Throughout history, God has been making "very great and precious promises" (2Pe 1:4). We begin this series of lessons with the promises that the Lord God made long ago to the patriarch Abraham.

The Seed of Abraham (Part 1)

God told Abram to leave his homeland and go forth to a land that God had yet to show him. God promised that Abraham's descendants would possess that land, and become a great nation. The Lord also said, "In you all the families of the earth will be blessed" (Gen 12:1-3, 22:18).

There are two main blessings promised by God to Abraham...

• 1. The Promised Land,
• 2. The Promised Seed (or Descendant).

Abraham believed God, and obeyed. He pointed out to God, however, that he had no child through whom the promise could be fulfilled. God promised in reply that Abraham would certainly have an heir, and have descendants as numerous as the stars (Gen 15:1-5, Gen 17:1-8). By this time Abraham was nearly 100 years old, and his wife Sarah was elderly and barren. Yet Abraham and Sarah came to believe completely in God's promises (Heb 11:8-16).

1 The Promised Land

The first promise to Abraham, often referred to as “the land promise” actually has two components...

• i. The Nation Promise: At the time Abraham was sent forth from his homeland, God said, "I will make you a great nation" (Gen 12:2)
• ii. The Land Promise: At the time Abraham passed through the land of Canaan, God said, "To your descendants I will give this land" (Gen 12:6-7).

Birth of a Nation

It took a long time, several generations, for Abraham's descendants to become a nation and possess the land...

Abraham and Sarah had a son Isaac, just as God had promised. Isaac in turn had a son called Jacob (who was later called Israel and he in turn had twelve sons who fathered the twelve tribes who later comprised the nation of Israel (Acts 7:8).

This nation's womb was Egypt where one of Jacob's sons, Joseph, was ruler (Acts 7:9). Jacob's descendants multiplied in Egypt. However beyond Joseph's time, Jacob's descendants for several generations struggled in Egypt as slaves (Acts 7:17-19). In time, Moses led them out of Egypt (Acts 7:35-36). If Egypt was the nation's womb, the wilderness wanderings and the long and desultory conquest of Canaan was the nation's cradle.

Eventually, generations later, David became king over the nation, followed by his son Solomon who reigned at the peak of the kingdom's glory, and observed that God had done "according to all that he promised. Not one word has failed." (1Kg 8:56). Solomon had reference to the land promise —that Abraham's descendants would become a great nation in the promised land.

  The Seed Promise