HOW GOD FILLED
THE VACANCY
August 5, 2001
pm
MF Blume
Genesis 23:1-2 And Sarah was an hundred
and seven and twenty years old: these were the years of the life of Sarah.
And Sarah
died in Kirjatharba; the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan: and Abraham
came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her.
Genesis 23:15-20 My lord, hearken unto
me: the land is worth four hundred shekels of silver; what is that betwixt
me and thee? bury therefore thy dead. And Abraham hearkened unto Ephron;
and Abraham weighed to Ephron the silver, which he had named in the audience
of the sons of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver, current money with
the merchant. And the field of Ephron, which was
in Machpelah, which was before Mamre, the field, and the cave which was
therein, and all the trees that were in the field, that were in all the
borders round about, were made sure Unto Abraham for a possession in
the presence of the children of Heth, before all that went in at the gate
of his city. And after this, Abraham buried Sarah
his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah before Mamre: the same is
Hebron in the land of Canaan. And the field, and the cave that
is therein, were made sure unto Abraham for a possession of a buryingplace
by the sons of Heth.
Matthew 13:44 Again, the kingdom of
heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found,
he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth
that field.
Abram, the
father of the faithful, has a life history that parallels the overall plan
of God from Genesis to Revelation.
- Let us follow his
life story considering Isaac and Sarah, also, in order to show the wonderful
plan of salvation.
Isaac was born of Abram and
Sarah in Genesis 21.
- In Genesis 23 Sarah
died.
- Throughout the 23rd
chapter, we read much detail of Abram's possession of a field in which was
a burial place he sought to purchase for his family.
- The entire field was
to be purchased since it contained the burial place.
Jesus said the Kingdom of God is like a man who finds a treasure in a
field and buys the entire field to obtain the treasure.
This is a pattern showing the plan of salvation.
Sarah's death parallels the spiritual death of mankind when Adam and Eve
disobeyed God's word and brought death into the world.
Genesis 2:16-17 And the LORD God commanded
the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that
thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
Man died in the Garden.
- So God set out to
have a new man.
- All humanity born
since Adam were born dead... and are walking dead people.
Ephesians 2:1 And you hath he quickened,
who were dead in trespasses and sins;
God set out to put away all the dead humanity and then get himself a
new humanity.
Abram's wife, Sarah, depicts the human race as the Bride of God, so to
speak.
- God sought to fill
Adam with His Spirit through the means of the eating of the fruit of Life.
- And God would reproduce
His nature through mankind's actions y actually indwelling man and living
through man.
- God set out to come
into union with mankind by His Spirit indwelling mankind.
- This is similar
to Abram marrying Sarah and desiring to bear sons and daughters.
When Sarah died, Abram insisted on paying for a burying place.
- A price had to be
paid.
- Throughout chapter
23, the people who owned the land did not want to make Abram buy it, but
sought to simply give it to him.
- But Abram would
not take it without paying for it.
- Regardless of the
charity of the owners, who was to say in years to come whether the descendants
of the owners would not bury their own dead there, too?
- And who could say
that there would not arise trouble contesting the right Abram had to the
field?
- So Abram sought
to buy it that it never be contested.
- And the payment
would also make it sure.
The place of burial represents
the means by which God chose to save mankind.
- The cross and the
burial of Jesus Christ.
The blood of Jesus was a price
God paid in order to save mankind and make salvation sure!
- We stand on the
Blood of Jesus whenever the devil comes to contest our salvation.
Like the kingdom of God compared
to the man buying an entire field to obtain the treasure, the place of death
in Christ through the cross was a treasure to God!
- The Garden was the
place where God placed man in hopes of man becoming His place of indwelling.
- And when mankind
died, the garden became vacant.
- He lost His love,
mankind.
- Mankind is God's
greatest love.
- Man was made in
His image!
In the same chapter as the parable
of the treasure in the field, the Bible tells us in a parable that the FIELD
IS THE WORLD.
Matthew 13:38 The field is the world;
In the world, God would do a
work.
- In the parable
of the tares and the wheat the field is said to be the world.
- In thinking of
that parable, we can see that the treasure is the wheat.
- Jesus died for
the entire world.
- The wheat are
those who accept Him, and the tares are people who are insincere and are
false believers.
- Jesus died for
the tares and the wheat, though only the wheat will accept that salvation.
Abram's treasure was the burying
place of Sarah.
- So he purchased
the entire field to obtain it.
Through the cross, God had the
dead put away.
- A burying place
is a removal of the dead.
Genesis 23:4 I am a stranger and
a sojourner with you: give me a possession of a buryingplace with you, that
I may bury my dead out of my sight.
When mankind died, God's heart
was broken and the Garden was made vacant.
- A plan was made
to fill the vacancy and obtain a bride for the Lord.
- Through the
cross Adam is crucified.
- The old man
is removed.
- When we were
born, we were born "in Adam."
- All in Adam
shall die.
- And the only
way to "exit" Adam from whom we were born is to do die.
- And Christ's
death on the cross was accomplished as our deaths.
- We exit Adam
and enter Christ through the death of the cross.
- This cross of
Christ and His burial was the treasure God sought for.
- He wanted a
CHURCH through the cross, and the Church would be His greatest desire.
- So the death
and burial of Christ would remove Adam and bring about the new creation
and a new bride, making that place of death God's treasure.
Romans 6:3 Know ye not, that so
many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?
We are baptized into Christ's
death.
- Into the place
of death.
- His treasure
in all this world is the means by which He obtains for Himself His Church.
In the tomb of Christ, his
buryingplace, sinners would be put away through Christ's death and made
into new creatures.
- His death
is the central point of it all.
- The old must
be removed in order to obtain the new.
A price had to be paid in order
to see this accomplished.
Ephron insisted that Abram not pay for the buryingplace.
- It was necessary,
though.
- It may seem
odd to you that God had to pay a price, but it does make perfect sense.
- We owed a
debt due to our sin.
- The soul that
sins must die.
- So God insisted
on making the payment.
Genesis 49:29-32
And he
charged them, and said unto them, I am to be gathered unto my people: bury
me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite,
In the cave that is in the field of
Machpelah, which is before Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought
with the field of Ephron the Hittite for a possession of a buryingplace.
There they buried Abraham and Sarah
his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried
Leah. The
purchase of the field and of the cave that is therein was from the children
of Heth.
We read that all the patriarchs
used this buryingplace after Sarah was first buried there.
- Only those
in the family were buried there.
- Nobody else
would be buried there.
- Abraham
became the beginning of a new nation.
Galatians 6:15 For in Christ Jesus
neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature.
All that matters in this world
in God's eyes is whether we are new creatures or not.
- In this
buryingplace of Machpelah, only the offspring of the woman Sarah were buried.
Genesis 23:20 And the field, and
the cave that is therein, were made sure unto Abraham for a possession of
a buryingplace by the sons of Heth.
Abram's payment made it sure.
The name Machpelah means "double."
- This
reminds us of the truth of the dual deaths of Christ and each of us, who
were baptized into Jesus Christ's death.
Machpelah was in Hebron.
- The
name Hebron means "association".
- We identify
His deaths as our deaths.
- We associate
with His death.
- As believers,
we must make this association in our hearts and understandings.
- This
is the entire beauty about the whole picture of Christ's death.
- Its
what makes it God's treasure.
The man in the parable of the
treasure sold all he had in order to purchase the field.
- Christ
gave His entire life for our salvation.
John 15:13 Greater love hath no
man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
John 12:31-33 Now is the judgment
of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted
up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. This he said, signifying
what death he should die.
He drew all men into the potential
for salvation through His death.
- And
all the while He knew only some would be saved.
- The
entire field was purchased for the treasure.
- The
treasure would be those in this world who would be saved through the cross.
We leave Genesis 23 and the
story of the field in Machpelah, and come to chapter 24 where THE BRIDE
FOR THE SON IS SOUGHT.
- Eve
died in the Garden.
- That
special place of the Bride became vacant.
Let's jump ahead and note
what occurred after Rebekah married Isaac.
Genesis 24:67 And Isaac brought
her into his mother Sarah's tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife;
and he loved her: and Isaac was comforted after his mother's death.
Sarah's vacant tent became
occupied once again with the bride of the son, Issac.
- Through the son, Isaac, the restoration
of an occupied tent of the bride took place.
Genesis 24:3-4 And I will make thee
swear by the LORD, the God of heaven, and the God of the earth, that thou
shalt not take a wife unto my son of the daughters of the Canaanites, among
whom I dwell: But thou shalt go unto my country,
and to my kindred, and take a wife unto my son Isaac.
Genesis 24:15 And it came to pass,
before he had done speaking, that, behold, Rebekah came out, who was born
to Bethuel, son of Milcah, the wife of Nahor, Abraham's brother, with her
pitcher upon her shoulder.
Genesis 24:61-63 And Rebekah arose,
and her damsels, and they rode upon the camels, and followed the man: and
the servant took Rebekah, and went his way. And Isaac came from the way
of the well Lahairoi; for he dwelt in the south country.
And Isaac went out to meditate in
the field at the eventide: and he lifted up his eyes, and saw, and, behold,
the camels were coming.
Genesis 24:65 For she had said
unto the servant, What man is this that walketh in the field to meet us?
And the servant had said, It is my master: therefore she took a vail, and
covered herself.
In the field, the same field
where the tomb was purchased, the new bride removed her veil.
The Garden is the place of the Bride for relationship with the Lord.
- Its the realm in the world where God
chose to walk with man in the Spirit.
"The cool of the day" literally
means the "spirit of the day".
- It represents the realm of walking
in the Spirit.
Jesus died...
Matthew 27:50 Jesus, when he had
cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.
And at the time of His death
and in the location of His death...
Matthew 27:51 And, behold, the
veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the
earth did quake, and the rocks rent;
The veil was removed.
We find that the Garden of Eden had an entrance at the east side.
- There, God placed cherubims to block
the way.
- In the Tabernacle the Most Holy Place
represented this Garden.
- And at the entrance to the Most Holy
Place, cherubims were found embroidered in a veil that blocked the way.
- So when Christ died, the veil entrance
to the Garden that blocked entry was removed.
- And that caused the Garden that was
vacant to once again be open for occupying.
Removal of Veils in marriage
represent the removal of a barrier that separates a man and woman from becoming
one flesh.
- Union occurs when the veil, so to speak,
is removed.
- Intimacy occurs.
1 Corinthians 6:16-17
What? know ye not that he which is joined
to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh. But he that is joined
unto the Lord is one spirit.
Union of male and female represents
the union of God's Spirit with our spirits.
- So we become a Bride of Christ.
Through the Son, Isaac, the
vacant tent would be filled again.
- Through the Son of God, Christ, the
vacant Garden would be filled again.
At the cross, we experience
the intimacy of union to Christ's death, causing new birth to occur.
- Never would a stranger be buried.
- Only those of the family.
- That is the reason for the payment.