This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of “The History of Salvation” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, March 11, 1990.

I feel like I was offered an indication that no one’s standing in front of me. I’ve got them to the right and to the left. Tonight we’ll be reading selected passages from Genesis 12 through Genesis 50. First of all, Genesis 12, verses 1 through 3. Now the Lord said to Abram, go forth from your country and from your relatives and from your father’s house to the land which I will show you.

And I will make you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great and so you shall be a blessing. And I will bless those who bless you and for one who curses you I will curse. And in you all The families of the earth shall be blessed. And then turning over to Genesis 15, the first six verses.

After these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, Do not fear, Abram. I am your shield and very great reward. Abram said, O Lord God, what wilt thou give me, since I am childless, and the heir of my house is Eleazar of Damascus? And Abram said, Since thou hast given no offspring to me, one born in my house is my heir. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, This man will not be your heir. One who shall come forth from your own body, he shall be your heir. He took him outside and said, Now look toward the heavens and count the stars, if you are able to count them. He said to him, So shall your descendants be. Then he believed in the Lord, and he reckoned it to him as righteousness.

Turning over to chapter 45, This is 21 through 26. 25 verse 21. And Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife, because she was barren. And the Lord answered him, and Rebecca, his wife, conceived. And the children would struggle together within her, and she said to him, If it is so, why then am I in this way? So she went to inquire of the Lord. When the Lord said to her, two nations are in your womb, two people shall be separated from your body, and one people shall be stronger than the other, and the older shall serve the younger. When her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold, there were twins in her womb. Now the first came forth rubbed and all over like a pair of diamonds.

They called him Esau. Afterward, his brother came forth with his hand holding onto Esau’s heel, so his name is called Jacob. Isaac was 60 years old when he gave birth to them. is chapter thirty-two verse twenty-four. Then Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. And when he saw that he had not prevailed against him, he touched the socket of his thigh, so that the socket of Jacob’s thigh was dislocated while he wrestled with him.

Then he said, Let me go, for the dawn is great. He said, I will not let you go unless you bless So he said to him, what is your name? He said, Jacob. He said, your name shall no longer be Jacob, but what did you? Well, you have striven with God and with me and have survived. And Jacob asked him and said, please tell me your name. But he said, why is it that you ask my name? Have you blessed in death? So Jacob named the place Benaiah. For he said, I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been preserved. And the sun rose upon him just as he passed over Fenuel, and he was limping on his thigh. And then chapter 50, beginning at verse 15.

When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, What gift Joseph should bear a grudge against us and pay us back in full for all the wrong which we did to him? So they sent a message to Joseph, saying, Their father charged before he died, saying, Thus you shall say to Joseph, Please forgive, I beg you, the transgression of your brothers and their sin, for they did you wrong. And now please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father. Joseph wept when he spoke to them. Then his brothers also came and fell down before him and said, Behold, we are your servants.

Joseph said to them, Do not be afraid, for I am, for am I in God’s place. And as for you, He meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about the present result to preserve many people alive. So therefore do not be afraid. I will provide for you and your little ones.” So he comforted them and spoke kindly.

Tonight we are considering what might be called the most remarkable narrative, not only in Old Testament literature, but in all of the literature of the world. That portion of the book of Genesis dealing with the lives of the patriots. The patriots. Who are the patriots? Can you name them? Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The fathers. These remaining chapters in Genesis 12-50 actually organize themselves around these patriarchal figures.

We have the story of Abraham. It takes up for us at the end of chapter 11, and it carries through the first part of chapter 25. Properly, chapter 11, verse 27, through chapter 25, verse 11. Then we have the story of Isaac. Chapter 25, verse 19, through 35, verse 39. I know that that includes a great deal of the story of Jacob. Really, Jacob’s story doesn’t seem to commence in a literary way until we have Jacob back in the land of promise, back in the land of kingdom. Then the story of Jacob commences with the second verse of the 32nd chapter, and continues on to the end of the book of Genesis. What do we find here in these chapters? What is it that makes this such an outstanding piece of literature? Why is it that you often find portions of this session concentrated on in classes where the Bible is taught as literature?

Now, what we find here is a remarkably straightforward and frank presentation. In fact, a presentation that, for some, is all too frank. For many have been offended if not outraged by what the Bible says in these chapters. We find a great deal concerning man’s depravity. We find a great deal about man’s carnality, his sensuality. We find a great deal about man’s deceitfulness and his decline. In other words, this section of the Bible has a lot going for it. Sex, violence, and corruption.

But interestingly, unlike what we find in the case of a present day novel, a contemporary screenplay, or one of our daily soaps, here There is no, I underline no, sensationalism. What we find here is not headline material or the National Enquirer. Neither is there any gratuitous lingering over details with respect to sensuality and sexuality. There is no lingering over the details of those violent views that are spoken of in these chapters. There is no descent into melodrama, even though these chapters are filled with high drama. with respect to those matters so central to and important to the human race and to the people of God. Whose stories about the patriarchs are filled with emotion, but not with sentimentality.

They are gripping without being needlessly or foolishly embellished. Again, remarkably straightforward, remarkably straightforward and frank in its presentation. These chapters are long on action, but startlingly short on psychology, a whole matter of inner motivation. something that has played upon a great deal in our modern times. It is then grand and powerful literature. Great reading.

I can remember times in my own spiritual life when I haven’t been as fervent as I ought to be just picking up My Bible and reading from these chapters has set me ablaze again, considering these figures and the involvement of God in the life of those we have chosen. Well, the storyline runs like this.

There is this fella Abraham. destined in time to be called Abraham, if you know him better by that name, who lives in Ur of the Chaldeans, the southernmost end of the Tigris-Euphrates Valley, the Fertile Crescent, a city proximate to, if not identical with, the city of Babylon in time. So Abram, that is Abraham, lives in this city at the beginning of the second millennium B.C., that is 2,000 years before the birth of Christ. You understand this then chronologically? Abraham is as many years before Christ as you are after Christ.

That’s the balance. That’s why Jerry Falwell has gotten out of the moral majority and decided to go back to preach the gospel. He said he only had ten years left. Well, this fellow Abraham is told by God to leave your city, your family, to a land that I will show you.

So Abraham travels west and north as far as Teran, into the territory later known as Assyria. And it is there that Abraham’s father, Terah, dies, and some of Terah’s family subsequently makes their home there. But Abraham is called by God. And Abraham continues in his pilgrimage, accompanied by his nephew Lot and Lot’s family.

Abraham then enters the land called Canaan. That land was out for eventual possession for the tribes of Israel. Abraham moves southward then from Heron in the north. into the territory of the tribes of Canaan. And in that territory he receives a promise from God concerning blessing through his seed, singular, at least that’s how Paul reads it later on, through his seed for nations, all the nations of the earth, As in fact, blessing emanates from that territory into all of the earth, a territory which in fact, according to the promise of God, Abram and his children will possess.

There is a famine in Canaan after Abraham arrives. He descends into Egypt for protection. And after his return to Canaan, he and Lot pull and part. Abraham is a rural figure, and Lot becomes an urban figure, choosing the cities of the plain outstanding for their production.

Abraham becomes great in the land. He has great herds. He has a number of servants surrounding him. There’s a great company attached to him. From one of his wife’s slave girls, Hagar, an Egyptian, there comes forth Anishu, Ishmael, And oh, how Abraham wishes that Ishmael would live before the Lord.

Abraham has become great in the land, but yet he owns no property. Becoming great, he owns no plot of ground. The land is promised to him, but he doesn’t own a square inch. He moves from place to place, and as he does, God reassures him by appearing to him regularly.

There are many events, circumstances, occasions, many adventures for Abraham in his life, but finally, God grants him that which will then, in many respects, set his mind at ease God grants him a son of his wife, Sarah, in their old age, a child promised to them so long previously. This child becomes the opportunity, as you know.

This child, Isaac, becomes the opportunity for God to test Abraham’s faith. You know well the story of Abraham and Isaac on Mount Geronimo. It is for his faith that Abraham is especially known. And if it is for his faith that Abraham is especially known, his son Isaac becomes especially known for his gentleness and his peaceableness. Isaac is truly a man of peace. If we move from Abraham, the man of faith or faithfulness, we come to Isaac, the man of tranquility and peace and gentleness. During his adult years, Isaac repeatedly avoids open warfare with those around him.

When he is challenged by the Palestinians, he chooses the route of peace rather than the route of confrontation. He moves back before the threats and the assaults, not as a coward, but as a man of peace and a man of hope. He does have his favorite among his sons, And oddly enough, that favorite of his contrasts so remarkably his inner disposition. He, being a man of peace, a timely man, chooses Esau as violent a man as there ever was. Esau is firstborn, and his choice so much unlike him.

And although Jacob is God’s choice, Isaac persists in his choice, as he said. This fact is instructive in itself, as we will see. As good as men may be, yet how difficult for them it is. So we have Abraham, the man of faithfulness. We have in Isaac, the man of kindliness and peace. We come to Jacob, and what good might be said of him? At least this much can be said. In Jacob, God exhibits his grace in the most unprecedented fashion.

This man, because of his perversity, flees his home in Canaan. His brother, as you know, is bent upon destroying him. So off he goes, traveling northward, back into that territory that Abraham had come from, and into the region of the home of his uncle Nathan. And it is in that circumstance, if he hasn’t had ample opportunity already, it is in that circumstance and setting that he so perfectly develops his deceitful character. a charlatan, a flim-flammer from the get-go. In the end, the outwits Laban, who’s no slouch at flim-flamming himself. In the end, the outwits Laban and sets out with his booty for Rome.

Back in Canaan, once more returned to the land of promise, peace is restored between him and God, between him and Esau, even between him and Isaac. But there he makes himself known throughout the territory, not a nuisance, certainly a threat, because of the antics of his ten oldest sons.

They are a particularly petty and vengeful lot. They are crude, they are earthy, and they are corrupt. In time, they feel themselves especially intimidated by Jacob’s eleventh boy, Joseph. Joseph is Jacob’s favorite child of his beloved but deceased great-grandfather. In the circle of the brothers, it is ten against one. And the hatred of the ten finally peaks in a murderous plot.

So, Joseph ends up in a pit, and then in chains, finally in exile on his way to Egypt as a slave. But you know, through a remarkable series of events, Joseph rises to power in Egypt and becomes second in power only to Pharaoh. And through him, in time, Jacob, his father, and his brothers, the ten and also the twelve, with their families are saved during the days of the world’s most extreme famine. And Joseph proves himself loving, magnanimous, wonderfully, perfectly generous, and a savior for the people of God. Genesis then ends with the tribes of Jacob living in Egypt, of all places.

Not in the land of Haman, but in Egypt. I tell you, we haven’t reached the end of the story yet. They are still awaiting, these tribes, are still awaiting the fulfillment of the promise that had been given the promise that they would, in fact, possess and inherit specifically the land of Canaan. But not only do these tribes own no part of Canaan presently save that territory of Macpeel where their beloved ones have been buried, but they are not even living in Canaan. They are outside of the land of Canaan.

So, how much do these chapters teach us about God, about Christ, about ourselves? God revealing Himself in the patriarchs, to the patriarchs, time and time again, speaking to them directly. But Christ, as it were, also taking shade. in those that confront the patriarchs, divine visitors, those who come, almost as the Son of God, setting, set before these patriarchs that they might be instructed concerning God’s Son, the Christ. But even more than that, within the personalities of the patriarchs, We see taking shape, premonitions of the coming cross, so that as you move from patriarch to patriarch, insofar as you can find those things that are complementary within them, Jesus Christ himself is taking shape before your eyes. But at no point can you say that the perfect picture is complete in any one of the patriarchs. You must move from one to the other until you get to the end of Genesis, and there, there, having considered all three of the patriarchs, but the one additional figure, Joseph, you have.

And how much we learn about ourselves. How much there is here for an Israelite in the days of Moses, in the time in which this was set down in writing. How much there was for those Israelites to learn about themselves and also. How much there is for us to learn. The Old Testament Church and the New Testament Church being instructed by these chapters.

What do we find here with respect specifically concerning the figure of God? Are we not struck? Are we not struck by the fact that the God who reveals Himself here is the electing God, the choosing God, the sovereign God who exercises His right in choosing whom He wills? What difference is there, you see, between the twins? But even before they are born, we are told that God chooses the one before the other. And in order to confound the estimations of man, God sets himself against men’s choices. For men choose the firstborn, God chooses the lastborn. We’re struck by the truth then that this God is an electing God, a choosing God. How is it? How is it possible for people to read their Bibles? How is it possible for them to get through the first book of the Bible and not become convinced? How is it?

It’s an utterly amazing thing. It’s almost as if they are as willful as I am. I don’t care who God sees, I don’t see who He sees. And it’s my choice that counts. It is as plain as the print on the page, how God is an elected, choosing God. It is illustrious, is it not, how men can so violently reject that truth. It may be not a mystery at all. It’s simply a testimony to the diversity of the human heart. My choice, not yours. I determine, not you. And this is the only way it can be. Does that register upon you? Does that make the proper impression on you.

If God does not choose, then none are chosen. If God does not save, then none are saved. Do you think that Abram is living so wonderfully and so magnificently better than all the rest of the Chaldeans who are living on Earth during the times of his early life? and that because of this he is commended to God because of some kind of inherent righteousness? He wakes up one morning and says, I’ve got to get out of here. I know I’m better than my neighbors. It’s God’s choice, and unless God chooses, there’s absolutely no way All of humanity is ruined.

Well, it’s not just either of the characters we saw. Abraham would have chosen Ishmael. You see… One that the God presented to us here in these chapters is a sovereign, direct God. But He is also the God of grace. As we have already suggested, this choice is not based upon narrative. It’s an utterly gracious thing. God’s undeserved favor. That’s how we define grace. His choice is calculated to confound any thought of marriage. Look at Jacob. What is there in this man to commend him? Nothing. He’s a skunk. He is a true skunk. And yet in him God’s grace finds.

And as Israel during the days of Moses would read and hear these passages, is she not convicted as the church of Jesus Christ presently is convicted? Those and ours are laid in God’s graciousness with unmerited This God is not merely the electing God, He is not merely the gracious God, He is the loving God. And thus He draws near to one who is visible. He makes of Abraham a friend. and enters into intimate communion with Him, friend to friend. Out of His love, He provides for His people. Through all of the difficulties, through all the severities, He kindly superintends all things for their ultimate good, for their well-being. And he so reveals himself, drawing nigh to these people, in effect making himself vulnerable, if you will, because of his love, despite the lovelessness of those to whom he draws near.

That lovelessness so remarkably evident again and again. the electing God, the gracious God, the loving God. But this God is also the God of life. He is the living God. And here is the most profound level of the revelation granted out in these chapters.

You see, the patriarchs all die by the end of Genesis. But are they dead? Does there exist any further a hope of them realizing the promise that had been given? Is there any sense in which they can grab hold of the inheritance? Or, in death, is everything lost? Is it all gone?

The most profound level of the revelation granted us in these chapters is the fact that our God, this electing God, this gracious God, this loving God, is the God of life. He is the one who has the power of life within Him. And He can grant that life despite the appearance of the victory and triumph of death. Somehow these patriarchs are destined to share in the fulfillment of the promise that has been given, even though they have been denied even a partial ground within the land of promise itself. Somehow they will come to share in the fulfillment.

I just read a correspondence between Ned B. Stonehouse And Harvey K. MacArthur, now you probably don’t know who Harvey K. MacArthur is, but he was probably one of the greatest and most gifted students the Westminster Seminary ever produced. And after he left Westminster Seminary, he went to Germany and studied higher criticism. And there he turned over his commitment to orthodoxy for the embrace of neo-orthodoxy and modern liberalism. And in reading the correspondence between Stonehouse and MacArthur, it’s interesting.

One of MacArthur’s problems is, how is it that that passage in Matthew 22, 32, when Jesus says that God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is a testimony to the fact that there is a resurrection? That God is the God of the living, not of the dead. He misses the whole point of the book of Genesis. Here is one of the most intelligent theologians of our time. He went on to become the head theologian at the Hartford Foundation for Theological Studies.

And this man is not able to make the connection running from Genesis on into the ministry of Christ where Christ proclaims that the fact that God is revealed as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob establishes the fact that the resurrection is a proof.

These men died, but not in despair, full of hope that they in some way will come into the possession of that promise and its fulfillment. With respect to a story told us in Genesis, the writer to the Hebrews says that Abraham ventured to sacrifice Isaac because he was confident that God could raise him from the dead. The promise will not fail.

And that’s even the lesson as we come to deal with Abraham’s dead body and Sarah’s dead womb. That out of the dead, we will come to life and see by whom there is all life. God is God’s life. God of the living, God of the dead. For us then, there is laid out such response to such a magnificent unveiling of our God. Truly, the deepest humility before God’s electing and gracious choice, deepest sobriety before God’s wonderful love, the deepest praise before God’s incomparable power, power to give life from the dead, the greatest expression of faith before God, certain promises that an inheritance awaits and is itself guaranteed.

This, of course, we will do, bringing all of this to consummation and fulfillment, every promise fulfilled. Every word cast, the inheritance itself bequeathed, through that seed from Abraham, Jesus Christ, the one who is the greater and perfect sacrifice to whom I was appointed, through Jacob’s angel, the one that wrestled with him, the one who makes himself vulnerable in order that the tribes of the Lord might prevail, through a greater and better Joseph, that one who by humiliation is exalted to God’s right hand, so that he might kindly and lovingly administer the blessings of God to the kingdom. To that one who is in the line of duty, you remember, King, the one who offers himself, gives his life up, as it were, in order that others Might be. Spoken. Of.

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