Happy Are the Meek

Matthew 5:5

"Blessed are the meek for the shall inherit the earth."  Matthew 5:5.  I always think that the book I'm studying at the present time is the most wonderful thing I've ever studied and I definitely feel that way about Matthew.  I don't know how messages we've given in Matthew, maybe 25 or so.  And they have been so exciting and so thrilling to me and now as we're looking at Chapter 5, the wonderful sermon of our Lord Jesus Christ called the Sermon on the Mount, I find myself literally overwhelmed by the truth that's in it.  I feel like when I come in here, you're seeing a tip of an iceberg because I can't even begin to touch all of the things that are happening in my heart and mind.  Day after day after day as I expose myself to the truth of this tremendous passage.

If I'm obedient to God, if I respond to the Holy Spirit as He wants me to respond in this study, I'm going to be a different person and that'll be refreshing to me and I'm sure to you also.  The statement that our Lord makes in verse, "Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth."  It was a shocking statement to the audience that heard Him say it.  In fact, all three Beatitudes, as they are known, are shocking.  The first two were shocking to the audience that sat on the hillside the day Jesus spoke.  Jesus called for things absolutely foreign to their thinking.  They knew how to be spiritually proud.  They knew how to be self-sufficient.  They knew how to play the pious role.  They knew about religion.  They were really good with form.  They thought they were the in group.  They thought they could survive on their own strength and their own wisdom and their own might and their own resources.

And they expected the Messiah, when He arrived, to say to them "I'm here to commend you for your great religiosity.  I'm here to commend you for your wonderful spirituality.  I'm hear to announce to you that God has looked down from heaven and He's very well pleased with you.  In fact, we can just go right on into the kingdom."  Very little change is necessary.  But our Lord opened up His ministry to them and said this in verse 3, "Blessed are the poor in Spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."  Not those who think they're righteous, but those who know they're sinners. 

"Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted."  Not those who are happy with themselves, but those who are sad about themselves.  "Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth."  Not those who are proud, but those who are humble.  They didn't understand this.  This isn't what they expected.  They had banked everything on their spirituality, on their pride.  And Jesus underminded it all the first time He spoke.  That He wanted a broken spirit.  He wanted a mourning heart.  He wanted humility that was necessary to enter His kingdom.

No self-righteousness, no spiritual pride, and when Jesus said, "Blessed are the meek," He must...if there were any people left unshocked, this must have done it.  "Blessed are the meek," I mean, that would be shocking to our society because we're not unlike they are.  We think the victory and the spoils belong to the strong see.  Go get it.  Grab all the gusto.  Macho, what a jolt to their thinking.

Let me set the scene for you.  A little over a half century before Jesus was born in 63 B.C., Pompi had annexed Palestine for Rome.  And thus Jewish independence came to an end.  And by the way that independence had been gained in a blood bath revolution called the Maccabean Revolution.  And they had fought to be free from Greece.  And it wasn't very long that they knew that freedom until they were under the bondage of the imperial power of Rome.

From then on from 63 B.C. on, the land was ruled partly through Herodian kings.  The Herodians were a family.  It's like a last name.  They were a family of kings appointed by Caesar.  And in addition to the Herodian kings and he gave the people in Palestine kings because they were big on kings, but in addition to that, he gave them procurators or governors, the most famous of whom is, to us, Pilate.  And so they were all this time under Roman domination of these puppet kings and the Herod family and these procurators and governors.  At the same time, virtually all other land with which the New Testament is concerned was also under the subjection of Rome.

And this was an oppressive sad day for Jewish people.  They literally despised this Roman oppression.  In fact, to be honest with you, they wouldn't even admit it.  When Jesus was talking to them in John 8, talking to the Jewish leaders, it was amazing, because he said to them, "you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free."  And they answered, "We are Abram's seed and were never in bondage to any man."  Pretty stupid statement.  They wouldn't even admit it that they were slaves to Rome.

We've never been in bondage to anybody they said.  They wouldn't even acknowledge it.  They were proud.  They despised the Roman yoke.  The whole story of Jesus then, you see, falls within the framework of a nation in bondage to Rome.  The shadow of Caesar literally dulls all of the light that scatters itself over the New Testament.  You see Caesar on every page.  And at the same time, now watch this, there was a movement in the hearts of the Jews to believe that the Messiah was coming.  There were some people who wouldn't experience death until He came.  Remember Simeon?  Nana?  There was the feeling that there was something about to happen.  The Messiah was about to come.  The kingdom of God would be established and the Old Testament was clear on this and there was this feeling that it was going to happen.  And then this individual called Jesus Christ arrived on the scene and he opened his mouth in Mark Chapter 1 and look what Mark tells us He said.

Mark 1:14, "Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God and saying," watch, "the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand.  Repent and believe the gospel of the good news."  And man, they got excited.  They had known this Roman domination and this Roman oppression.  And now all of a sudden here came a wonder worker.  A miracle worker, a man who spoke like never another man spoke.  A man who did things like never another man did.  Maybe this is the Messiah.  And when he had fed the multitude on the side of the hill, they were ready to believe it and they wanted to grab him and make him a king and begin a political military revolution that would throw off the yoke of Rome.

They were excited about it.  They were looking for a Messiah to overthrow Rome.  They were looking for a great General who could set up a Jewish revolution that would bring about independence by military action.  Now watch this, primarily the military overthrow, the military concept of Messiah belonged to a group of Jews called the Zealots.  There were four basic parties in Judaism, Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots, and Essenes.  The Essenes were the mystics who lived out in Qumran where we found the Dead Sea Scrolls.  They were the ones who copied those.

The Zealots were the political activists who weren't too concerned about religion.  They were really concerned about politics.  The Pharisees were the religious conservatives and the Sadducees were the religious liberals.  But the Zealots really wanted the Messiah to come and they believed that He would be a great General who would come and build a military power that would overthrow Rome.  So there's was a military kingdom.  On the other hand, the Pharisees were equally anxious to overthrow Rome.  Only they weren't looking for a military kingdom, they were looking for a holy commonwealth.  They were looking for a restoration of the Old Testament theocracy.  They were looking for Messiah to rule in religious fashion.  And so you might look at it this way, the Zealots looked for a military Messiah and the Pharisees looked for a miraculous Messiah.

The Zealots probably believed that the Messiah would make a military reaction and the Pharisees probably believed that the Messiah would do something miraculous and just throw Rome off by a great supernatural divine miracle.  While both were waiting for catastrophic intervention of God and the coming of the Messiah, they knew what Daniel said in Chapter 7, verses 13-14.  They knew the Messiah would come in clouds and great glory and they didn't know how it would happen, but they each had their own ideas.  And even the apostles, the twelve apostles, expected it.

In Acts Chapter 1, in verse 6, they said, "Lord, will thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?"  When are you going to do it?  When are we going to see either the military or the miraculous?  But this was not Jesus' purpose.  And that's why John Chapter 18 when Jesus was talking to Pilate and Pilate was trying to figure out what kind of a king it is that doesn't have a kingdom, what kind of a king it is that doesn't have a throne.  What kind of a king it is that doesn't have a crown.  And so he was talking to Jesus about whether He was a king or not.  And he said to Him, "Are you a king?"  And He said, "My kingdom is not of this world."

You don't understand what kind of king I am.  It is my approach to function militarily.  And I'm not even about to pull off a miraculous coup and overthrow Rome.  That's not my purpose.  He said, if He wanted to, He could have called legions of angels, legions of them.  Thousands of them.  And by the way, if one angel can slay 185,000 Assyrians in one shot, a legions of angels could handle anybody. 

So you see the hope of the political religious restoration was nothing but a pipe dream.  Israel lay in the grip of the grim power of Rome.  And Caesar wouldn't allow them any independence.  And yet in their hearts this hope burned and it burned and it burned that a Messiah would come.  Frankly people, the hope burned so strong in their hearts that it produced a pile of false Messiahs like rash on a body.  They were everywhere.  False Messiahs by the boatload.

The Zealots in anticipation of what needed to be done would just well, we can't wait for the Messiah and along with the Sycharia who were the assassins in their ranks, they would strike at Rome.  They would assassinate some important person or they would pull off some revolutionary act and all that did was bring about Roman reprisals and finally in 70 A.D., the Romans got so sick of the reactions of the Zealots, they got so sick of this kind of stuff, that they sent Titus, Vespasian in 70 A.D. in the Roman army and the came down and they literally destroyed Jerusalem.  They smashed the city, the crushed the people.  They killed 1,100,000 people. 

But that wasn't the worst.  Between the year 132 and 135 A.D., it's about 60 years later, a man named Hadrian came from Rome and he went throughout the entire land of Israel and slaughtered all the people and destroyed all the cities and he literally wiped out the nation of Israel in terms of national existence.  Now I say all of this to give you a picture of what they wanted.  They wanted somebody to overthrow Rome.  The Zealots believed it could be done militarily and the Pharisees and the other religionists thought it could be done miraculously by the Messiah, but they were wrong.  You see they were wrong.  Jesus didn't come with that in mind.

Before there could ever be Jewish independence, there had to be Jewish salvation and that had to come first and they were about to bend at that point.  So God's plan was not what they thought.  And when Jesus started talking the way He did in the Sermon on the Mount, you can imagine their reaction.  They expected Messiah to come in on a white charger.  They expected Messiah to come riding in with one slap of His sword and all of a sudden wipe out the enemy.  And here He comes and He says, "Happy are the poor in spirit.  Happy are the mourners.  Happy are the meek."  And they're saying to themselves, what kind of a Messiah is this?  What kind of crowd is He going to collect?  Who wants a bunch of sob sisters?  A bunch of meek people.

They'll never handle Rome and so He disappointed the political activist, because He wouldn't pull off a revolution.  And He disappointed the religionists, because He only healed people.  He didn't destroy Rome with cataclysmic miracles.  He didn't do it.  And that's why you see, when they finally saw Jesus captured by the Romans, when they finally saw Jesus up there and they looked at Him standing next to Barabbas and they saw this pathetic person whom Pilate had battered and beaten and bruised and scourged and smashed a crown of thorns on His head.  And there was no beauty in Him that man should desire in Him.  And there was nothing about Him that was attractive.  Read Isaiah 53.  "There was no form or comeliness that we should desire Him."  And they took one look at that and they said forget it.  That's not the Messiah we want.  And so the screamed crucify Him, crucify Him, we'll take Barabbas.  We'll take Barabbas.  He's closer to a Messiah type than this guy.

And they hated Him for it.  You know they hated Him because He disappointed them.  They hated Him because He didn't fulfill their expectations.  And once He died, they were done with Him.  And that was really the final straw.  When the rest of the people came around and say well, He was the Messiah.  They said look He died on a cross.  The Old Testament says, "cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree," don't tell us our Messiah was crucified a curse.  Don't tell us the Messiah came and went and didn't overthrow Rome.  Don't tell us the Messiah came and went and didn't change our circumstance in the world.  That's no Messiah.  And they wouldn't even believe His resurrection, though it was true.  And though 500 people saw it, they wouldn't believe it.

When the apostles stood up to preach, you see they had to preach always on the resurrection and they had to say always, you see, Messiah had to suffer.  He had to suffer.  He had to die.  This is what the Old Testament taught.  It had to be this way.  Jesus on the road to Emmaus said, "If you'd have know the scriptures, you'd have known this had to happen this way."  But they were disappointed really wretchedly disappointed with Jesus.  And it all started right here, because the first time they heard Him speak, He said, "the meek shall inherit the earth."  What kind of a deal is that?  The spoils belong to the strong, not the meek.  That countered their whole philosophy of life.

But He came as a servant.  You see, they were ignorant of Isaiah 40-66.  That whole section of Isaiah 40-66 presents the Messiah as a suffering servant.  They didn't even know their Old Testament.  A whole huge section.  In fact, when He announced who He really was, He quoted from Isaiah 61.  And you know, He identified with a pretty crummy bunch.  He says, Luke 4:18, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He's anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor."  Oh brother, "To heal the brokenhearted.  To preach deliverance to the captives.  To give sight to the blind.  And to set a liberty them that are bruised."  Now that's a pretty sad bunch.  The blind and the bruised and the poor and the mame.  And what in the world kind of bunch is that? 

The apostle Paul said it in 1 Corinthians, "Not many noble, not many wise, not many mighty.  He's chosen the foolish of the world."  He was a servant.  He didn't come to overthrow Rome.  He came to wash the feet of unloving disciples.  His whole life was an illustration of humility and service.  He said the Son of man has come not to be ministered unto, but to minister and give his live a ransom for many.  They missed the whole point.  They didn't even know what He came for.   Humility, self-denial, now this set the stage for what He said in this sermon.

And what He said here is this, now watch, He said it isn't the self-sufficient.  It isn't the self-righteous.  It isn't the proud and the strong and the arrogant and the confident and the satisfied.  It isn't the religious who enter my kingdom.  It is the broken and the mourning and the meek and the hungry and the thirsty and the merciful and the pure and the peacemakers and the persecuted and the reviled and the slandered who never retaliate.  They're the citizens of my kingdom.  And man He shot them right off their pins.

They couldn't believe it.  This couldn't be the Messiah. The real kingdom citizens, He said, are these kind.  What a revolutionary message.  We forget that.  Boy do we forget that.  We think God needs superstars.  We think God needs the high and the mighty.  It's never been that way, never.  The rich and the famous, it's never been that way.  Our Lord came and just hit them right where they were hurting.  He said, look, you want to be in my kingdom?  The ones in my kingdom are the spiritually bankrupted, verse 3, the mournful, verse 4, the meek, verse 5.

Now let's talk about meek.  It's different from broken in Spirit.  Let me show you how.  The root word is the same idea, different word, same idea.  But let me show you.  In fact, some place in the Bible these two words could be used interchangeably, but there's a beautiful distinction made here.  Now watch.  "Broken in spirit" centers on my sinfulness, okay?  Verse 3, "Broken in spirit" centers on my sinfulness.  "Meekness" centers on God's holiness.  Two sides of the same thing.  Broken in spirit because I'm a sinner and meek because God is so holy by comparison.  Two sides of the same thing.

Look at it another way, broken in spirit is negative and it results in mourning.  Meekness is positive and it results in seeking righteousness.  See?  It's just the other side of this thing.  That's be beauty of the sequence.  There's a progression here.  First of all, there is this brokenness, this tremendous sense of sinfulness and it's negative and it results in mourning.  And then all of a sudden you begin to see the other side of it.  You begin to see a holy God, and that's meekness.  And then you begin to hunger after His holiness.  You see the sequence, the flow? 

Happiness, Jesus says, happiness, blessedness, oh that's for people like this.  People who are, watch, realistic about their sin who are repentant about their sin.  Who are responsive to God.  And the unblessed and the unhappy and those shut out of the kingdom are the arrogant self-sufficient, self-righteous, unrepentant, stiff-necked, proud people.  Man this was devastating.  You see the Zealots were saying we want a military Messiah.  We want a military kingdom.  The Pharisees were saying we want a miraculous Messiah.  We want a miraculous kingdom.  By the way the Sadducees were saying we want a materialistic one.  They were the materialists.

I suppose the Essenes were over in the corner saying we want a monastic one.  But Jesus said I'll give you a meek one.  The kingdom is not going to be materialism.  It's not going to be monasticism. It's not going to be militarism and it's not going to be just flashy miracles.  It's going to be for the meek.  And you know our world will still have trouble with that.  Our world is...associates happiness and success with strength and confidence and self assurance and survival of the fittest and conquest and power.  That wasn't Jesus' way.

His kingdom is for people who are meek.  In Ephesians 4, remember what we studied there?  Going to parallel a lot of that tonight.  Ephesians 4:1, "I therefore the prisoner of the Lord beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation to which you're called."  How do I walk Paul?  "With all lowliness and meekness."  That's it, God's kingdom is for the meek.  Titus 3:2, "Don't speak evil of anyone, don't be a brawler, be gentle showing all meekness unto all men."  Pretty simple.  Be meek to everybody.

Colossians Chapter 3, verse 12, "Put on therefore as the elective God, holy and beloved tender mercy, kindness, humbleness, meekness."  You see, over and over again in the Bible it says that the people in God's kingdom were meek.  And by the way people, that is nothing new.  God's standard has always been the same.  You go all the way back to the Old Testament.  It's the same thing, you see meekness back there as God's standard.

I think it's Psalm 22, verse 26, listen, "The meek shall eat and be satisfied.  They shall praise the Lord that seek Him.  Your heart shall live forever."  Everlasting life, you see, belongs to the meek.  To the meek, not the proud.  Psalm 25:9, "The meek will He guide in justice."  Watch this, "And the meek will He teach His way."  God identifies with the meek and way at the end of Psalm, Psalm 147, verse 6, "The Lord lifts up the meek."  See God has always identified with that.  It's a priority with Him.  These are His kind of people. 

Isaiah 29:19, "The meek also shall increase their joy in the Lord."  See salvation and teaching and blessing and joy for the meek.  All right, I've emphasized to you that Jesus came and preached that His kingdom was to be occupied by people characterized by meekness.  Now, I want to ask five questions tonight and see if they're answered sufficiently to help us understand what this means.  Question number one, what does meekness mean?  What does it mean to be meek?  What is meekness?  And we've got to answer that.  If the only happy people are meek people and we'd like to be happy we'd better know what meekness is.  What is it?  Well, notice in verse 5 that it follows to other things, poor in spirit and mourning.  So whatever meekness is, it follows those two things.  Meekness comes out of those hearts that are broken in spirit and mourning.

The dictionary has an interesting thing.  I looked up meekness in the dictionary and it says, deficient in courage.  Blessed are the cowardly?  That's wrong.  That's not the Bible definition of meekness.  Meekness is not that.  Look further, the meek comes from a Greek word, the root is praos.  And it means basically, and here's the root, mild, gentle, and soft; mild, gentle, and soft.  So the idea is a person who is gentle, mild, tenderhearted.  Somebody who's patient.  Somebody who's just submissive and so forth.  Now that's the root concept, mild, gentle, soft, patient, kind, quiet, willing, submissive. 

Let me illustrate from some of its uses.  It was often used as a word to describe a soothing medicine.  Other times it was used to describe a gentle breeze.  And other times, it was used to describe a colt that had been broken and domesticated and could be used for good purposes.  So it was soothing or something that was gentle or something that was very comforting.  Further, it is said that it was characteristic of Jesus.  In 2 Corinthians 10:1, it talks about the meekness of Christ; the meekness of Christ.  In Matthew Chapter 21, verse 5, it talks about the meekness of Christ.  It says, "Behold the king cometh unto thee meek sitting upon an ass and a colt, the foal of an of an ass."

When Jesus came into the city, you see, He didn't come on a white charger conquering and to conquer.  He came riding in on the colt, the foal of a jackass.  I mean, that was really low-class transportation.  He was meek.  Further, let me say something to you about it.  It is a gentleness and a mildness and a subdued character, watch this, it is not weakness.  It is power under control.  Get that definition.  We shared that with you in our study of Ephesians.  It is power under control.  Okay?  Power under control.  It is a by-product of self-emptying, of self-humiliation, it is a brokenness before God, it is the taming of the lion.  Remember when I told you that?  Not the killing of the lion.  It's power under control.  It's Ephesians 4:26, "It's okay to be angry, but don't sin."

In other words, let it be a righteous anger, a controlled anger for God's purposes.  Don't be angry because you've been offended, be angry because God has, see?  It's anger for the right reason at the right time.  Meekness doesn't mean impotence.  It is power under control.  And if you examine Proverbs Chapter 25 and verse 28 it says, "He that hath no rule over his spirit is like a city that is broken down and without walls."  That's power out of control.  You've got power, but there's nothing to contain it.  And it's like a destroyed city.  On the other hand, Proverbs  Chapter 16 and verse 32 says, "He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city."

In other words, to rule the spirit is meekness.  To be out of control is the lack of meekness.  It is power under control.  Let's take it from the standpoint of the Greeks use of it.  I told you they use it to speak of a soothing medicine.  Medicine under control is helpful.  Out of control, it kills.  They use it to speak about an animal that was broken and useful.  An unbroken colt, an unbroken horse destroys.  A broken horse is useful.  They used it to speak of a gentle breeze.  A gentle breeze cools and soothes.  A hurricane kills, out of control.

Power under control is meekness.  One writer put it beautifully.  This is what he said, "Meekness is the fruit of the spirit."  And it is listed in Galatians 5.  "Meekness is a fruit of the spirit, which is found on the soil of spiritual poverty contrition and mourning.  It is a noble flower which grows out of the ashes of self love, on the grave of pride.  On the one hand, the man sees his own udder ruin, his unworthiness and misery.  On the other, he contemplates the kindness and the benignity of God and Christ Jesus.  The internal characteristic is a disposition of heart, which through the keen perception of it's own misery and the abounding mercy of God has become so pliant, gentle, mild, flexible, and tractable, that no traces of its original ruggedness of its wild and untamed nature even remain."

It's the opposite of violence and the opposite of vengeance.  The meek man has learned like Hebrews 10:34.  "He has learned to take joyfully the plundering of his possessions knowing that he has a better possession, even an abiding one with God."  The meek person is died to self.  Now it's going to crystallize for you in a minute.  The meek person has died to self.  He never worries about his own injuries.  He bears no grudges.  You remember what I told you John Bunyan said?  "He who is already down cannot fall."  There's nothing to lose.  A meek person never defends himself because he knows he doesn't deserve anything.  He never gets angry about what's done to him, because he doesn't deserve anything.

Meekness, this is what Christ said characterizes people in His kingdom.  They're not defending themselves.  They're not running around trying to get their due.  They don't...they know they have nothing.  They're already broken in spirit over the sin.  They're already mourning and weeping over the consequence of it.  And in humility they stand before a holy God and they have nothing to commend themselves.  Power under control, they trust in God.  They delight in Him.  And God promises to give them the earth.  It isn't cowardous.  It isn't flabbiness.  It isn't a wishy-washy lack of conviction.  It isn't just human niceness.  Meekness says in myself nothing is possible, but in God everything is possible.  Meekness says for me I offer no defense, for God I'll give my life.  For God I'll die.  It's not a passive acceptance of sin, but it's an anger under control.  It's holy indignation.  Illustration, for even here unto were you called because Christ also suffered for us leaving us an example that you should follow His steps.

Now here's real meekness, He did know sin.  Neither was guile found in His mouth.  Now start right there, He never did anything wrong.  So whatever anybody accused Him of was false accusation. So whatever anybody punished Him for was wrong.  Whenever they abused Him, they were out of line.  Whenever they slandered Him, they were wrong.  Whenever they mocked Him, it was a lie, because He never did anything wrong.  He never sinned.  He never deceived.  He never did anything wrong.  And even though He never deserved any criticism when it came in verse 23 and when he was reviled, He didn't revile again.  And when He suffered, He didn't threaten.  He just committed Himself to Him that judges righteously.

Stop right there.  That's meekness.  Jesus never defended Himself, never.  But when they desecrated His Father's temple, He made a whip and started beating them, didn't He?  Meekness says I'll never defend myself, but I'll die defending God.  That's meekness.  I'll never defend myself, I'll die defending God.  Twice Jesus claims the temple.  He blasted the hypocrites.  He condemned the false leaders of Israel.  He fearlessly uttered divine judgment upon people, and yet the Bible says He was meek.  Meekness is not impotence.  Meekness is power used only in the defense of God, never in the defense of myself.

He never used it for Himself.  He could have called legions of angels, but He didn't because He never did anything to defend Himself.  He could have had 12 legions of angels.  What does it mean to be meek?  What does this concept mean?  It means power under control.  You look at yourself and you're broken in spirit because you see your sin.  And you mourn over your sin and you know, you deserve nothing, so there's nothing to defend.  But you see the holiness of God, and as you see the holiness of God, you'll die defending His holy name.  You see?  Oh man, this is a shock to those Jews.  Those Jews spent all their time defending their own holiness and they were hypocrites.  They never entered His kingdom, because they didn't know the meaning of meekness.    Their power was out of control.  They were blasting away and lashing away at anybody who offended them.  That's not meekness.

Second question, how does meekness manifest itself?  We can get a better handle on it if we can see it in action, so let me give you some illustrations.  Some of them we shared with you in the Ephesians series and I'm just going to go by them again.  Now listen, how does meekness function?  So you've got to get an idea where you are.  First of all, let me have you look at Genesis 13, all the way back to Genesis.  Fabulous, fabulous story.  This is Abraham.  I love this story.  Abraham was living in Ur of the Chaldeans.  Ur was a secular city and God said to Abraham, Abraham, you're my man.  Abraham, get up, get out of this city, got to a land that I'm going to show you. 

And in Chapter 12, God gave Abraham this fabulous covenant.  God said I'm going to give you a covenant you won't believe.  You're going to have seed like the stars of heaven and the sand of the sea.  Abraham, I'm going to give you a land.  Abrah