Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #40 of Genesis, chapter 21.  We will be reading Genesis 21:33-34:

And Abraham planted a grove in Beersheba, and called there on the name of JEHOVAH, the everlasting God. And Abraham sojourned in the Philistines' land many days.

This brings the chapter to a close.  In our last study, we spent some time looking at the words “planted” and “grove.”  We saw how they can identify with the outward representation of God’s kingdom on earth.  One was Old Testament Israel and the other was the New Testament churches and congregations.

We also looked at the last part of verse 33 where it says, “and called there on the name of JEHOVAH, the everlasting God.”  Then I went off on a bit of a tangent discussing the everlasting characteristic of God.  It is such an awesome topic and worthy of the time spent on this incredible truth that the Bible presents.  And the Bible presents it in a matter-of-fact way in Psalm 90:2: “…even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.” 

It is an enormous statement.  It is a statement that gives us reason, purpose and meaning for our existence and the existence of all life – there is an everlasting God who has always been.  This God tells us about Himself in this Holy Book, the Bible, and everything we read is spectacular and wonderful, as God tells us of a good God, a righteous God, a just God, a holy God who is pure and without sin.  It is just super wonderful that this Supreme Being is truly a supreme being.  He is not evil in any way, like Satan who desires to be like Him.  We can see the insignificance of Satan in many ways when we realize the enormity and grandeur of the true God who dwells in the whole spectrum of existence.  Then there is that little, fallen created being that is trying to be like God and, yet, he is an evil being.  But God is good.  God is wonderful.  Of course, this makes all the difference because this God is King of kings and Lord of lords.  There is no other God but Him.  All others are false gods.  But God makes life worth living – He gives purpose and meaning to all things, for the people of God.

The (unsaved) people of the world have no purpose.  There is no real meaning to their lives.  That is the reason they go at “break-neck” speed.  They must go as fast as they can, lest they stop and think for a moment and consider that it is all “vanity of vanities.”  All is empty and without purpose.  It has no real significance.  Whatever they put their hand forth to do will eventually decay and be destroyed.  It will be no more, like their very lives.  This is not the case with God and the work He has given His people to do, which involves the Word of God, the Bible.  The Word of God, the Bible, is itself everlasting: “But the word of the Lord endureth forever.”   The Word accomplished its purpose in the lives of those it was sent for through the salvation of their souls and, eventually, their bodies, granting them everlasting life.  This, too, is full of purpose and meaning, and everything related to God’s Word has value and substance.  This is the reason we can live a life full of meaning and great purpose. 

As we continue to look at the word “everlasting,” it says in Psalm 103:17:

But the mercy of JEHOVAH is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children's children;

The mercy of JEHOVAH is from everlasting to everlasting.  This verse helps us to pinpoint that “mark” of the foundation of the world.  And the Bible tells us that Christ was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, and the foundation of the world took place in eternity past.  Here, God is explaining that His mercy is upon them that fear Him, which can only refer to His elect, from everlasting – this eternal past.  We cannot trace it to a beginning.  I think it is telling us that as long as God has been God, He has had mercy upon the blessed and chosen people He determined to save.  He knew, in that eternal past in which He alone existed, what He would do during the creation of this world and the unfolding of history.  He knew everything that would happen, so He laid the sins of all those predestinated to obtain salvation upon Christ, the Lamb, and Christ died in eternity past and rose again to be declared the Son of God.  So, God’s mercy was shown forth in the actual atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ from that point in eternity past.  Therefore, His mercy is “from everlasting to everlasting.”  Another verse that supports this is found in Jeremiah 31:3:

JEHOVAH hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.

Here, again, we see God’s salvation program as it went back to the point of everlasting past.

Let us look at one more verse before we move on.  It says in John 6:40:

And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.

We have been granted the gift of eternal life.  And because God is from everlasting to everlasting, He can give everlasting life to those who believe.  Of course, the only ones that can believe from the heart are the ones whom He has already saved by giving them a new heart and a new spirit.  They can believe in their hearts and the confession of their lips will match the condition of their hearts.  They will have everlasting life.  The everlasting God guarantees it.  The Word of God is trustworthy, solid and secure.  It is true and faithful, because the Bible tells us that God cannot lie.  It is an impossibility for God to lie.  The things He says, He means, and He can declare to certain rebels, “I have determined to save you by grace, and I have bestowed that grace upon you, giving you the faith of Christ.  I have saved you, but not because of anything you have done.  You do not deserve it.  It is unmerited favor and grace, and it is all a result of what Christ has done and because of my good pleasure.  This is a gift.”  The Bible refers to it as “an unspeakable gift.”  It is everlasting life.  God has no beginning point.  We can travel in our mind’s eye back and back and back into eternity past, continually going back.  But we would never come to a “starting point” because God has no beginning.  We can also turn our attention to the future ahead.  We cannot experience eternity past, but we will experience eternity future.  We can go as far and long in our mind’s eye as we possible can into eternity future, and there is no end there either.  There is no “wall” or a point when existence ends – it just goes on, and on, and on. 

Mankind has tried to express this idea, like the song “Amazing Grace,” that says, “When we've been there ten thousand years …we've no less days to sing God's praise than when we first begun.”  We are creatures of time, and we think according to time relationships.  Everything in this world is time-oriented.  It is the only thing we know, but in the world to come there is no “time.”  Time will have been removed.  It will be eternity, and there is life, living with the everlasting God.  He tells us that He will be with us and dwell with us, and He will never leave or forsake us.  As He is everlasting God, we will have everlasting life.  If God could someday stop being God and come to an end, our everlasting life could come to an end.  But that has never happened in all eternity past in previous existence, and it never will happen.  He is the ultimate Supreme Being, yesterday and now and for all eternity – God is God.  And He is our God who cares for us, loves us and watches over us.  He is carefully bringing us along, day by day, and at the end of this world He will bring us to the end of this creation and then we will turn our attention to the glorious, eternal future to come.

Let us go back to Genesis 21 and look at the last verse.  It says in Genesis 21:34:

And Abraham sojourned in the Philistines' land many days.

We can understand this in a couple of different ways.  We understand that the land of the Philistines was given to God’s people as the Promised Land, the outward representation of the kingdom of God.  It is true that Abraham (representing God) and the people of God did sojourn for a long time as national Israel, until 33 A. D.  It depends on what we use as the starting point.  We could go to 1907 B. C. when Jacob’s name was changed to “Israel.”  That was really the beginning of Israel.  Or, we could go back to the birth of Jacob in 2007 B. C., but it is a long period of time from back then to 33 A. D.  And God dwelt in Israel with the people of God.  Then God made the change to the churches and congregations during the New Testament church age, and God dwelt in the midst of the congregations.  God tells us that in the book of Revelation.  The people of God dwelt in the churches as they sojourned in this world, from 33 A. D. to 1988, which was 1,955 years.  It, too, was a long period of time.

Or, we could look at the land of Canaan, which was a picture of the Promised Land.  And the Promised Land represents the new earth.  We can also look at the land of Canaan as this earth during our time of sojourning here, because Abraham represented the sojourning of the people of God upon this earth throughout time.  Certainly, it can be said that we sojourn in the Philistines’ land many days.  God refers to this in Hebrews 11, a chapter that highlights the faith of Christ in the lives of His people.  It says in Hebrews 11:8-10:

By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither 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: For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.

This is exactly what all the people of God have been doing, spiritually.  We have been given the promise of inheriting the earth: “But the meek shall inherit the earth.”  We read about this in the Old Testament in the Psalms and we read about it in the beatitudes in Matthew 5:5: “Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.”  We have the promise of God that He will grant to us the inheritance.  Remember, the inheritance is given to the Son, who is Christ.  He is the heir and all the elect children of God are counted for the seed in Christ, so as Christ receives the new heaven and new earth, we receive it in Him.  But, until then, we wait as we go about our daily lives in this world.  Abraham, Isaac and Jacob dwelt in tents to signify the fact that they were not “getting comfortable” in this world or in love with this world.  They realized it was only a temporary situation – they were just passing through.  They were truly sojourners or strangers on the earth.  Likewise, we are in the same situation, spiritually, as we wait upon the Lord to fulfill all His promises.

You know, we do not have long to wait.  We are not on the Old Testament side of the cross where they waited thousands of years for the coming of Messiah the first time.  That has been done.  We are no longer in the church age when those within the churches waited almost 2,000 years (1,955 years, to be exact) for the promise to be fulfilled.  We have gone beyond that time.  We are not even still in the Latter Rain period, the final rain of God’s Gospel program of times and seasons in which He would bring in the spiritual harvest of those He intended to save.  We have gone beyond that.  We are no longer in the Great Tribulation.  We are now living on the earth in the Day of Judgment.  And we are not just a day or two into Judgment Day, but we are several years into Judgment Day.  We are progressing along, fulfilling the pattern of Christ’s first coming and fulfilling the pattern of this prolonged judgment period that God has laid out in the Bible, like the 40 years of temptation in the wilderness, and other places.  So, we are right there, at the point where the Lord is about to finalize all things for this world.  He will complete everything, and then He will create the new heaven and the new earth.  At that time, we will “stand in our lot,” and God will give the inheritance to His people in Christ.  It is close at hand.

We are going to stop here.  Lord willing, in our next study we will move on to Genesis chapter 22.