillennial view just quickly. Amillennialism teaches that all the provisions of the covenant have been fulfilled, including the land promise. This is done either by spiritualizing the land promise so that the church fulfills it, or by seeing it fulfilled in Israel's past history. We've already addressed that, and even if you try, and guess where they point to? The book of Joshua. Even if we say that the land was fulfilled in Joshua, the promise is repeated for the land and the new covenant, which is way after the time of Joshua. And we know that from the New Covenant on, they never get the land. So that does not even work. And to spiritualize the land is absolutely ridiculous. I don't even know why you would go there. So that's the amillennial view. It's been fulfilled either spiritually or somehow in the past, and they don't explain why it's repeated after the case. Now they go on to a lot more discussing all of it, but we're not going to go to there. Then the premillennial view. Premillennialism insists that all the provisions of the Abrahamic covenant must be fulfilled since the covenant was made without conditions. Much of the covenant has already been fulfilled and fulfilled literally. Therefore, what remains to be fulfilled yet will be fulfilled literally. This brings the focus on the yet unfulfilled land promise through the nation. Though the nation Israel occupies part of the territory promised in the covenant, she has never yet occupied all of it and certainly not eternally as the covenant promised. Therefore, there must be a time in the future when Israel will actually possess the land. And for the premillennialist, this will be in the coming millennial kingdom. Thus, the Abrahamic covenant gives strong support for a premillennial eschatology. And that is the two major viewpoints. Amillennialists believe what? It's been fulfilled. They give two possibilities. It was fulfilled literally in the time of Joshua, but what did they ignore? The land promises being repeated in the new covenant. Or they say it's fulfilled spiritually in the church. So when you read all of those passages about land, land doesn't actually mean land. And if you do that, then you just end up destroying the rest of the Bible, right? Because if the land promises were not literal, then that means all the other promises are not. Well, we know some of those promises had to be literal. Did they not go into a land for 400 years? Were they not in bondage? Yes. Did they not come out? Yes. I mean, all the, everything else is literal, literal, literal, literal. And if you're, if you're not careful, if you don't make it literal, then guess what you'll ultimately will undermine? The promise of Jesus being born in Jerusalem. Bethlehem of a, you then make all of that not literal, so then at that point you have what? You don't have anything. You don't have anything. So the amillennial view would be very devastating from a hermeneutical standpoint. The premillennial view simply says, God made a promise with Abraham. It hasn't been fulfilled, literally, perfectly, and it will ultimately be fulfilled. Where's the only place we can put the fulfillment of it? Revelation 20, that's the only place we can find it, right? And has Revelation 20 happened yet? No, has Revelation 19 happened yet? No, now we understand the book of Revelation, we can argue about whether it's in chronological order, not chronological order, but we know 19 and 20 has never occurred. Even if we try to say that it's not perfectly going to be literal the way it's described, it's still, nothing has even come close to that, right? And so we know Israel does not have the land, and so the idea is that they will ultimately possess the land. So when it comes to world events and you see everything unfolding, even though this wasn't the goal of this study to really get into the world events, you cannot ignore the fact that our world events can only be understood, at least in that area, until you understand the philological significance of it. There are Jews who believe that land belongs to them because of Abraham and because of Isaac. And there are others over there who believe that land belongs to them because of Abraham and Ishmael. So they all believe the land belongs to them, and they would all argue that their God and their religious text, because you remember Muslims accept the first five books of our Bible, right? Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. They accept that. You know why they accept that, right? Because Abraham had a son, and his son's name was Ishmael, and by the rite of firstborn, they should get the land. And so how are we gonna fix that? We can't. Now make sure we understand, we cannot fix it. We cannot fix it, we cannot unravel, we cannot, we cannot. What just frustrates me is all the people yelling and screaming about it on both sides. Right, left, Republican, Democrat, all the people yelling about it. None of them really have any grasp of any of this, of the complexities here. Right? You're bad. Well, you're bad. Well, you're bad. Well, they did this. Well, they did this. Okay, yell, yell, yell, yell. And the people over in that part of the world probably looks at all of us going, would y'all just stop talking? Y'all don't even understand what you're talking about, right? Y'all don't even get it, right? Because it's very complex, very deeply rooted in that culture where religious concepts are there. Now, from an atheist point of view, or an agnostic point of view, you know what they're going to say. The leading cause of war in the history of humankind always goes back to religion. That's what they're going to say. And there's a lot of truth to that. Unfortunately, there's a lot of truth to that. But something bad happening as a result of something does not make something untrue. Correct? You can't determine the truthfulness of something simply based on the consequences that flowed from it, right? Something can be true and still lead to bad consequences, right? So you can't determine truth from that argument. But I can definitely understand why you'd be like, I'm just done with all of it. I'm just done with all of it. But even if we say we're done with it, is that going to make everyone else just go, you're right! And some of that land, you can see why people are not going to want to give it up. Part of that land has what? Lots of oil, and nobody's willing to give that up. Forget religion, they got financial reasons not to give it up, okay? And trust me, and the Jews are not gonna, they want that mosque to go away. They want that mosque to go away. They want it to go away. And I always used to make this joke, whether you believe in the Bible or reject the Bible, if you see the dome of the rock explode one day, you may want to start considering theology carefully, because that may be the beginning of the end of everything. Because that may be that, hey, someone's coming to set up a new temple right there, because they can't set up a temple until that thing is what? Gone, right? And so that's, yeah, if you see that happen, you may wanna just go ahead and leave work, get home and start thinking, maybe I should open my Bible now, okay? Because that could be a good sign that things are about to happen. Whether you, you can just wait for now if you want, but when that happens, yeah, then it's, yeah, then situation has gotten really serious, okay? I don't know if that's ever going to happen, but we'll see, all right? If we believe that God made a promise, that temple has to be rebuilt. And that's not going to happen without some kind of conflict, I can tell you that. Because the Muslims are not just going to go, we're going to take this down. We're just going to take this down. And the side of that mosque is connected to whom? Abraham. Yeah, it's connected to Abraham. So once again, Abraham is the central part of all of that, right? Isn't it crazy how central Abraham is to all of these issues that are still facing our world thousands and thousands of years later? It's hard to wrap my mind around. All right, let's pray. Lord, God, we come before you this morning. Lord, we thank you for the opportunity to be able to try to work through these issues. These issues are deeper and more complicated than even we can grasp. But Lord, I pray that you will just help us try to understand them and try to speak some kind of peace and calm and to all the yelling and screaming about these very complicated issues. And we ask this in Jesus' name and God's people said.