Abraham - Ending Well

May it be said of us that we were faithful. We believed God. We're going to die in faith, we're going to die fruitful and serving the Lord the best we can with what he has given us. We're going to die in peace and in fullness, satisfied. We're going to leave behind a tent and an altar that'll be a blessing to others.

Father in heaven, we give thanks for our great Savior and for the great salvation we have through him. We're thankful for the word of God. Open our eyes to understand your word, open our hearts to love and receive your word, and may we be nourished and encouraged and helped today. I pray, Father, for our worldwide listening audience that your grace will be upon each listener. May each one hear the word of God and respond to it and bless and meet the needs that are in each life. I pray in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.

The life of faith is challenging, but our faith must not be in our experience, our strength, our wisdom; our faith must not be in the people around us. We thank God for all of these wonderful gifts. Our faith must be in God alone. And this is why, in the life of Abraham, you see the Lord occasionally knocking the props out from under Abraham. One minute he's in Ur of the Chaldees, and then God calls him to go to Canaan. He comes to Canaan, there's a famine. Goes down to Egypt—he shouldn't have done that. Comes back, gets re-established with the Lord again. Then he has some family problems, and then there are some international problems. Then he has some difficulty with the family again. Then the baby boy is born, Isaac comes into the family. What joy! And that joy is followed by the sorrow of having Hagar and Ishmael leave the family. And then there are some problems with the neighbors. And then God calls Abraham to his greatest test of all: offering Isaac upon the altar. Well, they come back from the mountain and they go down into the valley because Genesis 23 says Sarah died in Kirjath-arba, that is Hebron, in the land of Canaan.

We have followed Abraham in the school of faith for now 100 years. In Genesis 25, Abraham breathed his last and died in a good old age, an old man and full of years, and was gathered to his people. And his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah, which is before Mamre, in the field of Ephron the son of Zohar the Hittite, the field which Abraham purchased from the sons of Heth. There Abraham was buried, and Sarah his wife. And it came to pass after the death of Abraham that God blessed his son Isaac. At the age of 75, Abraham entered into the school of faith and for all of these years now, for 100 years, he has been walking by faith. Sometimes he made mistakes; we all do. Sometimes he disobeyed the Lord; we all do. But over the long extent of his life, he was a faithful man who trusted God and now he comes to that point where all of us are going to come, if the Lord doesn't return: Abraham dies.

Now some of the experiences that Abraham had you and I may not have. We'll never lead an army and go out and fight some kings. I don't know that God is going to ask us to do all of the things that Abraham did, but there is one thing Abraham did that all of us are going to do: he died. And when a person dies, you have two documents you're going to read: you're going to read the obituary and you're going to read the will. And that's what I want to do with Abraham. I want to read his obituary and then I want to read his will, examine his will, and let's find out how a man of faith dies.

Let's read his obituary. It says that he died. "Then Abraham breathed his last and died in a good old age, an old man and full of years, and was gathered to his people." Genesis 25:8. To begin with, Abraham died in faith. That's a good way to die; in fact, it's the only way to die. Hebrews 11:13: "These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, were assured of them, embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth." I imagine when Abraham left Ur of the Chaldees, some of his friends said he was crazy. "Where are you going, Abraham?" "I don't know, I'll know when I get there." "Do you have a map?" "No." "What is your forwarding address?" "We don't have one." He went out not knowing where he was going. He was going out by faith.

Well, he lived by faith and he died by faith. You see, you die the way you live. If you live in sin, you die in sin. If you live by faith, you die by faith. If you live in Christ, you die in Christ. "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord," says the book of Revelation. He died in faith. For 100 years, he lived by faith. Now how did he do it? A day at a time. If when Abraham departed from Ur and then departed from Haran and went to Canaan, if you had said to him, "Abraham, you've got 100 years ahead of you of walking with the Lord," he might have thrown up his hands and said, "Oh my, I can't do it." But you know, a day at a time, a step at a time, we can walk with the Lord.

I recall when our four children were young and we'd take off for a trip or a vacation, and you know how children are on the highway. And we'd no sooner leave the neighborhood and stop at the first stoplight than somebody would say, "Are we there?" You'd say, "No, we're not there. We've got a long trip ahead of us," and quietly one of the children would say, "Well, I'll never make it." But you do make it, a mile at a time, a step at a time, a day at a time. Oh, today you may be looking ahead and saying, "I'll never make it." Yes you will, a day at a time. Abraham died in faith. And you know, he discovered that all things had worked together for good. He discovered that God had kept every promise. He discovered that God didn't make one single mistake. Dr. Alexander Whyte, that great Scottish preacher in Edinburgh, used to say to his congregations, "Contemplate your deathbed." Oh, you say that sounds very morose, that sounds rather sad to do a thing like that. No, no, Dr. Whyte was not saying become very morose and very somber. No, he wasn't saying that at all. He was simply saying: so live that when you come to your deathbed you can look back without regrets. And Abraham did that. He died in faith.

Secondly, the word tells us he died in a good old age. I like that. A good old age, not a bad old age, a good old age. I read Psalm 92; it encourages me the older I become, the more I'm encouraged by Psalm 92:12. Now you ought to mark these verses in your Bible if you're one of the senior saints. Psalm 92:12: "The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree, he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Those who are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bear fruit in old age, they shall be fresh and flourishing, to declare that the Lord is upright; he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him." Now the psalmist is saying here that when we get older, if we're planted where we ought to be planted, we shall flourish. We won't dry up. I don't want to dry up when I get old. I want to be flourishing, I want to be fruitful. He says that they shall bear fruit in old age, they shall be fresh and flourishing. Now these are great characteristics. I want these for my own senior years. I don't want to become a cactus—a prickly kind of a cactus that everybody gets stuck by when they get near me. I don't want to be a tumbleweed blowing around. I want to be like the palm tree and like the cedar. I want to be planted, I want to be fruitful, I want to be fresh, I want to be flourishing, I want to be serving the Lord until he calls me home.

That's what happened to Abraham. It's interesting in Genesis 25, after Sarah died, Abraham married again. Abraham again took a wife and her name was Keturah. And in the next years, she bore six sons to him. You see, when God gave Abraham resurrection power in his body, that power stayed, and Abraham as an old man was able to beget children. He was fruitful, he was flourishing, and of course he died in a good old age. Now if you want to die in a good old age, you start living a good life for the Lord now. You are writing your obituary now, I am writing my obituary now. Death is not going to change anything. Getting older doesn't change anything. Old age does not create problems, it reveals problems that have been there for a long time. And God says to us today: look, I want you to be fat and flourishing and fruitful, I want you to be planted, I want you to be walking with me. Abraham died, notice please, and they buried him at Mamre. That means fatness. Hebron means fellowship. Oh, I want to die in the fellowship of the Lord and on my deathbed be able to look back and say God did something. Well, you start that now, don't you? You don't wait, you start right now.

He died in faith, he died in a good old age, he died in peace. You say how do you know that? Because Genesis 15 tells us so. God told Abraham how he was going to die. Genesis 15:15: "Now as for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried at a good old age." He died in peace at a good old age. How do you die in peace? Because you have peace with God, and you have the peace of God, and you are at peace with God's people and with God's providences. Oh, some people don't understand the peace of God. They think that when circumstances are all what they ought to be, then they're going to have peace. No, peace comes within. Real peace means the possession of adequate resources, and Abraham died in peace because he had faith in God. "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God." Romans 5:1. And "he believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness." Genesis 15:6. And righteousness and peace go together. When you've received the gift of God's righteousness, then you can live in peace and you can die in peace.

He died in faith, he died in a good old age, he died in peace, and he died in fullness. An old man, full of years. That's a Hebrew phrase that means satisfied. He died satisfied. Why is it that the older some people get, the more dissatisfied they become? Criticize the young people, criticize change in the world, criticize the pastor, the church—oh, we can get so set in our ways and become dissatisfied. And then we complain because nobody wants to visit us, nobody wants to talk to us. I can't blame them; all we do is criticize. Abraham wasn't like that. He died satisfied, content with God's will. Oh, what a wonderful way to die.

Well, we've read his obituary, and one day somebody may be reading our obituary. I hope that they can say of us, well, they died in faith. They trusted the Lord Jesus, they lived by faith, they died in faith. They died in a good old age. They were flourishing and fruitful and fresh. They never dried up and became brittle and harsh. They died in peace, they died satisfied. Oh, that's the way to die, and that's the way to live: to live by faith, to live a flourishing, fresh, fruitful life for the Lord, to live in peace, to live satisfied with his will.

Now let's examine the will that Abraham left behind. Genesis 25:5-6: "And Abraham gave all that he had to Isaac. But Abraham gave gifts to the sons of the concubines which Abraham had; and while he was still living he sent them eastward away from Isaac his son, to the country of the east." Now Abraham had a twofold wealth to distribute. Number one, gifts—and that was for those who were outside the covenant. Number two, an inheritance—that was to Isaac and his descendants who were inside the covenant. You'll recall in Genesis 21 that Abraham sent Ishmael away. You'll notice that Ishmael and Isaac met together in burying Abraham. Genesis 25:9: "his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah." Let's see, Isaac would have been 75 years old, Ishmael would have been 89 years old. Two opposite boys: they had the same father but different mothers, and Ishmael was outside the covenant and Isaac was inside the covenant, but death brings us together.

I've conducted many, many funerals, and at these funerals there have been saved family members and unsaved family members, and both of them weep. Death has a way of leveling us. Now I think that those who are saved weep as those who have hope, not as those who have no hope. But you know, when death comes into a family, it draws us all together. Isaac and Ishmael may have been enemies, I don't know, but they were drawn together at their father's grave. And we ought to love one another and comfort one another and be kind to one another, even to people who are outside the covenant, because death is a human experience. It's not a Christian experience; it's a human experience, and Isaac and Ishmael were able to get together as they buried their father in love.

Well, he gave gifts. Abraham gave gifts to those who are outside the covenant, but he gave his inheritance to Isaac. Isaac inherited everything from his father. And of course, it's in Isaac that the seed was called, not in Ishmael. And Isaac begat Jacob, and Jacob the 12 tribes of Israel, and then from the tribes of Israel came the Jewish nation and the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior. But Abraham also had spiritual wealth, not just material wealth. He had spiritual wealth. He certainly left behind a godly example. Genesis 18:19, the Lord Jesus had talked about that. Genesis 18:19: "For I have known him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice." Abraham was a good example as a father and as a spiritual leader. Oh, I would plead with the husbands and fathers to be priests in your home. I would plead with you to pray with your children, pray together with your family, read the word of God together.

Abraham left behind a godly example. He left behind his tent and his altar. Wherever Abraham went, you find the tent and the altar. And if you study the life of Isaac, you'll find that wherever he went, there was the tent and the altar. Abraham had no illusions about life; he lived in a tent. You live in a tent, I live in a tent. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5: "For we know that if this earthly tent of our tabernacle, this earthly house that we live in—it's a tabernacle—were taken down, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." He's talking about our future glorified body. The Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross, he was buried, he arose again the third day. We've trusted him as our Savior, and now we're looking forward to that time when we shall take down the tent and go to be with him. Rather, we would like to have him come and clothe us over with that glorious body from heaven.

Abraham had spiritual wealth that he left behind, and God blessed Isaac because of Abraham. And God blessed Jacob because of Abraham. And God blessed the people of Israel because of Abraham. Oh, here's a marvelous thing. Abraham is buried in the tomb right next to his beloved wife Sarah, and yet he's gone but the blessing goes on.

By the way, you and I today are blessed because of Abraham. Galatians 3:9: "So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham." Abraham is not just the father of the Jewish nation, he is the father of all who are believers. And we're saved the same way Abraham was saved: he was saved by faith. It's a marvelous thing, it's a marvelous thing to go to your grave and know that you're leaving spiritual blessing behind. Oh, what a tragedy it is when a person wastes life, wastes opportunity, wastes money, wastes his body, his mind, wastes all that God gives. Comes to the end and it's too late. Oh yes, they can be saved at the last minute; even the thief on the cross was saved. But what a tragedy to have a saved soul and a lost life. Oh, I'm glad people get saved at the last minute, but oh how wonderful it would be to have a life saved. Someone has said that deathbed conversions are like burning the candle down to the very end and then blowing the smoke in God's face. You've lived your own selfish life and then you die and you go to meet the Lord.

Let's live today as those who are writing our obituary. May it be said of us that we were faithful, we believed God. We're going to die in faith, we're going to die fruitful and serving the Lord the best we can with what he has given us. We're going to die in peace and in fullness, satisfied. We're going to make arrangements for our possessions to be used for the glory of God, and we're going to leave behind a godly example. We're going to leave behind a tent and an altar that'll be a blessing to others. The best thing for us to do is to start sending things on ahead. Witnessing to the lost so that when we get to heaven we'll meet people who were saved because like Abraham we walked by faith, we had a good testimony.

Let's pray together. Gracious Father in heaven, as we think about the possibility of one day dying, remind us, teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom. Thank you we don't have to be afraid of death, but Father we don't want to waste our lives so that death ends all of our opportunities. Like Abraham we want to keep on being a blessing, so make that possible in our lives and start today. I pray in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.