Abraham's Inheritance

These Jews that Stephen is talking to, they are circumcised, yet they're not circumcised in heart and ears. And that circumcision in the flesh that God gave to Abraham, we'll see a little bit about it, that was only to to be a type and a figure of something that was real in the New Covenant. I'm going to circumcise your heart.

And so this morning, I mean, let's ask this question, are we really circumcised in the heart? Or we just have the theology that, well, I'm a Christian, I believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, but I'm going to go my own way. I'm going to do my own thing. And God calls me and I just, I'm stiff-necked.

I'm going to keep going. I'm going to keep going the direction I want to go. And yeah, I'll go to church.

Yeah, I'll show up. Yeah, you know, I'll be there. But my heart's not into it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You go on, you do the work of God. You go on, you pray.

You go on, you go on, you go on, do this. But I'm just going to be here in form, not in heart. And so you're following the same course that the Jews did.

You're not circumcised in the heart and in the ears. And they were holding to those shadows. They were not coming to the truth.

Their externals were fine, but their internals were not good. So all these types and shadows are pointing to Christ, they're pointing to the New Covenant, but they rejected Christ. And you know why they rejected Christ? Because internally, they even said it.

In the book of Matthew, one of the parables, internally they said, we will not have this man to reign over. Not going to do it. He's going to want to tell us which direction to go, pull the reins.

We're not going to have him to rule us. And so they rejected him. So these are the people that Stephen is talking to.

Now, I'd like to go back and look at these men. There is so much in here. I just thought about, I'd start on one thing and it'd go off in another vein here and we could go and pursue this.

And I thought, well, we can't do that. That'd take a whole sermon. And then we'd go off and pursue this one and that would take another sermon.

And so I wanted to take each individual and have one sermon regarding each man that Stephen mentions here. And so we're going to do that. We're going to kind of do an overview here of each of these men.

I'm going to start this morning with Abraham. Abraham. So let's look at chapter seven here in verse number one.

So as we look at these four men, we're going to see types and shadows, but we want to get past that and look at reality. New Testament reality for us today. The heart, the big issue.

So let's walk down through these six or seven verses here in the next half an hour and we'll learn a few things I trust. Verse one of chapter seven. Then said the high priest, are these things so? He had just been falsely accused in a verses before.

And he said, men and brethren and fathers hearken. The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia before he dwelt in Charon and said unto him, get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred and come into the land which I shall show thee. Then came he out of the land of the Chaldeans and dwelt in Charon.

And from thence, when his father was dead, he removed him into this land wherein you now dwell. Let's start off here. I thought about verse number one and just want to make a comment because I share a little bit on this last week.

But you notice something about Stephen here. Stephen is a falsely accused back in chapter six, verse 12, 13, and 14. And then he's asking, verse one of chapter seven, then said the high priest, are these things so? And you know, something interesting, Stephen doesn't even address it.

He doesn't say, I don't know, these people were lying about me. I don't know why people lie about me. He never even defends himself.

He just goes right into the truth. He starts teaching them the truth. And that's a wonderful thing, to be without self-defense.

You know, a lot of people who say they're non-resistant, just wait until someone accuses them or even accuses them falsely. Boy, you're going to find out how non-resistant they are real quick. Stephen is non-resistant here.

He doesn't care whether you falsely accuse me. I'm not even going to respond to it. As a matter of fact, in the book of Matthew, it says that when Jesus was falsely accused, he answered them not a word, so much so that the pilot was amazed.

How do you do that? And so again, Stephen does not seek to defend himself. By the way, non-resistance is not just in someone punching you in the mouth and you don't resist it. You try to defend yourself by slugging them back.

It's also a word. Someone punches you with a word. Maybe he calls you a name or falsely accuses you.

You don't punch him back with a word. You know, when he was reviled, he reviled not again. That's also non-resistance.

Not resisting evil, whether it comes from a fist or whether it comes from words. And so Stephen here is a wonderful example of someone who doesn't even bother to answer the question, are these things so? And he goes right into his sermon. I don't care about me.

He's going to die here in a little bit. I don't care about me. All I want you to know is the truth.

So let's forget me in these false accusations. Let's just jump into the truth. So he does.

And he says here, he talks about in verse two, he says, men and brethren and fathers hearken, the God of glory appeared unto our father, Abraham. Now I want to start there and say that Abraham is the father of the Jewish people. And you'll learn some things I trust here this morning or be reminded of some things, but Abraham is the father of the Jewish people.

When God wanted to raise up a people, call a people out of the human race, he starts with Abraham. This call that we're going to see here in a little bit, Abraham coming out of the ear of the Chaldees is God looking down and saying, I see humanity here. I want to call out a special people for my name and for my glory.

And I'm going to start with one man and his name is going to be Abraham. So he calls Abraham. Abraham is the father of the Jewish people.

Now there's two fathers in the Old Testament and there's two lineages in the New Testament. One lineage is in the book of Luke. It goes back to Adam.

You follow the lineage? Adam begat and they begat, begat, begat, begat, begat all the way up to Christ. Adam is the father of humanity. He is the father of every living person, Adam and Eve.

And so we have that lineage in the book of Luke. But in the book of Matthew, we have another lineage. That lineage starts with guess who? Who knows? Abraham.

Abraham. Abraham begat Isaac and Isaac Jacob. And that lineage is there to show us that first of all, Adam is the father of humanity, but Abraham is the father of the Jewish people.

And so you find this, and there's a couple of examples of this in John chapter 8, you know, the Jews would answer Jesus and say, Abraham is our father. We be children of Abraham. We are seed of Abraham.

So they, you know, they justified themselves. They went back to their father, Abraham. So you might wonder why, and this is probably a lot deeper.

I didn't spend the time to study through it, but I'm sure there's a lot of depth here. Some of you like to study in the deep things of God, but here in the rich man, who was a Jew, obviously, he went to hell in Luke 16 and he's there in hell and in hell he sees who? Father Abraham. Father Abraham.

That's interesting. And Lazarus in his bosom. And Abraham is the father of the Jewish people.

Here's what happened. God calls Abraham, and let me see here. We're going to go back here.

Look, let's go back to Genesis chapter 12, just to read a little bit of the story. It's a long story. I'm not going to spend a lot of time going through this story, but in Genesis chapter 12, we're going to start here, just reading in verse number one, just a couple of verses.

Starting in verse one of Genesis 12, it says, Now the Lord had said unto Abraham, Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred and from thy father's house unto a land that I will show thee and I will make of thee a great nation and I will bless thee and make thy name great and thou shalt be a blessing. He's talking here about physically speaking the Jewish people, but there's a spiritual reality here also that's a bigger picture. Verse three, And I will bless them that bless thee and curse him that curses thee and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.

So Abraham departed as the Lord had spoken unto him and Lot went with him and Abraham was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran. So here's the call of God into Abraham's life and the beginning of what is called the Jewish people and the God calling out a people to his name. So I've got a map up here just to give you a picture.

You can look at your map in the Bible. But Abraham was down here in the Ur of the Chaldees, which is actually modern day Iraq, down here by the I think it's the Euphrates River where it flows into the Gulf there. But he is called and he begins a journey this way.

This is the land of promise here, this orange circle. And there's a couple of things that happen here. We don't have time to go into all of it in detail, but I do want to share a lesson with you.

And it's a spiritual reality. But Abraham makes some mistakes. He makes some mistakes throughout his life, a number of different mistakes.

But one of the mistakes he makes here is that he doesn't fully obey the Lord here. And he takes with him some of his kindred. If you notice here in chapter twelve, it says in verse one, the Lord said unto Abraham, get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred.

I want you to get away from your kindred and from thy father's house unto a land that I will show thee. And so God said, I want you to leave your kindred, aunts and uncles and nephews and cousins, and I want you to leave your father and his house there. I want you to come out alone.

Well, what does he do? You know, the dad's getting older and I have this, my brother's boy a lot here. I don't want to leave him. You know, he has some needs too.

And so you guys come along with me. Well, that's going to cause problems for Abraham. Abraham comes out and Stephen mentions this in his sermon.

He goes up here to Charon and he spends some time there, a number of years there because God is not going to allow him to come at this time into the land of promise until his father dies. And guess what happens up in Charon? His father dies up here. It's actually up here in Syria, just north of the land of promise.

And so then Abraham comes down through the land. This is the land that God was going to give him, the land of promise, but he's not able to stay in the land of promise. He's just there a short time.

He's got Lot with him. He's still not fully obedient. And the Bible says there's a great famine in this land, which causes Abraham to have to go down into Egypt.

So he goes down to Egypt, spends some time down there, a matter of a couple of years. Then he turns and he comes back up here. And before he gets right to the edge of the land of promise is when you have the story of Abraham's herd and Lot's herds having a strife with each other and finally Abraham says, Lot, you choose.

Go this way or that way. I'll go the other way. Abraham, or excuse me, Lot chooses the well-watered plains right around here, Sodom and Gomorrah.

Abraham takes the other direction. And at that point when Lot leaves, Abraham, then God says, Abraham, lift up your eyes now and look. Here's the land.

And Abraham goes into the land and he begins to sojourn and he begins to dwell there. And so God wanted Abraham to obey him and to come out with nobody. But as Abraham was normally accustomed to do, he thought about, he used his own reasoning.

Remember with Hagar? He started to get his own ideas. He didn't trust God. Abraham brings daddy and brings Lot.

And God's probably thinking, well, you can't get into the land and stay there until you deal with these two issues. And finally, he has to spend time, years until his father dies. Then he goes south.

There's a famine. Who brings famines, by the way? The Lord does. And then he goes down to Egypt.

He's still got Lot with him. Turns around, comes back up to the promised land. Finally, Lot's separated from Abraham.

And then God says, okay, now I can bring you in to where I wanted to bring you all along. Now I've experienced this in life and you have too. You know, God says, he saves us.

He says, now come out, come out, come on, lose it all. Remember? First words Jesus said to the people who thought, if anybody wants to follow me, you're going to have to go like Abraham, forsake all that you have, father and mother and wife and children and all these things. You can follow me and I'll bring you into the land of promise.

Amen. So we do the same thing Abraham does. I want to follow you, Lord.

And yeah, I want the land of promise, but you know, I want to bring, well, I want to bring some baggage along with me here. Come on. I'll hide it.

I won't bring some along. You know, I have some of the things I want to do too. And yeah, Jesus, you know, we want to follow you.

And there's a lot of people that, that they come along with some baggage and you probably know in your heart what some of those baggages are. You, it may be people, it may be things, it may be a job, it may be business, it may be money. There's a lot of things that, yes, Lord, I want to be saved.

And yes, I believe God calls us out and it's a process of sanctification, but Lord, I'm going to bring some stuff with me. Right? Is there an amen to that? And so that's what Abraham did. I'm going to read to you here, Jesus' call to each one of us and to all his disciples.

And here's what he says. Very similar. It says, and there went great multitudes with him and he turned and said unto them, if any man come to me and hate not his father, Abraham, listen, I told you to come out without your father.

You love your father, but you better love me more. Right? If any man hate not father, mother, wife, children, brethren, sisters, yea, his own life also. Here's a good example of the circumcision of the heart.

Lord, I'm going to cut away all these affections and I'm going to set you as my supreme affection. Amen. Circumcised heart.

And that way, that heart can be led anywhere God wants to lead it. But here, Abraham is having problems because he's, he's got a few things in his heart that he's not willing to lay aside. So he has to go the long way.

I've noticed Christians used to go the long way to get to the promise. They take the long, this one is a short track. There's a short way to get there.

And that is just give the Lord a blank slate. Amen. Love him with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind.

So he calls them out. Yea, in his own life also, he cannot be my disciple and whosoever does not take up his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. And so many of us, I mean, I experienced this.

It's probably something that is a part of sanctification. It's like, Lord, I want to be saved. I want to come to you.

I want to repent. I want to surrender my life to you. And that, I don't know what that means.

Does Abraham know what he's going to be doing here? He says he doesn't even know where he's going. He doesn't even know what land he's going to. And then as Zach, as he's traveling, God begins to refine his life and begin to take things out of his life that are not supposed to be there.

My fine young boy. Okay. And I thought about this.

I thought about this story in, I've told it to you here. It's a pretty dramatic story, but it's one that comes to mind when I think of this. You know, we had a story at Ohio Citizen College when I was in Bible school many years ago.

And there was a man there, a young man that was married, had small children, five or six year old little daughter. And he had felt called to, I don't know what country it was, but it was a difficult country. A lot of suffering involved.

And he had been called of God to leave and like Abraham to go. And he had a daughter and he reasoned like Abraham did. He reasoned about his daughter.

Well, my daughter will not be safe in that part of the world and that country. So I'm going to wait until she gets a little older. Maybe things will be better.

Then I'll go when, when things look better to me. And it just come to pass that this girl contracted a very severe disease and was literally lost her life. Just a five or six year old girl.

And, and I remember hearing a story that at the funeral, this man was probably only 27, 28 years old. Early on in his Christian life, just beginning to walk with God. They went through the whole line, you know, the viewing line at the end.

And the man came to this little girl's body, his daughter, put his hand underneath her body, raised her up in the air out of the casket. And then she began to scream, now I can go to the mission field. You know, now I can do what you call me to do.

And being angry at his own decisions. But you see Abraham here. I want you to go hear Abraham, but Abraham does a lot.

He spent a lot of time. There is years where Abraham is, is not getting to where he's supposed to get because there are issues that need to be addressed in his life. So he was told to leave his kindred and his father's house.

And so God is having to deal with some issues. Maybe there's issues, you know, in our lives. You know, the Lord wants us to bring us here into this land of promise.

I'm not sure what that is here in a minute, but, but he's directing us and there's still things I'm dragging along. Yeah, I like this. It's my affection.

It's what I like. And maybe it's a sin. Maybe it's an affection for something that you're not just willing to lay it down.

You say, when am I going to get to the promised land? What am I going to get to that life of, of fruitfulness and prosperity where, where it's, it's a land flowing with milk and honey. Well, what about, what about your father? What about Lot? And maybe there's something that God is trying to address. So down here at the bottom, coming out of Egypt, Lot separates.

And then as soon as you read the Bible in Genesis, and as soon as Lot separated, then God said, now lift up your eyes and look on this country and go in. And so God was waiting for Abraham to obey him. I told you to come out, leave your father's house, leave your kindred.

Now you're coming out with your father and your nephew. Okay, we're going to have to work with this. And so it says here that in the book of Hebrews, that Abraham sojourned in the land of promise with Isaac and Jacob.

I want to read to you the passage in the book of Hebrews, the great, the great men of faith, women of faith. It says here in Hebrews 11, 8, by faith, Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place, which he should have to receive for an inheritance, obeyed. And he went out, not knowing whether he went.

By faith, he sojourned in the land of promise as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise. So two generations here, Abraham dwelt with his children. And here's the important part.

We'll see this at the end of the sermon. For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Now, Abraham understood something that these type and shadows, you see, God is calling me to a land.

And yeah, that's nice. You know, it's a nice land, but God, there's got to be something bigger than this. And he understood by faith that these things were only types and figures, that there is some place that's bigger than this, a spiritual reality, a city whose builder and maker is God.

And then in Hebrews 11, 13, it says these all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off and were persuaded of them and embrace them and confess that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they'd been mindful of that country from once they came out, mindful of this, Abraham didn't want to go back there.

You ought not to want to go back to Egypt, by the way. Amen. If they had been mindful of that country from once they came out, they might've had opportunity to have returned, but now they desire a better country.

And here's the important word. That is a heavenly. Wherefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God for he has prepared for them a city.

And so Abraham, he's wandering around here in the land of promise, beautiful place. You know, the grass is green. Sheep have plenty of places to eat.

The water is pure. The fruit is wonderful. But you know, we have a lot of good things like that.

Don't we here in America? But there's something lacking. Abraham says, God, it's got to be bigger than this. I'm looking for a city whose builder and maker is God.

I'm looking for something bigger. Well, what is that city that he's looking for? Well, we're going to see it in a little bit, but the city he's looking for is that eternal city. We see it in Revelation.

It's a picture of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a picture of eternal life. So Abraham is a picture of us in a sense.

And God is calling us out of the world, out of sin, out of our affections toward this present life. And he is calling us into a land that flows with milk and honey. A land that flows with milk and honey, and that's a land of fellowship with God, a land in the church, a land that is eternal life, kingdom of God.

Now, something interesting, and we don't have time to get into all this, but it says here in the book of Hebrews that Abraham wandered in here with Isaac and Jacob in tents. He had no certain dwelling place. He was moving from place to place.

And that's a picture of us. You know, here's something amazing. God has promised this land to Abraham and his seed after him, but Abraham never actually took possession of anything in the land of promise.

It was not until Joshua comes in, many, many years later, until they actually inherit the land. And so Abraham and Isaac and Jacob are simply wandering in here, and that's a picture of us. You and I are sojourners.

We are pilgrims. We have a promise in front of us, just like Abraham. I will give you this land.

You'll inherit it and your children. That's my promise. You claim my promise.

You trust my promise, and your children will get this land. They'll inherit it. And that promise came to pass, by the way.

But you and I are in the same position as Abraham. We're sojourning. We're pilgrims.

Peter says we're strangers and pilgrims. And we're wandering through a land. By the way, you look out and you see Canaanites.

As a matter of fact, you see some Sodomites. And those people were actually in the land. And when Abraham was wandering through there, if you read the stories, you know, he was meeting different Canaanites and heathens.

And God said, listen, Abraham, I'm going to give you this land. I'm going to give your seed this land. But you're not going to possess it yet.

It's simply a promise. You need to trust me. And so we also, that's a picture for us.

We are dwelling in a strange land, though we have no inheritance here at this point. May some of you, this is going to shock your theology. We're going to inherit this land here and a lot more, too.

And I'll show you here in just a little bit. Even though we don't have anything we've inherited, we do have a promise. Amen? God has promised us, just like he promised Abraham, he has promised to us a city.

He has promised to us eternal life. 1 John 2.25. And this is the promise that he has promised us, even eternal life. So when you picture Abraham and his journey, picture yourself.

This land of promise is eternal life. This land of promise is something that God promises you. And Abraham never took possession of it in his lifetime, but his seed took possession of it.

And you and I in our lifetime may not take possession of it until we pass on from this life. But it's something that God has promised to us. He has promised us this city that Abraham was looking for.

And I'd like you to go back to Revelation 21, and let's look at that city for a minute. In Revelation 21, this is the reality of the type and figure here of Abraham coming out of the ear of the Chaldees, and he's looking for a city. In Revelation 21, verse 1, it says this, and I saw a new heaven and a new earth.

For the first heaven and the first earth were passed away, and there was no more seed. And I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem. Here's the city that Abraham was thinking of, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his God, and God himself shall be with them, and shall be their God. So this is that city that Abraham was longing for. He said, you know, this is a great land.

There's a lot of fruits, and there's a lot of green grass, a lot of clear springs, but it just doesn't meet my deep need. There's something bigger. This is simply a type and a figure.

God has something better, better promises for us. And so even though he was a sojourner and his children finally took possession in the days of Joshua, he knew there was a spiritual reality that was much bigger than that. And that is this great city.

And by the way, this city is on the new earth. Notice what it says in verse 1, I saw a new heaven and a new earth, where the first heaven and the first earth were passed away, and there was no more sea. God is going to redeem this planet, and he's going to build a great city.

By the way, I don't know if I can prove this, but I believe that that city is going to be built right there, right over the land of promise. That great city, that city on a new earth, it's going to be the spiritual Canaan. I like this, Matthew 5, verse 5 says, Blessed are the meek, for they shall what? Inherit the earth.

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. And so when God calls Abraham out, he brings him here, he is showing us by type and figure that I'm going to call you out and I'm going to give you a land. It's not going to be a physical, quote, land, it's going to be much more meaningful.

It's going to be a spiritual land, a new heaven and a new earth. Second Peter 3, Peter says this, Nevertheless, we, according to his promise, remember it's a promise. We, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.

Now here's the picture. Abraham's wandering here with Isaac and Jacob. The Canaanites are all over the place.

The Sodomites are all over the place. It's a land, it's a beautiful land, but there's problems. We are in a beautiful land.

It's a beautiful place to be here this morning. We're in fellowship with God's people. We're in the city of God, the church of the living God, and God is showing us his promises.

He's laid before us. I'm going to give you eternal life. It's a promise, but yet we're sojourning in a strange land.

There are Canaanites out there. There are Sodomites out there. There are Perizzites.

There are all kinds of items, and we're sojourning, and we're telling people, just like Abraham, God's going to give us a city. We're going to inherit a city and eternal life, and so I'm sure when Abraham wandered through this land of promise, he'd tell people, God's going to give us this land. They might have laughed at him.

So Abraham, he participated in some of the blessings of Cain, and even though it was not his possession, as he sojourned there, and you and I still don't have the fullness of eternal life, but we can enjoy some of the things that pertain unto eternal life. By the way, just fellowship with God's people, I think it's a great thing. I love Sundays.

The word of God is a wonderful thing, to have fellowship with God and his word and prayer, and all the wonderful fruits of the spirit of God. Those things are things we can enjoy while we're sojourning in this land, waiting for a future full inheritance. So we have this inheritance promised to us, like Abraham.

We don't have complete possession of it, yet we can experience some of it while we sojourn here amongst the Canaanites and all others. So that's the spiritual reality here, and that's what Stephen is trying to communicate through this story of Abraham. Abraham had something bigger in mind, and Jesus Christ is offering it to you people.

You're Jews, he's offering it to you. He's going to give you a city. Forget the land thing, he's going to give you something bigger.

It's a spiritual heart issue, and he wants to bring you into eternal life. Now look with me to Galatians. There's one more thing I want to bring out here in the book of Galatians chapter 3, about this situation with Abraham.

Galatians talks about much about Abraham. There's many avenues we could pursue here, but in Galatians chapter 3 verse 16, it says this, Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not into seeds, plural, as of many, but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ.

Now the promise to inherit the land was not to seeds, plural. The promise, or the true promise, was to seed, singular. And what that means is this.

Abraham, it's not your seeds. It's not your children's children's children's children that are going to inherit this physical piece of ground. Abraham, it's one seed of yours, and if you follow the lineage all the way down in Abraham's lineage, you get to and Joseph begat Christ.

Christ is the seed by which when you come to Jesus by faith, you become then a partaker of the true land of promise, which is that great city that Jesus spoke about, or the Bible speaks about in Revelation chapter 21. So that seed is Christ. You follow what I'm saying there? That seed is Christ.

So God said, I'm going to give this land to your seed, not Jewish people down through history, but out of your seed shall come a Messiah who'll give the true heavenly city, or land of Canaan. So there's a physical land and there's a spiritual land, and all these things in the Old Testament are types and figures of something that is greater and more spiritual. So those who are Christ are going to inherit that great city and eternal life, not those who are physical descendants of Abraham, and that's what Jesus told them.

You say you're children of Abraham. Well, that's not going to do it for you. You need to move past that.

You need to be a spiritual son of Abraham. You need to receive the seed of Abraham, which is me, the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith in me.

If you want to inherit Canaan, spiritually speaking. Now, I'm just going to throw this out. A lot of people here today, even especially in the prophetic world, they make much of the land of promise, and the Jews are going to go back, and they're going to get the land of promise, and yeah, things are going on over there.

But this whole idea of inheriting a physical land is nothing more than this here. Amen? And actually, if someone would give you a million acres, say, here, here's a million acres. It's beautiful land.

I mean, it's got trees. It's got streams. It's got everything, fruit.

It's got everything you want. Would that satisfy you? It wouldn't do me any good. I'd even pay property tax on it, probably.

I want something that will minister to my heart. I want something that will give me joy and peace and rest eternally. That's the city and the land I'm looking for.

I don't want this. I want something that is real. And so, Abraham, even though he sojourned here, he didn't say, well, I'm looking for some major acreage, you know, and I want to have my children's children's children build houses on it, and we're going to have this great lineage and inheritance.

No, I said, I just, I want a city that God's built. I'm going to ask you to turn one more here. Second Peter chapter three, this is a closing here with regards to Abraham and this city.

Second Peter chapter three, verse nine, and I'll close. The Lord is not slack concerning his promises. Some men count slackness, but it's long-suffering to us.

Not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night in which the heaven shall pass away with a great noise. The elements shall melt with a fervent heat.

The earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Boy, so much for this world, huh? Say, I'm going to get inheritance. I'm going to have a million acres of land.

Well, so what? It's going to get burned. God's going to just restore the whole thing, burn it all up, just like he did with the water. He, he just, everything was just crushed.

Next time it's going to be a fire. Did you know that? You know children, that's why God puts that rainbow in the sky because he said, Noah, I'll never again destroy the world with water. Next time, fire.

So, so Noah, when it rained again, he said, okay, everybody back to the ark, button up the hatches. Here we go again. Can you imagine living life like that? Well, you don't have to worry about it anymore, but it's going to be by fire.

Verse 11, seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons want you to be in a holy conversation in godliness, looking for and hastening unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, the elements shall melt with a fervent heat. Now look at verse 13. Nevertheless, we, according to his promise, just like Abraham, he was promised, we've been promised something.

Look for new heavens and a new earth. That's that city that, that is typed here that Abraham was looking for. And here's something wonderful.

In the end of verse 13, we're looking for new heavens and new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Praise God, no more Canaanites. Praise God, no more Sodomites, no more Jebusites, no more enemies in that land.

The Bible says everyone who defiles is on the outside of the city. So we don't have to worry about those enemies in this land. And then verse 14, here's an invitation, wherefore beloved, that's to each one of us, seeing that you look for such things, you're looking for this land that God has promised us, be diligent that you may be found of him in peace without spot and blameless.

In other words, you've got something wonderful ahead of you. And it's a new, a new city, a new world, wherein you're going to inherit it. You're going to inherit it.

And it's going to be a wonderful place. Amen. And if you understand that, you believe that it's coming, Abraham, how many years did you have to wait? Well, Abraham died having not received the promise.

His children's children went in. And some of us may die before we receive the promise. Some of us may be alive when Jesus comes.

But we're all going to be raised and we'll all take part in receiving the inheritance of that great city. But give diligence to be found in him in peace. Do you have peace today with God? Give peace with God.

Be diligent to be found of him in peace. I have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. My sins are forgiven.

I know that. And I have peace with him. And be found in him without spot, washed in the blood of Jesus.

If you sin, if we confess our sin, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Keep your accounts clear. Up to date.

Every morning I get on my face and ask God to forgive me for anything I can think of that I've done wrong. Lord have mercy. Without spot and blameless.

Blameless. You know what that means? Certainly before God, you're going to be blameless because he's forgiven you of your sin. But I would also argue that he's saying, don't let anyone be able to point a finger at you.

You're without blame. Blameless. Harmless.

Sons of God, before a wicked and perverse generation of whom you shine as lights in the world, is there anybody in this world that can point a finger at you and say, he did me wrong. He stole from me. He unjustly financially did a deal with me.

He did something to my family member. He, he, he, she, she, she, she spoke evil. She lied about me.

She's never made it right. He found of him blameless. I hope we can all stand before God in that day when we inherit this great city and this, this land and those Canaanites and those Sodomites and those Jebusites say, we have nothing we can blame these people for.

They're blameless. They behaved themselves without, without fault before this world. So that's, that's the picture here of Abraham, his journey.

You and I are on the same journey Abraham was. We're also looking for that city. This builder, maker is God.

Do you have a lot with you? Are you pulling your father along when the Lord said, come out and forsake all. Whosoever be that forsaken not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple. You're not going to be able to function and get, get the inheritance that you want.

If you're, if you're dragging lots along with you, can you honestly say in your heart, Lord, I surrender everything, wife, children, husband, father, mother, Lord, you call me. I'll go. You call me this way.

My neck is easy to turn. You call me that way. My neck is easy to turn.

Does it matter? I'm not going to say Lord, but lots, but I got a lot here. I can't do it. But my father, we can't go in about.

No, you just say Lord, whatever. And so Abraham next week, we're going to look at Joseph. Joseph is such a huge picture of Christ in so many ways.

Joseph is a picture of how Christ came. Abraham left his father's house. Jesus left his father's house, came to this world and Joseph was thrown in a pit and rejected by his brethren.

So we'll look at that next, next time. So let's pray, Lord, help us. We all want to inherit eternal life.

God has promised it to us. Let's continue to sojourn in this land, waiting for the fulfillment of his promise. Heavenly father, we thank you for again, your word.

And Lord, may we open up our eyes and see more and more of it. Lord, as the scripture says, we can understand the deep things of God, the unsearchable riches of your wisdom. And Lord, may you work in our hearts here to be holy, without blame, with blameless, without spot and at peace with you and with all men.

Even as the scripture says, pursue holiness and peace with all men without which no man shall see the Lord. Lord, help us, bless us. Pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.