Episode Transcript
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Beloved. Let's turn to Genesis Chapter
Twenty three and hear a God's word from
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this foundational book of the Bible,
Genesis Twenty three. The grass withers and
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the flower fades, but the word
of God stands forever, it lives forever,
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it is living and active. Let's
give our attention to it as such.
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Sarah lived a hundred and twenty seven
years. These were the years of
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the life of Sarah and Sarah died
at carry off Arba, that is Hebron,
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in the land of Canaan, and
Abraham went in to mourn for Sarah
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and to weep for her and Abraham. and Abraham rose up from before his
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dead and said to the Hittites,
I am a sojourner and foreigner among you.
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Give me property among you for a
burying place that I may buried my
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dead out of my sight. The
Hittites answered, Abraham, hear us,
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my Lord, you are a Prince
of God among us, bury your dead
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and the choicest of our tombs.
None of us will withhold from you his
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tomb to hinder you from burying your
dead. Abraham Rose and bowed to the
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Hittites, the people of the land, and he said to them, if
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you are willing that I should bury
my dad out of my sight, hear
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me and entreat for me, fron
the son of Zohar, that he may
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give me the Cave of Machpelah,
which he owns. It is at the
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end of his field, for the
full price. Let him give it to
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me in your presence, as property
for a buy, for a burying place.
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Now efron was sitting among the Hittites, and fron the hittide answered Abraham
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and the hearing of the Hittites,
all who went in at the gate of
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his city. No, my Lord, hear me. I will give you
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the field and I will give you
the cave that is in it, in
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the side of the sons of my
people. I give it to you bury
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you're dead. Then Abraham bowed down
before the people of the land and he
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said to Ephron, in the hearing
of the people of the land, but
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if you will it, but if
you will hear me, I give the
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price of the field. Accept it
from me, that I may bury my
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dead there. Efron answered Abraham.
My Lord, listen to me. A
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piece of land worth four hundred shekels
of silver. What is that between you
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and me bury, you're dead.
Abraham listened to fron and Abraham went out
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for went out from fron or,
I'm sorry, weighed out for fron the
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so over that he had named in
the hearing of the Hittites, four hundred
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shekels of silver, according to the
weights current among the merchants. So the
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field of Efron in macpela Makola was
which was to the east of Mammor,
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the field which the field with the
cave that was in it and all the
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trees that were in the field throughout
its whole area, was made over to
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Abraham as a possession in the presence
of the Hittites, before all who went
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in at the gate of his city. After this, Abraham Buried Sarah,
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his wife, in the Cave of
the field of Machpala, east of Mammor,
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that is Hebron, in the land
of Canaan. The field in the
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cave that is in it were made
over to Abraham as property for a burying
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place by the Hittites. Well,
we see in this passage. One of
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the things that we see in this
passage is something that we considered previously,
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I'm the great success of Abraham,
even though he was a pilgrim in a
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land that was not yet his.
He was like a Joseph, a Daniel.
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He was one who was a child
of the Lord, who had been
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promised on things from the Lord,
and yet I found himself not in a
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place that was his, a place
of strangers. God had blessed his pilgrim
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life, but it was still a
pilgrim life, and we see that in
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this very practical, or not practical, a concrete, real, visceral sense,
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the strange set of circumstances in which
rich, powerful Abraham, and what
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the hit tights recognize him, is
a Prince of God right. His wealth
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is amazing, he is clearly one
of their equals, perhaps even they're better
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in some cases. And yet this
great, rich, powerful person is landless.
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He doesn't even have a place to
bury his own wife. A strange,
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I'm set of circumstances indeed, and
it reminds us of the many strange
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circumstances that we, a pilgrim people
as well, often find ourselves in.
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People who have received all kinds of
spiritual and material blessings from the Lord and
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yet often feel out of place in
the world and not quite sure how it
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is, how we ought to act. It requires wisdom, it requires trust
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in the Lord. As we see
here, Abraham has the body of his
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wife. What will he do?
He desires to bury her. One of
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the things that will see Abraham doing
is holding on to the promises that have
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been given to him by grace,
and it is something that is worth our
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reflection. To just make clear a
little bit of what the particular events are
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here in this story, what we
see is Abraham going to the people of
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the land. That's a phrase that's
used in several places and probably refers to
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not merely just general people of the
land, but probably to some kind of
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council sometime, some kind of assembly, and we know that from the official
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way it's spoken of and many and
repeated in many times. We also know
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that from the way in which they're
doing all of this business. They are
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at the city gate. That's mentioned
many times, this place where contracts are
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made, where deals are done,
judgments are made. You remember, it
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is boas who goes to the city, to the gate, to make these
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decisions regarding the redemption of roof.
This is a common in a common image.
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So here he is and we also
see that there is it's is a
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public transaction. There is this is
a very legal kind of chapter going on
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here. There are witnesses called on, there's negotiations, this kind of bowing
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back and forth. My Lord,
good sir, what will we do as
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they try to determine the best course
of action here? And ultimately, what
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Abraham is able to do is he
is able to buy property. He is
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able to buy property in the land
of Canaan. Now, remember that's not
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just any land, this is the
land, this is the promised land.
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This is why he has come out. He, or God, has called
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him out from his previous place to
this place that he might possess it.
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Well, he is possessing it in
a way, but perhaps not in the
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way that he might have preferred,
at least initially. The scripture doesn't get
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into all of that, but what
we do see is that Abraham, I'm
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here, is purchasing land that had
already been promised to him by God.
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Now in this we can come.
We can safely assume that the devil was
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actively at work, as he always
is when the people of God are being
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tested. Death is a reality in
Abraham's life, just as this isn't,
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as it is in all of ours. And God tells us in Hebrews that
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devil, that the devil, through
the fear of death, holds people in
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slavery and those that he doesn't hold
slavery. He surely would like to.
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He likes to make us afraid,
he likes to make us feel frustrated,
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particularly in the fulfillment of the promises
of God. So think about things from
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Abraham's perspective. Here. He was
prout, promised a land, this land
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of Canaan, and what he has
is nothing except his wife, who is
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now dead, and no place to
bury her. Is it possible that Abraham
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would have effaced some struggle here?
The scriptures don't go into that and it's
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not, I don't, think,
to be our primary focus, but I
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think it is something we can relate
to. Death is very difficult, there
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is sorrow, as we see in
Abraham. There is complication and death.
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There is a wonder sometimes has Christ
really done what he promised to do?
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Has God really promised what he has
promised to do? Throughout the book of
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Genesis we see this over and over, either the seed as being tested,
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God's promise regarding the seed, or
the question of the land. Will Abraham
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inherit the land, and that's a
present here as well. And so Abraham
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goes about this and he goes about
it in a very godly way, as
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one who has not yet been given
these things by God. He seeks to
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deal with them in the normal terms
of the world and he trusts the Lord
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to work it out. And indeed
the Lord does notice also the way that
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Abraham does this. He does it
in a way to secure this, this
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land fully. That's what this business
about the full price is likely about.
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He doesn't want any question about who
this land will belong to in the future.
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This is going to be his place
in the Promised Land, at least
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for now. And so he negotiates
this full price. He pays the full
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price and there are witnesses and it's
all very clear what has happened. And
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so is Abraham. Pays that full
price, he secures this land and ultimately
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not only Sarah will be buried there, but also him and his son and
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his wife and his grandson and his
wife, all buried in this this place.
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Now, as we see Abraham Holding
fast to the promises of God,
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even as he even as he perhaps
struggles in some ways to see them fulfilled.
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At this particular moment, we see
him waiting and doing what all the
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people of the Lord are called to
do as Christians. Death is a reality
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in our lives. If it's not
a reality, it should be, because
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until the resurrection there is this painful
sorrow that is in us all. A
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lot of times death is we would
like to push it off from our minds,
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but usually when we face it it's
longer than we'd like it to be,
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more complicated than we'd like it to
be. In death we find ourselves
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often at with great losses, at
a great loss in knowing what to do.
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Death happens and it feels so flinal. There's all kinds of unresolved issues,
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things that were unsaid, things that
remain undone, and that's all there
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is, it would seem. This
is an issue we face all the time
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and we have to learn to how
do we think about this, how do
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we think about our own deaths and
the deaths of our loved ones, when
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we do not yet have possession of
the land, when we do not yet
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fully have not yet fully been placed
in the new heavens and the new earth?
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One of the things we can think
about, as Abraham does here are
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the promises of God. And what
does God promise to us? He promises
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US hope in the resurrection of Christ
through Jesus's death and resurrection. He promises
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to us that living will happen again, that the sting of death is gone
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and that these temporary, frustrating things, these ways in which we find ourselves
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having to navigate in a difficult world
without really all the kind of resolution that
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we would want, God will give
us that resolution. We see it at
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beginning with Jesus and his resurrection and
from the dead, and we see it
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in his promise to raise all of
us from the dead as well at his
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second coming. And so I want
to close just with this thought. When
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we consider with the work of Jesus, notice the price that he pays and
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what he gains as a result.
When Abraham pays the full price for this
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field, he is able to bury
his dead wife, and no doubt this
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would have been quite a high price
to pay. He buries her in faith,
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he carries her and trust that God
will ultimately fulfill these promises and not
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just this portion of land, but
all the land, indeed even the heavenly
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land, will belong to them.
What is Jesus do? Well, Jesus
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doesn't just pay a high price.
Jesus pays with his own life. And
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what does Jesus get for that price? He gets everything. For Sarah,
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for example, she will not just
have a place for her dead body to
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rest, but she will have a
place to live forever in her alive and
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glorified body. This is what Jesus
accomplishes for us gee things that are are
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anticipated here what we see in these
early promises, in Genesis and the new
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covenant. They come together and they
flower in a most wonderful way, and
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when we face our own deaths and
when we face the burial of those who
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we love, it's right for us
to remember these things as well. Yes,
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there will be sorrows, yes,
there will be things that are unfinished,
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undone, not quite right, not
quite settled, but that's of course,
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how God intends it. Things will
be finished and completed when Jesus returns,
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and he will return and said all
things right according to the price that
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he paid on the cross. Let's
pray
