Caption transcript for Divine Deliverance (2020): “Abraham” (1/11)

• 00:00 ♪♪♪
• 00:03 male announcer: Welcome to "Our Jewish Roots,"
• 00:06 with insightful Bible teaching by Dr. Jeffrey Seif.
• 00:09 In this program we see how a journey into an unforeseen
• 00:11 future began with a step of faith,
• 00:14 today on divine deliverance.
• 00:21 announcer: From the beginning,
• 00:22 our creator revealed his will to the common man.
• 00:26 Individuals listened to his call and responded in obedience.
• 00:32 From the first Hebrew, Avraham, to the culmination of salvation
• 00:36 and Messiah himself, the Lord faithfully intervenes
• 00:41 with his divine deliverance.
• 00:53 David Hart: We are so glad you've joined us today.
• 00:54 I'm David Hart.
• 00:56 Kirsten Hart: I'm Kirsten Hart.
• 00:57 Jeffrey Seif: I am Jeffrey Seif, and we are in for a treat.
• 01:02 Deliverance.
• 01:03 Anybody need any of that?
• 01:05 Kirsten: All the time, and it's divine deliverance.
• 01:08 So we're looking at many different prototypes, yes,
• 01:11 of Messiah and you end with Messiah.
• 01:14 He was the ultimate divine Deliverer.
• 01:16 Jeffrey: That's true, and he's here for us today.
• 01:18 People worry a little because of circumstance,
• 01:21 but deliverance has been around for a few thousand years.
• 01:23 It's going to be around for a few more.
• 01:25 Kirsten: And we're starting with Abraham today.
• 01:27 Jeffrey: Yes.
• 01:28 David: You're not just teaching today,
• 01:29 but we feel your passion in this series.
• 01:32 We're excited about it.
• 01:33 Jeffrey: Well, thank you.
• 01:35 It's just really hard to mess this stuff up;
• 01:36 to go into the Bible, look at these noteworthies.
• 01:37 I know that you are really going to be blessed.
• 01:40 Not that I'm a blessing or we're a blessing, but--
• 01:41 oh, for goodness sake, you know,
• 01:43 just these Bible characters, their story is worth hearing.
• 01:46 David: That's right.
• 01:47 Right now let's go to our dramatic reenactment
• 01:49 where Abraham enters the land of Canaan.
• 02:04 Sarai: [speaking in Hebrew]
• 02:06 Abram: [speaking in Hebrew]
• 02:10 Sarai: [speaking in Hebrew]
• 02:12 Abram: [speaking in Hebrew]
• 02:17 Sarai: [speaking in Hebrew]
• 02:25 Abram: [speaking in Hebrew]
• 03:11 announcer: It had been a long journey starting in Ur,
• 03:15 and Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his brother's son
• 03:20 and they followed the banks of the Euphrates River,
• 03:24 migrating northwest past Babylon to Haran.
• 03:29 And now heading south into Canaan,
• 03:31 Abram stops in Bethel, where he builds an altar
• 03:35 and calls upon the Lord.
• 03:46 Abram: [speaking in Hebrew]
• 03:49 Lot: [speaking in Hebrew]
• 03:56 Abram: [speaking in Hebrew]
• 04:31 Jeffrey: [speaking in Hebrew]
• 04:33 And he said, [speaking in Hebrew]
• 04:39 the Lord, [speaking in Hebrew]
• 04:42 to Abram, [speaking in Hebrew]
• 04:44 "Go. Go."
• 04:46 And with that, Avraham left a place and he went to a place.
• 04:51 The word Hebrew, by the way, comes from a word ibru,
• 04:54 which means beyond the river.
• 04:56 He was prompted to take a journey,
• 04:58 and in so doing became the father of all
• 05:01 who take a journey by faith.
• 05:10 Jeffrey: In so many ways, like him, we who walk by faith
• 05:15 roll the dice against an uncertain future.
• 05:18 I say that because Avraham went to a world he knew not of,
• 05:22 hadn't been there before; driven in effect by an impulse,
• 05:28 an impulse that prompted him to begin in so many ways
• 05:32 the story of deliverance.
• 05:37 God's plan interestingly inhabits the mind and the heart
• 05:41 of a man, and he's beckoned to go forth and inhabit and develop
• 05:46 a nation, a specific place.
• 05:49 It's interesting, it seems to me.
• 05:51 Again, it's a popular text in Genesis 12.
• 05:54 The Lord says to him, "Get going.
• 05:57 Go out from your land."
• 05:59 You go out from a place, which is very,
• 06:02 very, very hard to do.
• 06:04 We tend to hold on to security.
• 06:08 Throwing the dice against an uncertain future,
• 06:10 taking leave and going on a journey is an act,
• 06:14 particularly in a time in the ancient world where the average
• 06:17 person didn't travel 75 miles from their place of birth
• 06:21 in the course of a lifetime.
• 06:24 Imagine that.
• 06:25 It's hard to retro jack back into the ancient world because
• 06:29 we get around, we travel, but Avraham took that leap.
• 06:34 He goes to a place he doesn't have kinfolk.
• 06:37 We don't have pre-established webs of relationship.
• 06:40 What do we have?
• 06:42 We have a voice, and that voice beckons him onward.
• 06:47 People talk about the call of God.
• 06:50 We hear that vocatio in Latin, the voice.
• 06:54 And it's where we get the word vocation.
• 06:57 We feel inclined to do something with our life
• 06:59 because we hear a voice.
• 07:02 What's interesting, by the way, we hear God leading Avraham
• 07:06 to a place, to some space, but we see as well in the literature
• 07:10 that Avraham erects a mizbeach in Hebrew, an altar we call it.
• 07:17 It's interesting in the world today in popular English
• 07:21 we talk about altar calls; you know, being called to the altar,
• 07:25 and we think that's just classical Christian language.
• 07:28 Well, to be sure, it is language of deliverance that is employed
• 07:34 in a Christian context.
• 07:35 But what if--like so much else of what we call Christian,
• 07:40 what if we have roots in the Jews?
• 07:45 We're all about looking at the good news through the eyes
• 07:48 of the Jews, and here we begin the story of deliverance
• 07:53 by noting a man who hears God's voice.
• 07:57 His life and circumstances are transformed in the process,
• 08:02 and he goes on a journey and he finds an altar along the way.
• 08:07 May that not just be his story, but may it be our story as well.
• 08:18 announcer: And the Lord said unto Abram,
• 08:20 "Lift up thine eyes and look from the place where thou art
• 08:24 northward and southward and eastward and westward;
• 08:31 for all the land which thou seest,
• 08:34 to thee will I give it unto thy seed forever."
• 08:58 Abram: [speaking in Hebrew]
• 09:22 Jeffrey: Secular people have trouble understandably so
• 09:25 with the language, "And God told me."
• 09:27 I mean, is he yelling from heaven?
• 09:29 What does that actually mean?
• 09:31 Those that hear the voice of God,
• 09:33 do the eardrums vibrate?
• 09:35 The word secular comes from the Latin word meaning of this age,
• 09:39 and I understand that there can be trouble with understanding
• 09:42 what the Jews referred to as bat kol,
• 09:45 the daughter of the voice; or to use New Testament language,
• 09:49 that still small voice.
• 09:52 Well, the secular people have trouble with that,
• 09:57 but religious people have trouble with this.
• 10:01 When we look in the Bible, people have an understanding
• 10:05 of walking by faith, yes, but here it's to go to the land
• 10:11 that I will show you.
• 10:13 He says at the end of the verse, he says--the Lord says
• 10:16 that I will show you a particular place,
• 10:19 land specifically.
• 10:23 People of faith--of the Christian faith have trouble
• 10:26 understanding that when we read the Hebrew Bible,
• 10:29 there is a territorial dimension to it.
• 10:34 What do I mean by that?
• 10:36 Well, never mind me on the front end.
• 10:38 Professor W.D. Davies at Duke University spoke
• 10:42 of the territorial dimension to the Old Testament promise,
• 10:47 that Avraham is promised a place, land, boundaries.
• 10:53 Whereas by way of contradistinction to
• 10:55 the newer testament, believers are told that we get our reward,
• 10:58 the place that we're led to is in heaven.
• 11:00 That our common wealth is there.
• 11:03 But we look in the Hebrew Bible, the common wealth is here
• 11:07 to an actual place, to a space.
• 11:10 People that have trouble with that, I think,
• 11:13 would do well to consider that even if you don't
• 11:16 understand it we should abide it because it is so very explicit
• 11:20 in the literature, which is one reason why it makes no sense
• 11:25 to me to argue that the Jews were not given the Promised Land
• 11:29 because it's so very, very explicit.
• 11:32 It's not tacit, it's not inferred, it is explicit.
• 11:36 Beyond that, another reason why it doesn't make sense to me
• 11:39 is the truth of the matter is redemption has to inhabit space.
• 11:46 God shows himself in the world by what he does in the world
• 11:50 so people can see his power and purpose is attested
• 11:55 through what he does with the people in a land.
• 11:58 It's not just lofty religious principles.
• 12:02 And for those that might have trouble with that,
• 12:04 and I know that a lot of people who name the name of the Lord
• 12:07 do, it's the same that's true in the newer testament.
• 12:10 That is to say the Holy Spirit enters into a person and makes
• 12:16 God's will in ways known through what the divine inhabits.
• 12:22 People can see deliverance from someone who's been delivered.
• 12:25 Explicitly, the Lord says in the Johannine gospel,
• 12:29 "The wind blows where it wills and you hear the sound of it,
• 12:32 but you don't know when it goes or whether it goes.
• 12:35 So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit."
• 12:39 We can see that by virtue of God taking residence in,
• 12:43 people can see transformation, power,
• 12:47 or kind of newness and be beckoned, perhaps,
• 12:51 to seek out the source themselves.
• 12:56 We live in a world today with so many problems.
• 12:59 It's such a bad news world.
• 13:01 The question is, is there any good news?
• 13:04 Can God do something in the world?
• 13:06 We do well to tell our story of what he's done in our world,
• 13:10 what he's led us to, and we give voice to that and we tell
• 13:14 people, "The God who led me, the God who saved me,
• 13:20 the God who delivered me, the God who's manifest in the earth
• 13:23 and in my earth, you know what?
• 13:25 He can show himself powerful in yours."
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• 14:40 Right now, let's continue with Abraham's story as he receives
• 14:44 a promising word from a vision.
• 14:49 announcer: After these things,
• 14:50 the Word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision, saying,
• 14:54 "Fear not, Abram. I am thy shield.
• 14:59 Your reward will be exceedingly great."
• 15:04 Abram: [speaking in Hebrew]
• 15:14 Sarai: [speaking in Hebrew]
• 15:23 Abram: [speaking in Hebrew]
• 15:38 Abram: [speaking in Hebrew]
• 15:48 ♪♪♪
• 15:56 Jeffrey: She wasn't a happy camper now, was she?
• 16:02 I get it.
• 16:03 Truth be known.
• 16:05 Things didn't seem to be working out.
• 16:09 It's embarrassing too to have a husband whose name is father
• 16:12 of the nation, but he doesn't seem to be getting on
• 16:16 with the nation-making business.
• 16:20 In antiquity, particularly the women
• 16:22 would have borne scorn for that.
• 16:24 It would be construed as some kind of curse.
• 16:26 Why is she getting in the way of all this all things being equal?
• 16:30 Blessing is attested among other things through bearing children,
• 16:36 and year after year she came up with nothing.
• 16:43 We're told in verse 15-- chapter 15, rather,
• 16:47 the Lord comes to Avraham in a vision.
• 16:51 People that have trouble with Abram hearing God's voice
• 16:55 similarly can say, "What do you mean he had a vision?
• 16:58 This is stuff--people are in mental hospital wards
• 17:01 for hearing voices and seeing visions."
• 17:06 I should say, by the way, not that I feel particularly
• 17:08 compelled to offer an apologetic for that.
• 17:10 If you look at Jesus, he was a storyteller,
• 17:13 and stories in effect cast visions on the mind.
• 17:17 They paint on the mind so people can see.
• 17:20 Now, he has a vision wherein he hears the Lord saying,
• 17:25 "Don't fear."
• 17:27 And he says, "I will be your great reward."
• 17:31 It's very interesting.
• 17:33 Well, Avraham is promised that there will in effect be
• 17:38 a payday; that is, that things are going to work out.
• 17:43 It might not seem so, but God's power is made manifest
• 17:49 in human weakness.
• 17:52 He's beckoned out.
• 17:53 He looks at the heavens.
• 17:55 Majestic are they.
• 17:57 City dwellers don't see them so much.
• 17:59 Everything is just obfuscated.
• 18:01 It's hidden behind clouds and smog.
• 18:04 Well, Avraham is out there and he hears that voice,
• 18:10 and that voice says, "So will your descendants be,"
• 18:16 as big of all of that.
• 18:20 And what happens?
• 18:21 We're told that Avraham, he believed it.
• 18:25 Now, the word in Hebrew is the word omaine.
• 18:29 And church folks say, "Amen, brother.
• 18:31 You know, that's good preaching.
• 18:33 I think that's true."
• 18:34 And oftentimes to say amen to something is,
• 18:37 "Yes, that's my understanding. Amen.
• 18:39 I believe that doctrine.
• 18:41 I believe that truth."
• 18:43 Well, say amen to that; but this isn't just believing a doctrine,
• 18:48 this is believing at the core.
• 18:51 You know, faith is the assurance of things hoped for.
• 18:55 It's the conviction of things not seen.
• 19:00 A lot of times people think that faith and promises,
• 19:02 all that's the stuff of younger people.
• 19:05 These guys have been on Social Security for a few years by now.
• 19:09 They have their AARP card.
• 19:13 Sometimes as we get older-- and I'm 62.
• 19:16 I'm talking about myself, not you.
• 19:18 We tend to think that God's promises and blessings
• 19:21 and newness, it comes to the young.
• 19:24 Well, if that's what you're thinking,
• 19:26 consider that even for you God can conceivably have a reward.
• 19:33 What happened here is Avraham believed that.
• 19:37 He amened it in Hebrew.
• 19:40 He said amen, and it was reckoned to him
• 19:43 as righteousness.
• 19:45 There's another Hebrew word for that,
• 19:47 tzedakah; to be righteous.
• 19:49 There's something cleansing, there's something religious,
• 19:54 there's something noteworthy when someone lays hold
• 19:58 of the promise and they believe it.
• 20:01 It clears away the clouds.
• 20:03 Oh, friends, would it be that we walk by faith and not
• 20:08 by circumstance and we then can enter into the hall of fame?
• 20:13 The author of Hebrews speaks of the faith walkers,
• 20:17 and our man Abraham and his wife Sarah are there in the list.
• 20:20 And may we join them to be part of the great cloud
• 20:24 of testimonies that give voice to the fact that God is
• 20:27 in the world and he brings about deliverance.
• 20:34 Kirsten: If there's a word for today--for today's program,
• 20:36 I would pick faith.
• 20:38 Am I off on that?
• 20:39 Jeffrey: No.
• 20:41 And if there's a word for today that's so necessary,
• 20:43 it's faith to believe God for the future.
• 20:46 Yes.
• 20:47 Kirsten: And walking by faith not by sight,
• 20:49 that's exactly what Abraham had to do and Sarai,
• 20:52 Sarah, had to do that walking into a new land
• 20:56 that they'd never experienced.
• 20:58 They didn't know where they were going.
• 20:59 Jeffrey: No.
• 21:01 And that's really tough when you think about it.
• 21:03 We like to know where we're going, but he didn't.
• 21:09 You know, he's just kind of reaching with uncertainty
• 21:12 into the future, but God knew where he was going.
• 21:14 Kirsten: And we talk about this all the time too with Abraham
• 21:17 and Isaac, to be told to sacrifice your son.
• 21:23 That was something that the other gods did.
• 21:25 They sacrificed children.
• 21:27 But this God, you know, God of the Hebrews--
• 21:29 the new Hebrews to do that, that's very strange request,
• 21:33 isn't it?
• 21:34 Jeffrey: It seems to me; yes, of course,
• 21:36 but it's a later story with Abraham, with Isaac.
• 21:38 But one of the things--the upshot of that is it clarifies
• 21:41 in the literature that Hebrews don't do that sort of thing
• 21:44 as distinct from others roundabout.
• 21:46 The way to play diet-- deity, rather,
• 21:49 in antiquity was to give us something special.
• 21:52 What can be more special than your own children?
• 21:54 But one of the things that is apparent in biblical literature
• 21:57 is God says, "No, that's not the way.
• 21:59 I will provide a sacrifice."
• 22:01 And isn't that the God's honest truth in the person of Yeshua?
• 22:04 David: I think faith is through this whole series
• 22:07 that you'll be teaching.
• 22:09 Who else will we be hearing about?
• 22:10 Jeffrey: Oh goodness, all these noteworthies in the Bible.
• 22:13 I mean, it's--Cecil B. DeMille said,
• 22:15 "Give me any two pages,
• 22:16 I can give you an epic motion picture."
• 22:18 And you're going to be seeing epic pictures,
• 22:20 by the way; Isaac and David and Moses and all these
• 22:23 noteworthies, and we're going to see how faith is
• 22:26 the scarlet thread--I'm thinking of what you're wearing,
• 22:29 by the way.
• 22:30 It's the scarlet thread that runs through the literature.
• 22:34 Kirsten: And they're prototypes, if you will, of Messiah that's--
• 22:37 they're each a little divine deliverer.
• 22:39 There's divine deliverance in each of the people
• 22:41 that you picked.
• 22:43 Jeffrey: Yeah, there surely is.
• 22:45 I think it's important to remember that God is
• 22:46 into the deliverance business, and that's so true for you,
• 22:51 for me, for we that--and it's not just saving our souls,
• 22:55 it's saving our lives.
• 22:56 And people fear.
• 22:58 I get that.
• 23:00 But as we open up the pages of biblical literature,
• 23:03 we see a good God who loves his people,
• 23:05 who makes a way as they reach into the future by faith.
• 23:10 David: It's from Avraham to Yeshua.
• 23:12 Yes.
• 23:13 We'll be right back.
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• 24:29 had much of his life.
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• 24:46 That makes a difference, doesn't it?
• 24:47 Jeffrey: It surely does.
• 24:49 And anytime someone walks by faith it makes a difference
• 24:52 in their life, and people of faith support faith works
• 24:56 and we want to thank you for that.
• 24:58 But to your point, by the way, Abraham lived a part of his life
• 25:02 in [speaking in Hebrew]
• 25:04 the land of Canaan, and we live a part of our lives--
• 25:07 as we read the Bible, people are already there intellectually,
• 25:09 emotionally, spiritually.
• 25:11 Why not materially?
• 25:12 That's a great way to get it all together before
• 25:15 we go meet our maker.
• 25:17 Kirsten: And next week--who are we learning about next week?
• 25:20 Jeffrey: Isaac.
• 25:21 Kirsten: The promised son.
• 25:22 Jeffrey: Good stuff to come.
• 25:24 David: It's great.
• 25:25 So we end our program today with a wonderful song by Marty Goetz
• 25:27 all about Abraham, but for now--
• 25:30 Jeffrey: Yes, as we always say, [speaking in Hebrew]
• 25:34 David: Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.
• 25:36 ♪♪♪
• 25:39 ♪ Unto my children of all generations ♪
• 25:43 ♪ everlasting Israel is our home ♪
• 25:55 ♪ It's a long way home to the Promised Land ♪
• 26:01 ♪ a journey of years through deserts of time feeling your ♪
• 26:07 ♪ hand on sand soaked with tears ♪
• 26:16 ♪ Out of the wilderness into your lights ♪
• 26:20 ♪ you have called me to walk in your way ♪
• 26:33 ♪ Lord, it's never easy ♪
• 26:35 ♪ No road in sight ♪
• 26:37 ♪ Steps I take believing every day ♪
• 26:49 ♪ And unto my children of all generations ♪
• 26:55 ♪ everlasting Israel is our home ♪♪
• 27:00 ♪♪♪
• 27:10 ♪♪♪
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• 28:04 ♪♪♪
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