We're here in John chapter 1.
John chapter 1. And I'll just begin reading from
verse 1, and we'll read down, but our text is going to be found
in verse 12 and 13. In the beginning was the Word.
And this Word is the power. This is the covenant Word. This
is the wisdom. In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was
in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him,
and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was
life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth
in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. There was
a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a
witness, to bear witness of the light that all through him might
believe. He was not that light, but was
sent to bear witness of that light. That was the true light,
which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. Now here's
where we'll begin. He was in the world and the world
was made by him and the world knew him not. He came unto his
own and his own received Him not. But as many as received
Him, to them gave He power, right, privilege, made them meet to
be partakers of the inheritance with the saints in life. He gave
them power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe
on His name, which were born, not of blood, nor of the will
of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. Let's pray. Our gracious Heavenly Father,
we come before you as needy sinners. Needful that you would be pleased
to open up our hearts, clear our minds and our thoughts
from this world, And Lord, in Your power and in
Your grace, cause us to hear. Cause us to
truly enter into the glory of Your great name. The glory that's
seen in the face of Christ Jesus the Lord. And cause us, Lord, to truly
enter into worship. We ask this in the name of our
Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Now, sinners are made the sons
of God by the power of God. And it's by the power of God
alone. Sinners become sons of God by God the Father's power
of grace. We speak of God's sovereignty. God's sovereignty is much more
than God controlling all things. God's sovereignty involves God
the Father's power to choose whom He would before the world
began and put them in Christ Jesus, His Son. And sinners are
redeemed, the redeemed sons of God, by the power and efficacy
of the blood of Christ Jesus the Lord alone, who freely forever
perfected all those whom God gave him by his one offering. By the power of God the Holy
Spirit, sinners are brought into the realization of this sonship,
into the adoption of son, rebirthed, born again, when the inner man
is created and renewed in knowledge after the image of God. We lost it. We lost it when Adam
sinned in the garden. We had to be renewed A new man
has to be created and we have to be renewed in knowledge after
the image of God who creates that inner man. And this is by
the power of the Holy Spirit. And those who have experienced
this power, the power of the triune God, can say in full agreement,
they can say in full agreement, salvation is not of him that
willeth, it's not of him that runneth, but it's of God that
shows mercy. That's where salvation is. Salvation
is of the Lord. Now, in this text, in verse 11,
it says, He came unto His own, and His own received Him not.
But as many as received Him, to them gave He power, privilege
to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name. Now, this giving of power to
become the sons of God, it's not a power that's given by which
a sinner then chooses whether he'll accept or reject Christ.
That's a fictitious, made-up thing. That's not the truth.
That's not in the Bible. It's not according to God's Word.
And that's a fictitious power. But the power spoken of here
is the power which glorifies the triune God of glory, the
Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, our King Messiah. Whenever David said, Thee, Lord,
said unto my Lord, Sit on my right hand till I make Your enemies
Your footstool. And he said, the Lord shall send
the rod of thy strength out of Zion. Rule thou in the midst
of thine enemies, and thy people shall be willing in the day of
your power. This is the power we're talking
about. We've been going through Acts on Thursday nights back
home. And what we're seeing over and
over as we go through the book of Acts is the one who descended
into the lowest parts of the earth, into the womb of the virgin,
is the same one who has ascended. And he's king. And he sends forth,
he's sending forth the gospel. The Holy Spirit goes forth and
he calls out his people effectually. It's not, this thing is not a
haphazard thing to where it's partly up to God and partly up
to us. God, who in the beginning purpose to save a people to the
glory and praise of His great name, is effectually working
this work just as He has since before time ever began. What
do you have to do with creating this earth? What do you have
to do with upholding it? Has the word of your power upheld
it? What have you and I had to do with how God has raised up
nations and brought down nations and conquered all His enemies
throughout time, preserved His word, What did you and I have
to do with putting away our sin? What do we have to do with keeping
ourselves? What do we have to do with resurrecting
ourselves into the presence of his glory? If at any point in
the way you can claim the glory for any of that that was done,
then you just resurrect yourself too. You don't need God. If you
do any of those other things, you don't need God. But in verse 13 it says, they
were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor
of the will of man, but of God. Now, these three phrases here,
not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will
of man, they all amount to the same meaning. That is, sinners
are born again, brought into a saving union with Christ, not
by the power of the sinner, but by the power of the triune God.
And that's how we're kept there. The reason I wanted to bring
this message to you is because I've been where y'all are. I've
been in a situation before to where everything, every idea,
every plan that I had and my brethren had seemed to come to
nothing for the furtherance of the gospel to the point that
we were brought to see We can't do this. We can't keep this work
together. We can't make this work continue. But when you're brought to that
place, you know what happens? You cast your care on the mercy
of God. And God makes it happen. God
makes it happen. I was in a place and thought
God would use me in the midst of a situation like that, and
discovered real soon God wasn't going to use me. And after what
I consider to be one of the worst years of trial in all my life,
at the end of every trial, I think, I can't get worse. I can't get
any lower. And it would get worse, and I'd
go lower. And what I came to realize is
If I love this people, I see good and well, I'm not
the man for this. And if I love them, if I have
the heart for these people, which you need to be a pastor of a
people, if I really love them, I'm going to sit down and I'm
going to support them and their every endeavor. to bring folks
in to preach the gospel and depend on God to raise up a pastor. And you know what God did? He
raised up a pastor, a faithful pastor. Chris Cunningham preaches
the gospel. I sat there and just rejoiced
every time I heard him preach. Every time I heard him preach.
And he asked me to teach and to preach not long after that,
continue what I had been doing all along. But I wasn't the pastor.
And so I'll write what couldn't be. But God brings us through
those kinds of trials and brings us into those types of adversity
to make us see just how insufficient we are in ourselves, to make
us behold that the sufficiency all the time, since the first
hour that we came into this knowledge of God's grace. Ever since, the
whole sufficiency of our persevering in faith has been by the sufficiency
of His grace to keep us and preserve us. And it's to His glory. It's His glory to do so. Now,
I want to look here at these three things, the will of the
flesh, is the will of every sinner that's born the first time. That is the will that's bound
in sin, that product of the corrupt seed of our first father, Adam.
That's the will of the unregenerate sinner, carnal, corrupt, enmity
against God, hates God. And the will of man, as badly
as I desire to see everybody I preach to hear the gospel and
be born of the Spirit of God, I can't do it. As badly as I
want my children to be sons and a daughter of God, I can't make
it happen. It won't happen by the will of
the preacher. By the will of mamas and daddies,
it's by God's power. And then this first thing here,
the blood, I want to concentrate on this because this word is
plural. It's not of bloods. And there
were three kinds of blood in which national Israel, as well
as the Gentile proselytes, as well as sinners in our day, three
kinds of blood that they put confidence in. And this would
be our divisions here. It's the blood of circumcision.
It was the blood of kinship and it was the blood which they shared.
in their act of bringing the Passover lamb. And in these three
things, the principle, the very core of unbelief is found. This is the confidence of the,
if we put confidence in the will of man or the will of the flesh,
it's found, it's seen in these three things. All right, now,
I want you to see here, first of all, the blood of circumcision.
Now, God commanded Abraham to be circumcised in the flesh as
a token of the righteousness of faith which God had given
to Abraham 15 years before. And the gospel that was declared
before to Abraham declared that we're circumcised in Christ Jesus,
by Christ Jesus. in the circumcision made without
hands, the baptism made without hands, putting off the sins of
the flesh, wherein every elect child of God is baptized into
death and raised to newness of life in Christ. Look with me
at Colossians 2.10. Colossians 2.10. This verse right here has nothing
to do with water baptism. Nothing at all. This is having
to do, this is the gospel of what Christ accomplished by His
death, His burial, and His resurrection. Now listen. Verse 10, Colossians
2.10. Well, let's begin in verse 9.
In Him, in Christ, dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily,
and you are complete in Him, which is the head of all principality
and power. What's left? What's undone or
what's left to be done if it says we're complete? Nothing. You're complete. You know what
complete is? Complete means it's done. You're
complete. In Christ, who is the head of
all principality and power, in whom also ye are circumcised. He's talking to believers now.
You're circumcised with the circumcision made without hand. in putting
off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of
Christ. Now explain that to us, Paul.
What do you mean by that? Buried with him in baptism, not a water
baptism. This is when Christ died, we
died. When Christ was buried, we were
buried. When Christ rose again, we rose again. Buried with him
in baptism. This is what circumcision given
to Abraham way back there was declaring. that were circumcised
with the circumcision of Christ, buried with Him in baptism, wherein
also ye are risen with Him through the faith, the faithfulness of
the operation of God." This is God's power. This is God's work.
This is what God did. "...who hath raised Him from
the dead. And you, being dead in your sins
and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath He quickened together
with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses." When did that
happen? when Christ came out of that
grave and was raised to the right hand of the Father. That's when
it happened. Now, this outwardly, this outward
fleshly token was a sign of how Abraham, this is the second,
that's the first time when Abraham said, Christ said, Abraham saw
my day. Abraham, through the gospel,
through the power of God, saw that in Christ, the coming Messiah,
all his sin would be put away by the sacrifice of that one. When he died, Abraham saw, I'm
going to be delivered from all my sin. And that's what he saw
when he saw Christ's day. Then secondly, this outward fleshly
token was a sign of how Abraham was created anew in the inner
man through the Holy Spirit. In order for Abraham to see God's
day, he had to be born of the Spirit of God. If any man have
not the Spirit of God, he's none of his. Saints in Old Testament
times were saved through the Spirit of God just as saints
in our day are. Abraham was saved the same way you and I have been
saved, and that's through the Holy Spirit creating us anew
in the inner man. Now, let's look at Romans chapter
2. Romans chapter 2, and we'll see this. I'm going to spend
a little more time on this point, and then the next two will go
a little quicker. So, Romans 2, verse 28. He is not a Jew, which is one
outwardly, neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh,
but he is a Jew, which is one inwardly. Now here's Paul's going
to tell us exactly what circumcision is. Circumcision is that of the
heart in the spirit, not in the letter whose praise is not of
men, but of God. Now, Paul puts all this together
over in Ephesians 2. Go over there with me real quick.
Ephesians chapter 2. Are y'all used to turning to
scriptures like this? Do y'all do this normally? Some folks
don't, you know. You go some places and they're
not used to it. Alright, Ephesians 2. Now look, Paul puts all this
together right here when he was talking to the Gentiles in Ephesus. He says in verse 17, he's praying
for them, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father
of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation
in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being
enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of His calling
and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance to in the
saints. And what is the, now catch this
right here, what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us
who believe according to the working of His mighty power,
which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and
set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places. above
all principality and power and might and dominion and every
name that's named, not only in this world, but also in that
which is to come. And He's put all things under Christ's feet
and gave Him to be the head over all to the church, which is His
body, the fullness of Him that fills all in all." So did you
catch verse 19 though? The exceeding greatness of God's
power. that it takes to circumcise the
inner man, the heart of a believer, is the same power that God used
in raising Christ from the dead. It's the same power. It's the
same power that was when Christ put away our sins by the sacrifice
of Himself, and the same power when He raised Him from the dead
is the same power of the inner man. Paul puts them both together.
Now let's bring this into our day. Now the Gentiles were never
under the law of Moses. Did you know that? The Gentiles
never were under the law given to the Levitical law. They never
were under it. Now at Antioch, Paul had preached
the gospel to some Gentiles. Now get this now, they've been
circumcised in the burial and resurrection of Christ. Their
sins had been forever put away as far as the east is from the
west. They had been circumcised in
the heart by the Spirit of God, made new creations in Christ
Jesus, made to behold the glory that was theirs in Christ, the
glory of the Father in the face of Christ Jesus. They were children
in whom God had written the law of His everlasting covenant,
and yet some ignorant legalists came down there to Antioch, going
about to establish their own righteousness, and they said
to these Gentiles, now except you be circumcised, you can't
enter into the kingdom of heaven. You know where Christ is? He's
seated at the right hand of the Father above all power and principality
and dominion Everything, you know where his people are? Right
there with him. You know where you are who have
been born of the Spirit of God? Right there with him. You know
where Paul was when these fellows came down there? Right there
with him. You know why, you know, because of that, you know what
Paul said to those fellows? I'm not going to be brought under
the power and dominion of you fellows. Are you crazy? You think that
these fellows who are complete in Christ need something from
man's hand to make them complete? The truth of the matter is, except
you be circumcised after the manner of Abraham, by God, by
the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, by the Holy Spirit, you
can't be saved. That's the truth. For we're the
circumcision which worship God in the Spirit and rejoice in
Christ Jesus. You know the next part? And have
no confidence in the flesh. at Jerusalem. Do you realize
what the Apostle Peter said? Look at Acts 15 with me. Do you
realize what the Apostle Peter said when he gave the account
of Cornelius and those who heard the gospel in his house that
day? Do you know what he said? Look at Acts 15, 7. They got
up there to Jerusalem. And here's what Peter said. Acts
15, 7. And when there had been much
disputing, Peter rose up and said unto these, Men, brethren,
You know how that a good while ago, God made choice among us
that the Gentiles, by my mouth, should hear the word of the gospel
and believe. That was God's choice. And God,
by the gospel at Peter's mouth, they would hear and believe.
And God, which knoweth the hearts, bear them witness, witness that
by his power they had heard and they had believed, giving them.
How did he bear witness? He gave them the Holy Ghost,
even as he did unto us. Now, Peter preached the gospel
to Cornelius and to those servants and folks who worked in Cornelius'
household, all those fellows, and they heard this gospel preached.
And God the Holy Spirit circumcised those that had never heard the
gospel, the truth of God, circumcised them in the heart. And they believed,
they trusted. Christ. And when he did, God
bear record that their hearts were purified by faith that's
in Christ alone by doing this outward extraordinary manifestation
of the Holy Spirit upon them. Because if he didn't, those Jews
would hold them in suspect. They would say, now we don't
know if these fellows really believed or not. But by this,
they couldn't deny it. And Peter said, when that happened,
he said, I remembered the Word of the Lord. He said, John indeed
baptized with water, but you should be baptized with the Holy
Ghost. Now, when Peter was at Pentecost,
And the same thing happened to the Jews at Pentecost. And the
Holy Spirit was poured out in this outward manifest token.
It was to show that Christ had put away the sins of his people.
He had circumcised them in their heart, circumcised them in putting
off their sins by the sacrifice of himself. And it was to show
that he had circumcised them in the heart through the Holy
Spirit. And what did Peter say? Peter said, that's exactly what
this is telling us. And the glory, this is the issue,
the glory is Christ Jesus, the King of glory. Peter said this,
being by the right hand of God exalted, having received of the
Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, He, Christ, hath shed
forth this which you now see in here. He did this. Christ
did this. He earned the right. He earned
the privilege. He bought it with His own blood
to pour out the Spirit. and to give his children the
privilege and the right and the power to become the sons of God.
Christ the King did this. And so he poured it out, and
Peter said, therefore, let all the house of Israel know assuredly. Don't let there be any doubt
in your mind that God has made that same Jesus, that Jesus of
Nazareth, that man that walked this earth where we walk, He's
made that same man whom ye have crucified, both Lord, He's the
King, He's the Sovereign, He is the King, and He's the Savior,
He's the Christ, He's the Messiah, He's the King priest, He's the
King Messiah, He's the Sovereign priest, the Sovereign Savior.
That's who He is. And He manifested by pouring
that out. Now look here in Acts 15. Are you there with me still?
So what does Peter say? What's the result of that? Verse
8, he said, God, which knoweth the hearts, bear them witness.
Cornelius knows in his house. So giving them the Holy Ghost,
even as he did unto us Jews, and put no difference between
us Jews and those Gentiles, purifying their hearts by faith. Now, therefore, why tempt ye
God? That's what this is, to try to
bring a man under some principle that there's yet something that
has to be done or can be done in the flesh. That's attempting
of God to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which
neither our fathers nor we were able to bear. But we believe
that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be
saved even as they. I get what he's saying, we Jews
who have been under the the covenant, that earthly covenant, we believe
we're going to be saved like these Gentiles had never ever
were under it. Do you know what he just said? Do you realize what he just said? We're going to be saved like
these Gentile dogs, like these harlots, like these public like
these sinners who have never even heard of the privileges
that we've had under the commonwealth of Israel. They don't have any
idea, we're going to be saved like they are. It would have
been totally different if Peter would have said, they're going
to be saved like we are. Those in favor of circumcision, in
favor of man, the will of man, the will of the flesh, they would
have said, amen. But he said, no, we're going
to be saved like they are. by a free, sovereign, irresistible
grace, by God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit
manifest fully in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's how we're going to be
saved. So, now back there when Abraham was born of the Spirit
of God and saw Christ's day, he saw he was complete, his heart
had been circumcised, God wrote this everlasting covenant on
his heart. Now, I got a question for you. Why then Did God give
that token, that sign of circumcision, and tell Abraham to circumcise
all his children? Why'd he do that? God used an entire nation to
illustrate what I'm telling you right here tonight. That's a
powerful God. That's a sovereign God that can
use an entire nation that wasn't even in existence at that time,
that He talked to Abraham. Bring them into existence and
use an entire nation to illustrate that He saves by sovereign grace
alone. How so? God made an earthly covenant
with Abraham. He made an everlasting covenant
in Abraham's heart, but He also made an earthly covenant with
Abraham and with his children, who would later be called Israel. It was a covenant entirely of
earthly promises. It was given to bear witness
of this glory I've been telling you about. I don't have time
to read it, but mark it down. Genesis 17 verses 8 through 14. You can read it all for yourself.
And when you read it, note that everything he promised was of
an earthly nature. He'd bring them into the land
of Canaan. He'd bring them out of Egypt. They'd be slaves in
Egypt. He'd bring them out of Egypt.
He'd bring them through the wilderness. He'd bring them into the land
of Canaan. All those things were told him. And this is what he
gave as a seal and a sign and a token of that earthly covenant,
of that earthly fleshly sign of fleshly circumcision. And
he said, in order for them to be under this earthly covenant,
you know what's got to happen? Every son born in Israel's got
to be circumcised, every one of them. In spite of their rebellion,
God fulfilled every earthly promise he promised to Abraham that day
toward Israel. He performed every one of them.
Not a promise he made went unfulfilled. What do we learn from that? Do
you see how God declared the glory of this power that I've
been telling you about through this earthly model? Listen, when
God commanded that not one son born of Adam was to go uncircumcised,
his law for witness that all true Israel, all God's elect,
both Jew and Gentile, three things are going to happen to them.
Number one, they're going to all be circumcised by the work
of Christ putting off their sins at Calvary. Number two, they're
going to all be circumcised in the heart by the Holy Spirit.
Every son of God is going to be that way. And when it says
sons, if we've got anybody here that's women's livers, that means
men and women, children. Every child of God is going to
be born. circumcised in the heart by the
Spirit of God. And in fulfilling every earthly
promise, he manifests that every promise that he made in the everlasting
covenant of grace before the world began is going to be fulfilled
perfectly, fully. Because all the promises of God
are in Christ. Yes and amen. There's no ifs,
ands, or maybes in this covenant. And that's what this token manifests. And the Pharisees heard this
loud and clear. They heard it loud and clear. If any man uses
circumcision or anything to take the place of circumcision, if
I came in here tonight and I started telling you, now, you need to
observe the Lord's table. And when you do, now, the Lord,
you've taken the bread and the wine, it's got some saving efficacy
to it. the very exact same principle that those men were promoting
when they came down to Antioch and said, unless they'd be circumcised,
they can't enter the kingdom of heaven. I'd be promoting the
same lie. Anything that we do that takes
the place of God sovereignly putting his people in Christ,
of Christ sovereignly putting off our sins by the sacrifice
of himself and of that which the Holy Spirit does in the heart
is to usurp authority over God and to give ourselves the glory
in it instead of the three in one. In Romans chapter four, that's
exactly what Paul says. I don't think I've got time to
read it, but Romans chapter 4, verse 9, let's go ahead. We'll
look at it. I'll hurry through the next two
points. I'll be done after, close to finish after this. Verse 9.
Listen to what Paul said here. This is what he was dealing with,
how that Abraham was saved. You know where Abraham was when
God came to him? He was in a land of idolatry.
He didn't know God or who God was. The Word came to him. And
the Gospel came to him. And in that Word, in that Gospel,
God circumcised his heart and caused him to behold Christ.
And through the righteousness of faith, the righteousness of
Christ was imputed to him. Now listen to this, Romans 4
and 9. Cometh this blessedness then upon the circumcision only,
upon Jews only, or upon the uncircumcision also? For we say that faith was
reckoned to Abraham for righteousness. How was it then reckoned? When
he was in circumcision or in uncircumcision? Not in circumcision,
but in uncircumcision. Abraham was made the righteousness
of God in Christ Jesus 15 years before God ever gave him this
outward token, this sign of circumcision. And he received the sign of circumcision,
a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had, yet being
uncircumcised. That he might be the father of
all them that believe, though they be not circumcised, that
righteousness might be imputed unto them also, and the father
of circumcision. The father of what circumcision?
The one I've been telling you about, the circumcision made
without hands, the circumcision that Christ accomplished by the
sacrifice of Himself, the circumcision of the Holy Spirit. He's the
Father of those that are born of that circumcision to them
who are not of the Jews only, but also who walk in the steps
of that faith of our father Abraham, which he had yet been uncircumcised.
Do you see all this happened long before that was ever given? All that was given as an earthly
sign and fleshly model to show what God does in power and grace.
Now read on here. Verse 13, for the promise that
he should be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to
his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of
faith. For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is
made void and the promise made of no effect. You know who the
promise is? You know who the righteousness
of faith is? It's Christ Jesus the Lord. Compare verse 14. If they which are of the law
be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none
effect. What did Paul say? If you be circumcised, Christ
will profit you nothing. He said the same thing that Paul
says right here. If you're airs by the law, by
something you've done, by anything that you put your hand to, faith's
made void and the promise of none effect. Christ the promise
is made of no effect unto you. Verse 15, because the law worketh
wrath, for where no law is, there's no transgression. Therefore it's
a faith that it might be by grace to the end, the promise might
be sure to all to see. not to that only which is of
the law, those elect who were Jews, but to that which also
is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all. Now,
look down at verse 18, and I want you to hold your place here.
I may come back to it. But look at this verse 18. Who against
hope believed in hope that he might become the father of many
nations. According to that which was spoken,
so shall thy seed be. Does your translation say, so
shall thy descendants be? Is that what it says? You're
missing something with that translation, and I'm going to show it to you.
This is going to bring us to the second thing here. Hold your place there
in Romans 4. Let me read our text to you again,
and then we'll move to the second thing. The first thing they put
confidence in was the blood of circumcision, that literal thing
that they performed themselves. They put confidence in that.
That's the will of man. That's the will of the flesh.
That's what that is. The second thing, John said,
they were born not of blood, nor the will of the flesh, nor
the will of man, but of God. The second blood that they put
confidence in was the blood of kinship. Christ Jesus stood directly
in front of the most religious of the day. Sons of Abraham, natural descendants
of Abraham. And they answered and said unto
him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them, if you
were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham. But now you seek to kill me,
a man that had told you the truth which I have heard of God." Abraham
didn't do that. Abraham didn't do that. And he
said, you don't understand my speech. He said, it's because
you can't hear my word. Why couldn't they? They hadn't been circumcised
in the heart. And he said to them, you are of your father
the devil, the lust of your father you'll do. They said, we're children
of Abraham. Don't you see who our father
is? He said, yeah, I see who your father is. I know exactly
who your father is. Now, sinners foolishly think
that God's grace is toward the sons or daughters of believing
fathers or mothers. And I pray God would circumcise
our hearts, give us ears to hear what Christ said. Now, I mentioned
this blood of kinship second, because after Abraham was circumcised,
God gave him a son. You might say, no, Abraham had
a son already, Ishmael. God told Abraham to circumcise
Ishmael. And the reason he did that is
because he fell under that earthly covenant God made. God said,
I'll bless Ishmael. He'll become a great nation.
And God did. He did. He did. Look at the twin
towers. He made them a great nation.
No doubt about it. They fulfilled his promise. But
Ishmael's sonship went only as far as flesh went. His circumcision
went only as far as his flesh went, because he wasn't the Son
of God. The Son of God was Isaac. Now, what do we learn from that?
Abraham's sin in producing Ishmael, he got tired of waiting. He got
tired of depending on the power of God. He got tired of waiting
on the promise of God to do what God said he would do. This is
what I'm talking to you about. You're going to get tired of
waiting on God? You don't get tired of waiting on the promise
of God and decide you're going to take matters into your own hands.
I'm talking about right here in this place. Wait on Him. The hardest thing
is waiting. Because we just think we're so
smart we can fix it. God teaches us to wait on Him.
But Abraham didn't wait. And he had Ishmael. But you know
what? Not only could Abraham not produce
the Son, that God had chosen and elected unto salvation. God
in His power had to do that. Not only could Abraham not do
that, but you know what the glory of that statement is? Abraham's
sin in producing Ishmael didn't change God's grace toward Abraham
or alter his grace one iota from producing that son of promise.
If I could make my son a son of God, or you could make your
son a son of God, not only would I glory in it, but I might just
as well do something to make him not a son of God. But if
it's by God's grace and God's power, no matter what you do,
no matter what I do, no matter what Cyril does, Scott does,
any of us, it don't change God's unchangeable grace in Christ
Jesus one hour. Because it's not based on me
and you. Now let's see this. Again, the issue here is the
glory of the triune God. It's the glory of Jesus Christ.
It's not the glory of a denomination. It's not the glory of what you
think or what I think. In fact, your opinion and my
opinion, you know what it matters? About as much as that sand out
there. You know what matters? What God says right here in His
Word. That's what matters. Now listen
to me. I'm gonna give you some homework.
I want you to go home tonight, I want you to read the genealogies.
We skip over them, don't we? Can't learn anything from those.
Go read them. And I want you to mark something.
How that in the genealogies, there'll be a great, great grandfather,
and right behind his name will be the name of his great, great
grandson. And there was a whole bunch of
folks in between them. that were natural sons of Abraham.
But God speaks as if the great-great-grandfather is the very father of the great-great-grandson. You know why? Because He makes
His people sons and all those people in the middle that came
in between those generations, between those two names, weren't
His sons. And He just gave the names of
His sons. Now, turn over to Galatians chapter
3, I showed you there in that Romans 4, I said that translation
descendants. It's not wrong because God told
Abraham, go out here and look at the stars and they're going
to be as the multitude of the stars in the heavens. So shall
thy seed be. But when he said that in Romans
4, he said Abraham was going to be a father of nations and
so would his seed. Abraham did have a son who is
called the father of nations. In fact, Isaiah 9.16 calls him
the everlasting Father. Look here at Galatians 3.16.
Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. And he saith
not into seeds as of many, but as of one, and to thy seed, which
is Christ. Now look over at Romans 9, verse
6. You see? When God says, Abraham, you're
going to be the father of many nations, and He says in that,
your seed is going to be the father of many nations, just
like He does in the genealogies, God just skips everybody in between. It speaks of Christ. Now look
here, Romans 9, verse 6. It does the same thing when He
makes His promise to Sarah. Romans 9, 6. Not as though the
Word of God hath taken no effect, for they are not all Israel which
are of Israel, neither because they are the seed of Abraham,
are they all children. Now catch this now. But in Isaac
shall thy seed be called. That is, they which are the children
of the flesh, these are not the children of God, but the children
of the promise. And if you don't mind marking
in your Bible, if you want to put a capital P right there,
you can. Because the children of the promise
are counted for the seed. For this is the word of promise. This is the word concerning Christ
Jesus. At this time will I come and Sarah shall have a son. She had a son. She had Isaac.
He was the son of promise. He was the son God promised.
He was the son in whom he told Abraham all his children were
going to be called true sons of God. Just as he does in the
genealogies. In the way God sees it, God says
Sarah's going to have a son. And all the children are going
to be children in that son. Now who did Paul just say he
was talking about? He's talking about Christ. How
so? Because God waited until Sarah
was past the age of childbearing, had no power to produce a child. and he gave a child. What's God
teaching us in that? God's teaching us in that, brethren,
that sonship is not by my strength. It's not by your strength. It's
not by the strength of the preacher. It's not by the strength of some
man that calls himself a priest. It's not by the strength of flesh
and blood. It's by the power of God Almighty. Listen to Ephesians 1.3. Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ,
according as He has chosen us in Him before the foundation
of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before
Him in love. And let me tell you something
about that too. It's not that God put us in Christ so that
one day down the road when we're born and born of the Spirit,
we could somehow get to be holy and without blame. When God put
us in Christ from, if you could call it a moment, from that eternal
eternity, we were holy and without blame before God in Christ. How come He didn't destroy the
world when Abraham sinned in the garden? because His children
were holy and without blame before Him in Christ. How come He didn't
destroy you and me when we was running in our rebellion, kicking
up our heels and cussing God's name and hating God all the while?
Because in Christ, we were holy and without blame before Him.
Why did He do that? Listen to this. Having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself. We were children because God
in His power put us in Christ and Christ redeemed us and then
we're made to come into this realization of our adoption when
the Spirit of God circumcises it in the heart. So it's not
one father, then the next father, next son, then the next son,
the next son. It's God who in His power chooses whom He will,
saves them by His power and grace in Christ, makes them sons of
God through this gospel, through this spirit, and makes us to
say, Lord, you know what that will cause you to do? It'll cause
you not to take matters into your own hands to try to make
your children the sons of God. It'll make you do the will of
God. You know what the will of God
is? Cast yourself entirely on His
mercy and beg Him. He said, I'll be asked. I'll
be entreated. He delights in mercy. He delights to show mercy.
He said, I'll be asked. You ask me for this mercy. And
that's what He'll do for you right here in this place. He'll
make you beg Him for His mercy. Beg Him for His mercy. Isaac
was a son of God, not because he was a son of Abraham, but
because God chose Isaac and blessed him with all spiritual blessings
in heavenly places when He put Isaac in Christ before the world
began. And because you're sons, God has sent forth the Spirit
of His Son into your hearts. You became a son when that Spirit
came in. No, because you are sons. He
sent forth the Spirit of His Son. We're sons and daughters
in Christ, only in His Son. Quickly, here's the third thing. The blood of the Levitical Passover
lamb. This is what they put confidence
in. This was the third blood. The first one is the blood of
circumcision. The second was the blood of kinship. The third
one was the blood of the Passover lamb. One of the most telling
manifestations of human depravity, of self-righteousness, of man's
satisfaction with a mere form of godliness, denying the power
of God, is this right here. The Jews, therefore, because
it was the preparation that the body should not remain upon the
cross on the Sabbath day, for that Sabbath day was a high day,
besought Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they
might be taken away. Let's get the Prince of Life
down off the cross so that we don't break the law, so we can
go on worshiping. Isaac said to Abraham, here's
the wood and here's the fire. Where's the lamb? And Abraham
said, my son, God will provide a lamb. That's not what he said. He said, my son, God will provide
Himself a lamb. If God's going to be just, His
law's got to be satisfied in the perfection of holiness. And if God's going to be the
justifier, He's got to be the one to satisfy it. John said,
Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. For He hath made Him sin for
us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of
God in Him. He was made a curse for us, for
it is written, Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree. And just
like that night in Egypt, when that lamb, that blood of that
lamb was put on the doorpost, every son of Abraham, every true
son of Abraham, every elect child of God died when Christ died
at Calvary's Cross. You remember whenever Lee Harvey
Oswald shot the president? or whoever did it, we don't know.
Now, you know, who knows? But remember when he did that
and the whole world wanted him to suffer the severest punishment
and penalty that the law could inflict on him. And when Jack Ruby stepped out
and put that gun to Lee Harvey Oswald and pulled the trigger
and shot him, and Lee Harvey Oswald died, Everybody was let
down. You know why? Because the law
had nothing else to say to Lee Harvey Oswald. Not a thing. Wherefore, my brethren, ye also
are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that ye should
be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead,
that we should bring forth fruit unto God. Paul said, I through the law,
through his obedience to the law and death answering to the
justice of the law, am dead to the law that I might live unto
God. The law that the elect died to.
You know what law it is? You ever thought of that? What
law was it that the chosen sons of God died to when Christ died? It was that one law that we broke
in the garden in our first representative, Adam. That's the law we died
to. And that's all the law. Was that
transgression enough to kill us in our first representative? Well, when our second representative
died, we died to him. We died to the penalty. We died
to all the trespass and transgression we committed against God. The
transgression of the law is transgression against God. And God satisfied
Himself, propitiated Himself in Christ Jesus so that now God
has nothing against His people. Nothing. You say, well, what
about the law that was given to Moses? That law was given
to magnify the horrible offense of that one trespass in the garden. And you know what else? Christ,
the Jews who were under that Mosaic Law, who were the elect
of God, He satisfied that law completely. All what, 615 laws,
something like that? He didn't break a one. Obeyed
them all in every jot and tittle, in thought, word, and deed. Went
to the cross and answered for the justice of His people who
had broken every one of them in every jot and tittle. You
know what that tells me? That declares the magnitude of
just how fully the law is satisfied and how righteous our Redeemer
is. Now there's only God and us in
Christ with no distractions. No distractions. Better than
what Adam had, now we're under the law, we're under the rule,
we're under the effectual power and grace of Christ Jesus the
Lord. Somebody call me one day. Somebody called me one day and
wanted to tell me that I was breaking up their church. And I said, I don't even know
who you are, fella. How am I breaking up your church? And he said,
well, folks have been printing some of your bulletins and bringing
them in and what have you, and it's causing a fuss with folks
sitting here And he said, I understand what you say up to this point,
but now you say that the believer is not under the law. What do
you mean by that? And I pulled my notes up. This
is why I print them out like I did. I pulled them up and I
said, read the rest of that statement. The believer is not without law.
We're under the rule. We're under the dominion. We're
in the effectual working of Christ, our King, our God, our Savior,
who works through the Spirit, through the Gospel, in the heart.
You know what we use the law for now? Now we know what the
law is for. The law was given to give the knowledge of sin.
It wasn't given as a measure of how well you've done. It wasn't
given as a measure to see how far you've come. It wasn't given
as something to use to whip and beat and prod and motivate people.
Tell me when it ever did. When has law ever made people
obedient? God gave one day Adam in a perfect
environment and it didn't make him obedient. You think it's
going to make you and me who are sinners obedient? Our motivation,
our drive, our constraint is the gospel of the grace of God
in Christ Jesus, whereby He works effectually in the hearts of
His people and brings every thought into obedience to the faith of
Christ. I don't understand that. Well,
then you don't understand the gospel. You know why people don't preach
Christ and Him crucified? You know why people let the discipline
of the church become more of a distraction than whatever it
was the person did in the first place? Because they don't believe
the preaching of the gospel does this. I tell you, it does. You're looking at proof it does
right here. I guarantee it does, and it does
it The law never, ever made one person obedient. It wasn't given
for that purpose. Read Romans chapter 3. Christ
Jesus constrains and motivates and brings His people to be obedient
through the Spirit, through the gospel that declares your works
His works. And all this other mess of trying
to make people do what you think they ought to do or what I think
they ought to do is nothing more than us trying to crawl up to
the seat of God and get on His throne and do what only Christ
Jesus the Lord can do. You remember when God told them,
He said, don't be like the Pharisees. They like to be called Rabbi
and Master and Master. Look that up. Look up those words,
Rabbi, Master and Master. Look up the original word and
you'll see that those three words have imply Father, Son and Holy
Spirit, the work of the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit. You
know what the Pharisees desired to do by putting heavy burdens
on people and trying to force them into doing what they thought
they ought to be doing? Six, six, six. Man, man, man. in place of seven,
the Father, seven, the Holy Spirit, and seven, Christ Jesus, the
Lord, the Son of God. The number of the beast, everybody
gets all crazy about 666. Read the verse. It's the number
of man. Where do you think the evil is?
Somewhere out there? Right here in this flesh, this
product of Adam. Only God can make us obedient. And listen to this, brethren.
When you've experienced this, This power, when we experienced it, we'll stop trying to do what
only God can do. We'll stop trying to do what
only the gospel can do, what the Spirit of grace can do. We'll
stop trying to divide, brethren, and have our own way and force
our hand and walk in the power of our own strength. And when
we do that, brethren, when we wear up and do that, we always
have a tendency to give it real pretty names and try to make
it sound like we're doing it for the glory of God. The Pharisees
and the Sadducees and all the different ones that gather together
We're all doing it in the name of the glory of God. They couldn't
get along with one another, but one thing they could get along
together on was crucify Him. Crucify Him. But when this Spirit of unity
enters in, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering. How long did God How long did
God suffer with you? How long has He? You know what I can do to restore
my brother that's fallen? Restore him to Christ. Not restore
him to a way that I think he ought to walk or what I think
he ought to say or do. Restore him to Christ. Declare
how God put him in Christ, how Christ redeemed him, how the
Spirit has quickened him, made him alive. Declare to him the
glory of God. Because anything else, you know
what it is? It's us being led astray ourselves,
being tempted that we can somehow do what only God can do. Put on, therefore, as the elect
of God, holy and beloved, vows of mercies, kindness, humbleness
of mind, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another and forgiving
one another. If any man have a quarrel against
any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. And above all,
put on, all." That's the bond of affection. And let the peace
of God rule in your heart. to the which you are called in
one body, and be thankful.