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Abraham – Knowing the End before the Beginning

He walked out what God had already shown him.
Lesson 31 from The HOPE Study Guide

INTRODUCTION

And God said to Abram, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years. But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve; and afterward they will come out with many possessions. And as for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried at a good old age.”

– Genesis 15 : 13-15

God promised to bless Abraham, and through Him to bless all the nations of the earth. God made the same kind of promise to Abraham’s son, Isaac, and to Isaac’s son, Jacob.

– The HOPE, Chapter 6

OBSERVE & CONSIDER

In Lessons 26–30 we studied Abraham and some of the events surrounding his life. As you recall, God called Abraham and promised to bless him that he might be a blessing to all the nations. Before moving forward, consider these things about God’s promised blessing:

  1. Though the blessing came through Abraham, it is for everyone who is willing, by faith, to receive it.
  2. The Bible calls this promise of blessing a covenant.1 When God makes such a covenant,2 it is an irrevocable promise to do what He has said. God will do what must be done to bring it to pass.
  3. God, who is eternal, all knowing, and all powerful,3 isn’t trying to figure out how to bring it to pass. He already has every detail planned. This will become increasingly more evident over the next few lessons.

 

As we continue on in The HOPE, we see that God made the same “kind” of promise to Abraham’s son Isaac, and Isaac’s son Jacob. By the word “kind,” The HOPE is allowing for the fact that while God may have worded it differently, it was basically the same promise being passed down through Abraham’s descendants. They are, in a sense, entering in to God’s promise to Abraham.

Now as we have noted, the fulfillment of this promise has been planned in detail by God. To understand this better, let’s go back to Genesis 15. Here we read that God declared Abraham righteous (Lesson 27). Also in this chapter, we read that God, after causing a deep sleep to come over Abraham, gave him a detailed vision of what was to come – not just in his lifetime, but for the next several hundred years! Continue reading →