You’re probably wondering why they would invite me to tell you the Christmas story. In fact, seeing that I lived 2,000 years before the Lord Jesus Christ was born, some of you might really think I had nothing to do with the Christmas story, but that’s where you’d be wrong. Welcome to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith, and we’re continuing to look at the Christmas story from the perspective of different people in the Bible, and Colin, a lot of us are probably thinking, well, Abraham lived 2,000 years before Christ, why would he show up here? Well, he certainly wasn’t around at the time of the manger, but here’s a fascinating thing that Jesus said, Abraham saw my day and he rejoiced in it. So in some sense, the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ was made known to Abraham. Perhaps Abraham did not know him by name, but he had a knowledge of the Redeemer and saw Christ’s day, so some anticipation was given. So this is very important for this reason. It’s not that, you know, the world’s gone terribly wrong and God’s struggling to come up with an idea and that’s why Jesus comes into the world to kind of put things right. From before the beginning of time, God knew all that sin would do and set out to redeem us and his plan is absolutely on course and it has always centred around Jesus Christ and of course always will. We see that in Matthew’s Gospel, so I hope you’ll join us there if you can. It’s chapter 1, the first couple of verses, and then we’re going to verses 17 to 25. Let’s begin Abraham’s story. Here’s Colin. God spoke to me about the birth of the Saviour. You can check it out in John’s Gospel. Jesus actually spoke about me. Did you know that? He said, Abraham rejoiced in the thought of seeing my day. Then Jesus said about me that Abraham saw my day and he rejoiced in it. That’s true. I saw, while I was still here on earth, 2,000 years before Jesus was born, I saw his day and I can tell you that his day coming changed my life even 2,000 years before and it has changed my eternity ever since. So let me tell you my story. I grew up in Arr of the Chaldees. It was in Mesopotamia, the area you would refer to today as southern Iraq. I grew up not knowing the first thing about God. In fact, I worshipped idols. All of my ancestors had done that. Isn’t it interesting? When folks don’t know the living God, what they do is they worship something else. That’s what I did for years. I enjoyed a comfortable life in the city with my extended family. There was my father, Tara. There was my nephew, Lot, and of course my marvellous wife, Sarah. Boy, she was a very remarkable woman. Why she married me, I will never really know and she said sometimes she’s not very sure why she did either. But you know, one day, God broke into my life. All I can tell you is that he appeared to me, just like God appeared to Adam and to Eve in the Garden of Eden. I saw the glory of the Lord. It was absolutely overwhelming to me. I can’t really describe it to you except to say that it was like being surrounded with radiant light and to know that you were in the presence of one who was unlike anyone else you had ever met or ever could meet. Years later, Isaiah described it when he said, the people who walked in darkness, they’ve seen a great light. That’s what happened to me. And you know, the same thing happened to the shepherds. Luke says in his account of the Christmas story that the angels of the Lord appeared to them and did you notice that he says, the glory of the Lord shone around them. They saw God’s glory. That’s just what happened to me. I saw his glory. And God blessed me. In fact, God gave to me a sevenfold blessing. You can count the blessings with me. Here’s what he said, I will make of you a great nation. I will bless you, he said to me, I will make your name great. I will make you a blessing. I will bless those who bless you. I will curse those who curse you and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you. This was more than I could take in. First, I couldn’t understand why God would bless me. I hadn’t even known him. I certainly hadn’t done anything for him, wasn’t a worshiper of him. Why would God break out of heaven and bless me? You have a word for that, grace, the mercy of God. God just picked me out and he blessed me. His love was poured out on me for no other reason than that God is merciful and God is compassionate. He had mercy and he had compassion on me. And that means he has mercy and compassion for you. But then there was something else in what he said that really blew me away. God said all people on earth will be blessed because of you. Now how could that be? How could one life in this world bring blessing to all people? I just couldn’t understand that. Later God spoke to me again and he made it clear that this blessing was going to come through a son. And that seemed absolutely crazy to me because Sarah and I didn’t have a family. We’d been trying to start a family for years, but absolutely nothing had happened. So when God spoke about us having a son, I laughed. I said, will a man have a child when he’s 100 years old and he’s got a wife who’s 90? Let me tell you something from my experience, never laugh at the promises of God. Because what God said is exactly what happened. When the little fellow was born, Sarah and I were full of joy. We called him Isaac, which means he laughs, which we thought was an appropriate name for a baby born to a couple of geriatrics. It soon became pretty obvious though that Isaac wasn’t going to change the world. I mean, most people cannot name a single thing that Isaac accomplished in his life, can you? So we began to think over time that maybe God’s blessing to the world would come through my grandchildren. I know some of you dote on your grandchildren. You want to have met mine. Boy, these two lads were a pair of rascals. The older one was a wild kid. You didn’t want to get on the wrong side of his temper. The younger one they called Jacob and he was as slippery as an eel. That boy could lie to your face without blinking an eye. In fact, he told so many lies it was very hard to know when he was telling the truth. I said to Sarah, where in the world does he get that from? And she just gave me one of her withering looks. Anyway, it didn’t take me long to figure out that neither of them were going to bring blessing to the world. And then I died. You’re listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith and Abraham Story, part of our series Christmas Stories. And it’s looking at the Christmas story from the perspective of different biblical characters. And today it’s Abraham. And if you’ve missed any of the series, come online to our website, openthebible.org.uk. And there you can catch up with any messages that you might have missed or want to listen to again. Back to the message now. Here’s Colin. Well, Matthew takes up the story at the beginning of your New Testament. He says that there were 14 generations from me till the time of David. David. Now, there’s a son I was really proud of, at least most of the time. And then another 14 generations from David until the exile. What a miserable business that was. And then another 14 generations from the time of the exile until the coming of the Christ. That is the one who God had promised to me. Now here’s what you need to understand about him. He was different from any of my other descendants. You look at the list of them there in Matthew and chapter one, I tell you what a family tree. There are a bunch of rascals in that list, I’ll tell you. But he was different. I said to Sarah, they all came from us, but he came to us. Thank God he didn’t have my old nature like all the others did. See, that’s why he was born of a virgin. The 42 generations that came after me gave clear evidence to you and to everybody else that nobody that was coming from my seed could actually fulfill the promise of God. No, the son of God did not come from us, he came to us. And the miracle of grace was that he was born into my line. Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed this, but when he came, one of the greatest conflicts of his life was an argument that was mainly about me. In fact, the folks who opposed Jesus used my name, can you believe this, they used my name to try and renounce him. Can you imagine what that was like for me? John records this story in chapter eight of his gospel, and you can check it out there if you want to. It all began when Jesus said the most amazing thing. He said, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never be in darkness, but will always have the light of life. Well, the Pharisees who were listening to him didn’t like that, and so they began to challenge him. What right did he have to talk like this and to say these things? Jesus began to speak about his father. He said, I stand with the father who sent me, but they didn’t understand what he was saying about his father, and so he said to them, when you have lifted up the son of man, that was the name Jesus liked to use to refer to himself, when you’ve lifted up the son of man, then you will know that I am the one that I claim to be. Well, some folks started to believe on him as he was speaking to them, and Jesus said to them, if you hold to my teaching, you will really be my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. Now you only needed to say the word free, and that one really got them going, rather like I hear the word freedom gets you going in your country as well. It really annoyed them that Jesus was suggesting that somehow they weren’t free. They said, we’re Abraham’s descendants. Well, when they said that, it got my attention, you can imagine. We’ve never been the slaves of anybody, they said, which made me nearly fall off my chair. Had they forgotten the 400 years of slavery in Egypt? What about the 70 years in exile, and what did they think was going on with the Roman army right outside the temple where they were speaking? We’ve never been slaves of anybody. Of course, Jesus was talking about a deeper kind of slavery. I tell you the truth, he said, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. I’ll tell you, the 42 generations that came after me, there wasn’t a single one who was without sin until he came. And he said, if the son of God sets you free, then you will be free indeed. Well, the crowd was getting really worked up about this. They began to appeal to me again. Abraham is our father, they said, as if that would make you free from sin. Isn’t it interesting how people get all worked up about race? As if the family or the country you were born into could somehow change or define your relationship with God. I wanted to shout down to them, don’t say Abraham’s our father, Abraham needed a savior and so do you. But of course, they couldn’t hear me. Then Jesus said something that really pushed them over the edge. He said, I tell you the truth, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death. I’ll tell you, I was smiling when he said that because I’m the living proof of it. Here I was, someone who had lived centuries before and had died, and along with all the others with me, we were rejoicing in the Lord. But the crowd went wild. Now we know you’re demon possessed, someone said, demon possessed? Abraham died, they said, and you say that if anyone keeps your word, they will never see death. Do you think you’re greater than Abraham? I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I wanted to shout down, of course he’s greater than me, but they couldn’t hear that. And then Jesus said to them, your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day. He saw it and rejoiced in it. And then he said, I tell you the truth, before Abraham was, I am. The son of God whose glory had appeared to me was now standing in the flesh before them. And do you know what they did? They picked up stones to kill him. But Jesus’ time had not yet come. He slipped away from that crowd. But I’ll tell you when his time did come, his death was much worse than stoning. I can’t tell you what it was like for me to watch the suffering of the one who had been promised, the one whose glory appeared to me. But he was arrested, and he was condemned, and he was scourged, and they spat on him, and he was nailed, and he was crucified. I’ll tell you, my mind went back to a story you might have heard about me. God had told me to take my son Isaac up a mountain called Moriah and sacrifice him there. I can’t tell you what agonies I went through. But when the moment came, God intervened. And he said, don’t lay a hand on that boy. Don’t do anything to him. And I looked up, and there was a ram caught in a bush. God provided a sacrifice to save my son’s life and mine as well. So I called that place the Lord Will Provide. Now here’s the amazing thing. The one who called to me from heaven and saved my son’s life and mine, I was now watching him hanging on a cross, becoming the sacrifice God provided in my place. God spared my son, but he did not spare his own son, but gave him up freely for all of you. You often think about what it costs the Son of God to give himself for you. I often think about what it cost God the Father to give his Son for you. When he died, there was silence in heaven. But that’s not the end of the story. Jesus said, no one takes my life from me. I have the power to lay it down, and I have the power to take it up again. And on the third day, he burst out of the grave, triumphing over death. No wonder he said, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death. The sting of death is sin. And the power of sin is that we have broken God’s law. But thanks be to God. He gives us victory through Jesus Christ, our Lord. See, Jesus did not come to join his people in our sins, like all of the 42 generations that came after me and have ever lived since him. No, he came to save his people from our sins, and from death, and from hell, and to give us life in his presence forever. And that is the promise of the gospel. You know, Jesus said something else about me that’s very important. He said this, many people, he said, will come from the east and from the west. And he said these folks from the east and the west would take their places at the feast with Isaac, Jacob, and me in the kingdom of heaven. Don’t you love that? Many from the west. You’re about as far west from where I lived as you can go. That means many from among you will be at the feast with me and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. And I hope that I will be seeing you there. And then Jesus said something else about me to those who rejected him. He said that they would see Isaac, and they would see Jacob, and they would see me, feasting in the kingdom of heaven, but they themselves would be thrown outside. I hope that won’t be true of any of you. Let me tell you in this last moment how you can be sure that you will be with me in that great feast that launches the eternal joy of life that is promised through Jesus Christ. I want you to understand this clearly, that I lived 2,000 years before him. You guys lived 2,000 years after him. But we are saved in exactly the same way. Paul describes how that happened for me, and it’s exactly the same for you. Here’s what he says. You can check this out in Romans in chapter 4. He said, Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. Here’s what that means. Faith is the way in which Christ’s death becomes my righteousness. It is by faith that what Jesus Christ accomplished on the cross was applied to me. It is by faith that what Jesus accomplished on the cross is applied to you, so that we might be brought into a right relationship with God. So I was a sinner. By faith, what he did on the cross is applied to me, so that I in him am counted righteous before God. That’s what God did for me. That’s what he did for Isaac. That’s what he did for Jacob. And that is what God will do for all who believe in his son, Jesus Christ. I trusted Jesus looking forward to him. You must trust this same Jesus looking back to him, the one who came for you, who died for you, and who rose again for you. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and his righteousness will be yours. My Savior will be yours. And together for all eternity, we will share the blessing of God in his presence. You’ve been listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith and Abraham Story, one of our series, Christmas Stories. And if you missed any of the series, why not come online to our website, openthebible.org.uk, and catch up or go back and listen again to any of the messages. Open the Bible is supported entirely by our listeners, and we’re very grateful for your support. If you’re thinking of setting up a new gift in support of Open the Bible, in the amount of five pounds per month or more, we’d love to thank you by sending you a gift. It’s a book called Value of Vision. It’s a book on prayer with an opportunity to learn from great Christians of the past about how to pray. People like John Bunyan, Charles Spurgeon, Thomas Watson, Isaac Watts, and others. The book has different areas of prayer confession, how to bring our needs to God, how to praise him, and how to pray for the needs of others and more. The book is thoroughly recommended by Pastor Colin Smith, and we’d love to send you a copy if you’re considering setting up a new donation to Open the Bible in the amount of five pounds per month or more. Full details of the offer on our website. Also on the website, you’ll find Open the Bible Daily. This is a series of short two to three minute reflections based on the teaching of Pastor Colin Smith and read in the UK by Sue McLeish. Many of our listeners are telling us it’s a great way to start each day. You can find that on the website, openthebible.org.uk. For Open the Bible and Pastor Colin Smith, I’m David Pick, and thank you for being with us today, and we hope to see you again soon. One man’s failure led to death, but another man’s victory leads to life for many. Find out how next time on Open the Bible.