From Sacrifice to Burial: Abraham, Sarah, and the Cave of Machpelah
by Jeremy Painter
June 10, 2026 · Abundant Hope Fellowship, Bremerton, Washington
Kind: Bible study

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/jeremy-painter--from-sacrifice-to-burial
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

------------------------------------------------------------
Okay, let's open our bibles to Genesis chapter 22, and we're not doing a repeat of last week, but rather reading the epilogue to the chapter, which begins at verse 20. If you recall from last week, we had the test, the trial of Abraham. He offered his son Isaac on the altar, and the Lord delivered the child. And we stopped right there, the scripture telling us that Abraham went back to Beersheba, where he lived for some time. And then we get a couple of verses left in the chapter, and they take us in a different direction and prepare us for really what is the rest of the story of the book of Genesis. All right, let's read chapter 22 verse 20, all the way through chapter 23, which has 19, 20 verses. All right, after these things, that is after the test of Abraham, it was told to Abraham, right? So he received a report, apparently in Beersheba, about his family that he had

left behind many, many 60 years or so before. Here's the report that he got. Behold, Milka also, also meaning in addition to Isaac being born and raised. Milka, your sister-in-law, also has born children to your brother Nahor. Us is first born. Buzz, I think, is how you pronounce it. I always think of, unfortunately, Home Alone. When I hear Buzz, it's probably not pronounced Buzz, but let's go with it. Buzz, his brother, Camuel, the father of Abraham, Chesed, Hazel, Pildosh, Jitlaph, and Bethuel. Bethuel is going to be the important one here. All right, so that's apparently the end of the report that he gets from, say, a messenger or a caravan, a passing caravan. Here's what's gone on with your brother's family far away back in Syria. And then there's a little note that's attached to the end of the report that Abraham got. It's in parentheses here in the English Standard Version. Let's go to the next verse. Bethuel, fathered Rebecca. All right,

and really, it seems that this whole portion of the end of Chapter 22 is to give us what's there in parentheses. Bethuel, fathered Rebecca, because Rebecca's going to play a significant role in what follows. These eight, Milka, Bort, and Nahor, Abraham's brother, were over his concubine, that's Nahor's concubine, which is a lesser status wife whose name was, his concubine, whose name was Ramua, Bortiba, Graham, Tahosh, and Maaka. All right, so altogether, Abraham's brother has 12 children, which really pales in comparison to Abraham's two, Ishmael and Isaac. All right, so his brother's doing well, but we've had this, we've been given this name, Rebecca. For the last 10 chapters of Genesis, Sarah has been the matriarch of the story. In many ways, she's been one of the driving forces and a dynamic force in the story of Abraham. She followed her husband who didn't know where he was going. Many wives, I think, can say amen to that, but she went, she went even

further. She followed her husband who didn't know where he was going. She lied to protect her husband and allowed herself to be taken into a harem in order to protect her husband's life. She accepted Abraham's decision to not live a settled life in a wealthy city, but rather to be a wanderer. She watched her husband turn down the king of Sodom's offer of a lifetime of riches in the name of honor, in the honor of God. She hoped that she'd become pregnant and give an heir to Abraham, and when she did, she took matters into her own hands. She laughed when God said she would get pregnant at 90, and she drew God's rebuke. She foresaw the threat that Ishmael was towards her son Isaac, and she threw Hagar out of her house. She lied for Abraham a second time when Pharaoh took her again to protect her husband. She was at home when Abraham took Isaac to sacrifice him, and now at

the age, at the grand old age of 127, we're going to find out that she's gone, and we've been given this note about Rebecca before we're told about the death of Sarah, because Rebecca is really going to step into the role of Sarah. She's going to become a driving force for the story that unfolds in God's plan. Alright, now let's continue reading in chapter 23. Sarah lived 127 years. These were the years of the life of Sarah. Sarah died at Karioth Arba, that is, Yibrun, in the land of Canaan, and Abraham went in to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her, and Abraham rose up from before his dead and said to the Hittites, I'm a sojourner and foreigner among you, give me property among you for a burying place that I may bury my dead out of my sight. The Hittites answered Abraham, hear us, my Lord, you're a prince of God among us, bury your dead in the choicest of

our tombs, none of us will withhold from you, is tuned to hinder you from burying your dead. Abraham rose and bowed to the Hittites, the people of the land, and he said to them, if you're willing that I should bury my dead out of my sight, hear me and entreat me for me, Ephron, the son of Zohar, that he may give me the cave of Makpila, which he owns, it's at the end of his field. For the full price, let him give it to me in your presence as property for a burying place. Now Ephron was sitting among the Hittites, and Ephron the Hittite answered Abraham in the hearing of the Hittites, of all who went in at the gate of his city. No, my Lord, hear me, I give you the field, I give you the cave that is in it. In the sight of the sons of my people, I give it to you, bury your dead. Then Abraham bowed before

the people of the land, and he said to Ephron in the hearing of the people of the land, but if you will, hear me, I give the price of the field, accept it from me that I may bury my dead there. Ephron answered Abraham, my Lord, listen to me, a piece of land worth 400 shekels of silver, what is that between you and me? Bury your dead. Abraham listened to Ephron, and Abraham weighed out for Ephron the silver that he had named in the hearing of the Hittites, 400 shekels of silver according to the weights occurring among the merchants. So the field of Ephron in Machpila, which was to the east of Mamre, the field with the cave that was in it, and all the trees that were in the field throughout its whole area, was made over to Abraham as a possession in the presence of the Hittites before all who went in the gate of his city. After this, Abraham buried

Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpila, east of Mamre, that is Hebron in the land of Canaan. The field in the cave that is in it were made over to Abraham as property for a burying place by the Hittites. Okay, let's go through chapter 23 verse by verse, and there aren't very many mentions of God in this chapter. We don't hear a lot about salvation or grace or mercy or promises or eternal life. What we have here is the death of a beloved matriarch and then a very formal, but it feels a little bit on the secular side, a transaction, but there's quite a bit of, I think, treasure and value here, spiritual value in this chapter. Let's go. Sarah lived 127 years, verse 1. These were the years of the life of Sarah. All right, so she lives to 127, which means that this time Abraham is 137. He's going to die at 175, so he has quite

a bit more time, about 38 years left to live. As I mentioned at the end of last week's lesson, at this point in time, the son of Noah, Shem, is still alive, which is hard to fathom, but he's still alive. In fact, he has about 50 to 60 years left of life. He lives to be ancient of days. I don't remember the exact number, but it's centuries and centuries. I can't remember, but it's old. In fact, he lives into the 50th year of Jacob and Esau. We're used to seeing these times as being very far spread out, but given the lengths of days that some people are living, especially around the time of the flood, we still have some of those Antediluvian people with us, apparently. All right, verse two, and Sarah died at Karioth Arba. The word Karioth in Hebrew, it just means city, and Arba means for, so it's city of four. Don't really know what that means, but in time

it came to be known as the city of Hebron. And Hebron is where Sarah's going to be buried, as we're going to find out, but also Abraham's buried there, as is Isaac, as is Jacob, as is Leah, and if my memory serves, Joseph, almost 500 years later, is going to be dug up from Egypt and brought back and buried here. Stephen, could you put that picture up there? This is the cave of the patriarchs. It's Makpila today in present-day Hebron. This is the inside. You can't go any closer than this right here, but if you look through, there's a partition, and behind that partition, you can see grave markers. Don't know how old those are, and this is probably accurate. Very good chance that this is where they're buried, but you could go to this place today. Makpila seems to mean something like double-folded, so it's an indication that it was two caves. And so in these two caves, the family of Abraham

for hundreds of years is going to become their burial place for the family. All right, the narrator wants us to know it's in Hebron, but also he makes a note that it's in the land of Canaan, because this is going to end up being the only land that Abraham possesses in the Promised Land. He's been traveling for decades, and he's been promised that he's going to, everywhere he sets foot, that's going to be his land. He's walked everywhere, almost as far south as Egypt over in Mesopotamia. He's walked up into what is today Lebanon. He's walked this whole circuit, but at the end of his life, all he's going to actually own is going to be this little plot of land here to bury his wife in. All right, Abraham went in to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her. All right, there's extra emphasis on Abraham's sorrow. Does it just say he mourned for Sarah, but he mourned for her and

wept for her? Okay, mourning can be a little bit, it could be robotic. You could go through the motions of mourning, but weeping is not something you can do on command. Mourning in the ancient Near East was pretty dramatic. It was long and drawn out. Mourning funerals, oftentimes women were hired in order to be professional mourners to lift up a loud cry. If you go into the Middle East today, if you go to a funeral, you're going to hear what sounds like a primeval scream in a course of language you don't understand, but sometimes these are professional mourners who are hired for their abilities to make this shriek. Okay, mourning involved, especially for men involved, rending your garment, cutting your beard, shaving your head, pouring ashes and dust on your on your head, sitting down in the dirt, and sometimes sitting in place for six or seven days or sometimes longer, rocking back and forth and some friends would join you and rock

it back and forth with you in Semitic style. There's a long, you can mourn for quite some time. Abraham went through this and we find out that he's sitting down here in just a moment and he weeps for her. Okay, so he goes beyond the formal, the formal requirements of mourning to express the narrator wants us to see. Abraham at times, it seemed like he was ignoring Sarah. Again, he has her lie for her, for him. He takes her son that she had just to protect him had cast out this other family. And now he takes that son and offers him as a sacrifice. And Sarah says nothing. It's almost as if it's almost, it almost feels like there's a kind of distance between Abraham and Sarah. There's one point though at which Abraham, he gives in to Sarah, does something he doesn't want to do. But other than that, you could see maybe their relationship, it might not have seemed from the

outside to be close and intimate. But here at the end, the narrator wants us to see Abraham pouring out tears for her. And Abraham rose up from before his dead and said to the Hittites. Okay, so I just mentioned that Abraham was sitting down. Abraham rose up from before his dead, meaning she's there before him. And he said to the Hittites. So the Hittites apparently come to visit, perhaps to pay read their respects to Abraham and Sarah. Hittites is kind of a catch all term for at least three groups of ethnic or three ethnic groups in the ancient world. In Anatolia, the Trojans up in that region, they were called sometimes they were called vice emitic speaking peoples. They were called Hittites. And then we have a couple of groups in Canaan, Canaan, South and North Canaan that are called Hittites. Vashiva was a Hittite or or at least her husband was a Hittite, who was the wife of David. So Hittites were

around Canaan. They were sometimes they were close to Canaanites or Israelites. They had decent relationships with them. And this particular instance shows that the Hittites are friends with the patriarchs. Okay, so he rises up and he says to the Hittites, I am a sojourner and foreigner among you. Okay. And what Abraham is indicating here is this is not my homeland, of course. I'm at your mercy oftentimes. This is your land I acknowledge that this is not my place. What I'm about to ask you is not something I'm demanding of you. If it happens, it happens out of your goodwill and your graciousness towards me. But on a more important from a more important perspective, this is Abraham's lifelong disposition. He's a sojourner, a foreigner. The book of Hebrews says that Abraham, he wandered, he didn't have a city of his own, but he saw the city whose builder and maker was God. In other words, he didn't make this world his home. He

was looking for another city. So he always acknowledged that he was a foreigner wherever he was. So he acted accordingly. If you're on someone else's property and you have some, if you're a decent person, then you have respect. And this is the way Abraham conducted himself. He said, give me your property among you for a burying place that I may bury my dead out of my sight. In other words, I realize I have no home here and I own no property, but out of respect for the dead, I need to bury her. And can I have a burying place? That's all he asked for at this point. A burying place to bury my dead. The Hittites answered Abraham, hear us, my Lord. You are a prince of God among us. You ever heard anybody referred to as a prince of a man? It was Abraham. He had favor with people that he lived with. That's an important lesson for people, for people of

God. We should conduct ourselves in such a way that they call us a prince. We shouldn't have a bad reputation people out there. If your neighbors can't stand you, you know, couches out on the front lawn, raising ruckus at two to three, four in the morning, parking on their property, what are you doing? It's not, you know, we are, Abraham is our father in faith and he set a good example. Hittites, they called him a prince. And we're not always going to be able to please everybody. Some people just hate you for no reason. They have no motive for it. But most people are more reasonable than that. And we should have a good reputation with them. Have favor. You should have favor with your neighbors. You should take care of your house. It shouldn't be a dump. You don't want people driving by. You got a neighborhood. You have people in the neighborhood driving by and there's that house. They don't want

anybody to see. And it's your house. Take care of your lawn. Take care of the paint on your house. You're not a slob. You're a prince. Right. You're a prince. You take care of things. You take care of other people's property around you, you know, be a responsible person. This is following the footsteps of Abraham. All right, boy, we could stop right there and just go on down the, I never, I never talk about this kind of thing, but it's important. Where was I? Yes. Here we go. You're a prince of God among us. Bear your dead in the choicest of our tombs. Okay. This is how good of a reputation he had with his neighbors. We'll give you the very best, but, but there's one little thing they held back. Look at that. They said the choicest of our tombs. In other words, well, I'll read the rest. None of us will withhold from you his tomb to hinder you from burying

your dead. In other words, what they're offering is you can use one of our tombs. In other words, we're not going to give you property. We're going to allow you to use a tomb that's in heart possession. Okay, but they're still making a generous offer. You can take the very best one. And in fact, you can take the most remarkable one and it can be a kind of a place of a pilgrimage. It can be beautiful. You can have it. Okay, to bury your dead. But here's the problem. The next generation comes along and maybe the relationships aren't quite the same. You don't know the next generation as well. And they can change the whole arrangement on you, can't they? All right. So, so Abraham hears there's generosity here, but also reluctance to part with the land in such a way that it's his a deed in perpetuity. And that's what he, that's that's what he's hoping for. He says, or the text

says in verse seven, Abraham rose and bowed to the Hittites, the people of the land. There's the prince again. He bows before them, respectfully, love it, love it, love it. When the people of God are respectful to outsiders, respectful. In fact, the apostle Peter, I'm going to keep one that could end up being the theme for the rest of our time. But the, the apostle Peter said in first Peter that we should show respect to everybody, everybody. So we respect even people we don't like, even people we don't approve of, even politicians we don't approve of, we show respect. It wouldn't be in the Bible if it wasn't hard. That's to tell you. All right. Be respectful. Here's, here's, here's Abraham. Remember, he's mourning the loss of his wife and weeping for her. And in the middle of all of that, he bows down before these men and, and here's what he says. Verse eight, if you're willing that I should bury my

dead out of my sight, hear me and entreat me for Ephron, the son of Zohar. Ephron's a Hittite and seems to be a city official or maybe even the mayor of the city, of the Hittites. The, and we know that because he's sitting in the gate and those who sit in the, in the gate, that's an expression or an idiom for somebody who's in charge of leadership, government and entreat for me, Ephron, the son of Zohar, that he may give, it seems that Ephron's not, I don't know if Ephron's not present or if he's speaking of him in the third person. While he's present, I'm not sure which, but nevertheless, that he may give me the cave of Machpila, which he owns. It is at the end of his field. That's an important point, right? There is at the end of his field. In other words, you don't want to, you don't want to purchase property that's surrounded by the people who are

selling that property. So you, you want to be able to stay in your own place and, and, and not be disruptive, but also not be surrounded. So you wanted to be on the edge or the perimeter of the property. And could you give me that property for the full price? Let him give it to me in your presence as property for a bearing place. So they've already, they've already offered to give him a cave to bury. Now he says, no, I want to buy and at full price. Okay, in other words, in other words, I'll give you anything you ask for. Okay, just take care of this for me. It's very typical. Middle Eastern negotiations, even to this day, it's, it's really entertaining sometimes. If you're from another culture to go to the Middle East and watch negotiations, we call it haggling. It's, it's, it's really humorous, but, but watch this. I'll give you full price. Ask, you name your price, I'll give

a bargain here. I'm not asking you for a deal. I don't want a discount. I want the full price. Abraham's not wanting to haggle at all. Okay, there's some things that you, that you go, you try to get it at discount, but there are some things you don't. And when it's involving your honor, no discounts, you don't walk into a Ferrari shop and ask if it's on sale. You don't go into Chanel and ask if it's on sale. Where's the clearance rack? I think you're thinking of somewhere else. All right, when it's, when it's really important, no discounts. Things that you really, really prize, you don't give it a discount if it's involving your honor in some way, shape or form. Okay, so I want to pay the full price. Abraham's saying, no haggling have all you want. Now, Ephron was sitting among the Hittites, and Ephron the Hittite answered Abraham in the hearing of the Hittites. And it keeps on repeating this

in the hearing now, because the narrator wants us to know this is a public transparent transaction that's taking place. It's not a secret in the dark transaction. He wants all the light of the world shining upon this so everybody can see that the first land that Abraham received and Canaan was legitimate, and it was offered by the Canaanites and the Hittites to Abraham so that for the rest of history, you could not say that was given by the Gentiles to Abraham. Abraham didn't want things given to him by the Gentiles. He turned down the king of Sodom who tried to give him all kinds of riches. He said, no, I don't want it ever to be said that I was a wealthy man and that the Lord was with me because the king of Sodom gave me something. No, I don't want it that way. So this transaction takes place, transparently everything he wants it to be above board. He said it in

the hearing of the Hittites of all who went in at the gate of the city. Now verse 11, No, my Lord, hear me. This is what Ephron is saying in reply. No, my Lord, hear me. I give you the field and I give you the cave that's in it. In the sight of my sons of the sons of my people, I give it to you, bury your dead. Okay, so here's what I myself witnessed and this is just as traditional in the Middle East. When you know somebody's asking for something offered to give it to them for nothing. And the polite thing to do in back is to say, oh, no, no, no, no. And then set a high price back. No, I'll give you all kinds of money for it. And the next thing you're supposed to do is you're supposed to turn that down and say, no, I want to get it to you. But that's not the final step. Questions.

Once he doesn't continue to live dead, that's it. The rest of this court in some years, he shall have a slip. Yeah. By buying this burial place, no one can take and move for buying and that's definitely right, if he buys it. Yeah, if they did, they would be desecrating the body and then would provoke the vengeance of their gods in their minds. The desecration of the dead, which other tribes would enforce that, even if it wasn't your own people that was seen as a gross offense to move or to exhume a dead body. Okay. So verse 12, then Abraham bowed down before the people of the land and he said to Ephron in the hearing of the people of the land, but if you will hear me, but if you will hear me, sorry, I give the price of the field, accept it from me that I may bury my dead heroes, Abraham insisting, no, I don't want you to give me

anything. I don't want to owe you. I don't want to be a credit. I don't want you to be a creditor. I don't want to be a debtor to you. Let me, but let me give you the money. It's the money you want so that we're at an end now and I have been done fairly and you've been done fairly. Well, that's again, I'm not advocating for not taking good prices, but sometimes just be careful that you don't, you don't become a haggler where you're, you're, you're talking everybody down to the, you know, you walk away from that and the person who gave, who sold it to you doesn't have a very good opinion when you have been absolutely miserly with them. So be careful about that. You can, you can, you can really cut people off that way, take people off and we're talking here about a prince. We're also talking about favor with people, having a good opinion of people and

being respectful to people is more important than $15 that I save. You know, you, you, you haggle over and you, you save yourself $5 was your reputation with that person worth $5. That's it. That's all you value your reputation. So you won, but you lost. You won the battle, but you lost the war. What good is that? That's called a Pyrrhic victory, victory. You, you won the battle, but you, you killed all of your troops in doing so. So watch this. All right. Verse 14. I love this right here. Ephron answered Abraham, my Lord, listen to me, a piece of land worth 400 shekels of silver. What is that between you and me? Barry, you're dead. You see how he slipped it in there? He slipped it in there. It was nice. That was very smooth. And what's, what's interesting is if you go to the book of Jeremiah chapter 32, don't, don't worry about pulling it up. You guys can look it

up later, but Jeremiah 32, you remember that Jeremiah purchased a piece of land from his cousin and his cousin seems to have been his enemy. And Jeremiah said, doom and gloom, this place is going to be on fire. The Babylonians are going to conquer this whole land. We're not going to have any of it. We're about to lose. Stop putting up a fight against the enemy. God has turned us over to the Babylonians and the people are ticked off at it. You're wrong. You're not patriotic. You shouldn't have said that. So they put him in prison. They do all kinds of things. And one of his enemies seems to have been his cousin, and his cousin put him to the test and said, said, I need to sell some land. I need to sell some land because I need some money. How's 17 shekels for this great big field that I have? What he's doing is he's telling Jeremiah to prove it, put

your money where your mouth is. If you say this is all going to be gone, let's see if, if you'll purchase land that's going about to be taken at war. And Jeremiah surprises him and buys it for 17 shekels. Now, the land could have been depreciated because there was a threat of war, but still 17 shekels for a great big field. Abraham's asking for a plot to bury his wife in, and he gets the price of 400 shekels. That's a massive markup, unless this is oceanfront property. And I don't think hebron is oceanfront property. In fact, I know it's how it had been there. All right. So 400 shekels. So the, so the Hittite says, ah, it's worth 400 shekels. What's that to us? You know, just take it. And Abraham gets to see how everyone's being really interactive except for Abraham. And Abraham, he just, he says, Abraham listened to Ephron or 16 and Abraham weighed out for Ephron the silver that

he had named in the hearing of the Hittites, 400 shekels of silver. Watch this. According to the weights current among the merchants, in other words, he wanted to make sure it was fair and square and seek. So he called in the expert scales to have everything weighed so that no one could say you were a shekel short or you're an out short or you gave some shekels that they weren't, that they were alloyed. No. In other words, he brought in some means of verifying again, everything's got to be above board. He just gives it 400 seconds. Okay. I know, I know the price that you just quoted me was outrageous. So be it. It's a place for my wife. So the field of Ephron and Machpila, which was east of Mamre, the field with the cave that was in it and all the trees that were in the field throughout its whole area was made over to Abraham as a possession in the

presence of the Hittites before all who went in at the gate of his sea. After this, Abraham buried Sarah, his wife, in the cave of the field of Machpila, east of Mamre. That is, in the land of Canaan, the field in the cave that is in it were made over to Abraham as property for a burying place by the Hittites. You can see how this is almost reading like a contract. It's just to make sure everything's above board. What I want to draw your attention to is this reference here at the end of Machpila, the cave, which is east of Mamre. That's an interesting note right there because what's been happening at Mamre, this is like the third or fourth story that we've seen at that location. There are oaks at Mamre that's famous for being a wooded area. Last time we were at Mamre, Abraham was there in the heat of the day. His wife was inside the tent and he was

resting under the shade of the trees and he got three visitors. Two of them were angels and one of them was God himself. There, God, what did he say to Abraham? He said, this time next year, your wife is going to have given birth to a son and Sarah's inside the tent and she overhears, which means she's probably there and listening to what's going on and she starts laughing. But to herself, she didn't laugh out and then she hears God say she doesn't know it's God. She just thinks it's a visitor, a human visitor and the human visitor says, why did she laugh when I said that? And Sarah peeks her head outside the tent says, nobody laughed and God said, yes, you did. You laughed. And that time next year, she did indeed have a son. So she was given the promise of the seed of Abraham there at Mamre and the cave that she's buried in overlooks where she was given

that promise. So in the New Testament, the early Christians remember they again and again came back to the passage of Scripture in Genesis 15 about that promise that was made at Mamre and noted that God said that when Abraham believed in the seed of Sarah, meaning Sarah's going to have a son in the seed singular of Sarah, when he believed, God counted to him as righteousness or justified him. There's salvation in believing in the seed singular of Abraham. And what Paul drew attention to was ultimately that seed. Abraham was having faith in God that he was going to have Isaac through Sarah, but ultimately Abraham was believing on his ultimate seed, Jesus. That was the promise that was given at Mamre, which means Abraham was saved the same way we're saved, believing in the seed. So Sarah is buried in a cave overlooking that place where she's given the promise for her son, Isaac, but ultimately where she was given the promise of

the Messiah, the Christ of the world, who's going to save. So that means on the day of the resurrection, in that old 4,000-year-old body of Sarah, or however long it is, is it what happened today in the resurrection, when she first opens her eyes, first sight is going to be those trees. Maybe not the trees aren't still there, but that same place where she was given the promise of the seed, Jesus Christ. And then she's going to see him, her seed. Amen. Could you pull up that? There's something like you see him maybe magnified at several times. I don't know if you can see that. Okay, looks pretty good there. This is a poem written in the 17th century by an English pastor by the name of George Herbert. He was pastor of a church in Bremerton. I see 17th century. The church is here in the 17th century in Bremerton, Washington. No, Bremerton, England. George Herbert wrote this poem. Watch this. He's

describing prayer, prayer. The church is banquet, angels of age. How old is an angel? Remember, I want you to remember with each line we go through, is that each of these are descriptions of what prayer is. First, he says prayer is the church's banquet. Second, he says angels age. Prayer is like angels age. How old are angels? Timeless, that's what prayer is. It has a start, but no end. God's breath in man returning to his birth, that's what prayer is. God gave us breath and whenever we pray, we give it back to him. Prayer is the soul in paraphrase. Is ever have somebody paraphrase you? Or summarize what you're trying to say? You're not quite getting it out as concisely as you would like with the clarity that you would like. But prayer is that which puts your whole soul in paraphrase. It's something that understands you. Heart in pilgrimage. It's the Christian plummet, sounding heaven and earth. A plummet is something you

drop on the side of a ship. It has a weight on the end of it. And it has knots at certain lengths to show you how deep, how deep the sea is. And here he says that prayer is the Christian plummet, sounding heaven and earth. That is, prayer gives us the depth of where we're at. It's an engine against the Almighty. The engine, he's speaking of, is the siege engine. It's an offensive weapon against the city wall. The engine approaches the city wall to tear the wall down and get inside. And the poet here says that prayer is an engine against the Almighty. Sinner's tower, reversed thunder. That's my favorite one right there because thunder scares us. It seems like something that heaven is doing to us. It terrifies people on earth. It's something that heaven sends and terrifies people on the earth. But he calls prayer reversed thunder. So it's something that we do on earth that sends the angels running. Reversed

thunder. Christ's side piercing spear. The six days world transposing in an hour. A kind of tune which all things hear and fear, its softness and peace and joy and love and bliss, exalted manna, gladness of the best, heaven in ordinary. It's man well dressed. It's the Milky Way. The bird of paradise. Church bells beyond the stars heard. The souls, blood, bland as vices. Something understood. There are approximately 23 metaphors for what prayer is right there. There's a 24th that's hidden. I want to draw your attention to it. It's just how we close. Look. Look at the left margins. Ignore the capital R on prayer. That's a mistake. P-T-E-A-S-T. That's the 24th metaphor for prayer. It says point east. I went into a cathedral in Salisbury, England, where many of the crusaders were buried. If you're a crusader who returned from one crusade and you were buried, you had your knees crossed on the sarcophagus. If you were on two crusades, you had your

knees crossed and your arms crossed. And all the sarcophagi, all the soldiers, crusaders, they were all buried in the same direction. Their head here, their feet here, all throughout the cathedral, everywhere you went. And I asked, I asked somebody, what direction is over here? And they said, oh, that's a good question because that's the key to understanding what's happening here. All the crusaders were buried pointing east. They went to the Jerusalem, physical Jerusalem, the material Jerusalem, a Jerusalem of this world. They went there and fought. But in death, they wanted to be buried with their feet pointing towards the new Jerusalem. So their feet are pointing east, as if death is the first step on that road into heaven. It points us, and what George Herbert is saying, what the poet is saying by hiding this metaphor, it's the 24th metaphor. Prayer is this, it's that which points us east. That is, it puts our feet on the path towards the new Jerusalem.

We die in faith. If you pray, you die in faith with your feet pointed towards the new Jerusalem. This is what Abraham and Sarah's life was. Every chapter, make mistakes, but then prayer and sacrifice and recommitting themselves to God. And their feet are pointing east. It's what you want to do at the end of every day, ask God on my feet pointing east. Am I on my way to heaven? Has this day put me closer or turned me around? Am I going in the wrong direction? Am I getting distracted from the one thing I have to do in life? The one thing I have to do in life is be pointed east. Let's dance. I don't know what lies in my future, and I'm so glad God has hidden my future from me. I don't want to know it, at least my immediate future. But I do know this about my future. If I die, the first thing I'm going to see is

my Savior, my first breath in the next world, my Savior. Point me east, point me east, bury me in Naqpila, overlooking the promise. Overlooking the promise. Amen.