Thank you for those words, Simon,
and what thankfulness. Eternity is only just enough
time, just enough time to thank the Lord, isn't it? Any less
than eternity wouldn't be long enough, wouldn't be long enough
for who He is and for what He's done. And it's a right and proper
thing for us as the people of Israel did a long, long time
ago to set up our markers and call them Ebenezers. They set
up a stone and called it Ebenezer and it was, thus far the Lord
has helped. And it's a good thing. It's a
good thing for us to contemplate our lives and especially contemplate
them in the light. of God's Word and His grace and
His mercy and the remarkable fulfilment of His promises in
the scriptures, in the hearts and lives of His people. God
is faithful and He will do it. We spoke last week out of Galatians
chapter 4 verse 21. I tried to speak a little about hearing, hearing the Word
of God. We just might read on in Galatians
chapter 4 and then we'll come back and
we'll look at this remarkable story. This remarkable story,
isn't it wonderful how the New Testament sheds a light on stories
of the Old Testament, sheds a light on characters of the Old Testament
and gives us insights into their lives that we would never have
gathered from their lives. Who would have thought that Lot
was a righteous man living there amongst those others? But Lot
was a righteous man and he was vexed in his righteous spirit
by the wicked things that were done around him. The New Testament
gives us a marvellous commentary on the things of the Old Testament.
It is all the Word of God. Its truth doesn't change, its
focus doesn't change, but we're just given another glimpse into
the activities and the plans and the purposes and the unfolding
of God's eternal covenant. Let's read Galatians 4, verse
21 says, Tell me, he's asking the Galatians to ponder and to
give answer to a question, you that desire to be under the law. Paul must have been horrified
to think, as he wrote those words several times in Galatians, to
be under the law is to have all of the law of God above you. If you put yourself under one
little tiny bit of it, you put yourself under all of it, all
of those threatenings. Go and read Deuteronomy 28 and
read that extraordinary list of the curses of God for disobedience. Go and read Numbers 15 about
the judgment of God upon a man who was out picking up a stick
on Saturday. down picking up a stick on Saturday
morning. And the whole congregation, two
million people, waited, waited for God to give His judgment
on this man. That's been under the law. The judgment was really clear,
wasn't it? You take him outside the camp
and you stone him to death right now. No appeals, no mercy. Tell me you who desire to be
under the law, do you not hear the law? For it is written that
Abraham had two sons, one by the bondmaid and the other by
a free woman. But he who was of the bondwoman
was born after the flesh, but he of the free woman was by promise. which things are an allegory,
for these are the two covenants, one from Mount Sinai which gendereth,
which bears, gives birth to bondage, which is Hagar. For this Hagar
is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which
now is." It represents in a sense the Jerusalem which now is. and is in bondage with her children. But the Jerusalem which is above
is free, which is the mother of us all. For it is written,
Rejoice, thou barren, that bearest not. Break forth and cry, thou
that travailest not. For the deathlet has many more
children than she which has a husband. And now we, brethren, as Isaac
was, are the children of promise. But as then he that was born
after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit,
even so it is now. Nevertheless, what saith the
Scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her
son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son
of the free woman. So then, brethren, we are not
children of the bondwoman, but of the free. Stand fast, therefore,
in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, and be not
entangled again with the yoke of bondage. Behold, I, Paul,
say unto you that if you be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing.
For I testify again that every man that is circumcised, that
he is indebted to do the whole law. Christ is become of no effect
unto you. Whosoever of you are justified
by the law, you are fallen from grace. For we, through the Spirit,
wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. For in Christ Jesus
Christ neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision,
but faith which worketh by love. Paul begins verse 22 with a statement
which is easy to pass over, isn't it? He says, do you not hear
the law? For it is written, until you
have been brought, until you have been brought to a place
of submission to this word of God, nothing good will come to
your soul. Base everything you believe on
this book To hear the law, to hear God's
warnings and to hear God's threatenings in a letter like Galatians, the
Word of God must be bowed to. It must be over you. It must rule over you. In the very early days of our
church we had a meeting with a fellow who wanted to come and
take up a position of some leadership in the church and offer us all
sorts of things and Simon and I had two meetings with him.
And he said the reason was that he couldn't join with us is because
we didn't teach people to be under the law. And so we had
one discussion with him which didn't go as he thought as well
as it would like and maybe we were a bit blunt or whatever,
I'm not sure, anyway. But he came back 10 days later
and he gathered all of his information from famous people over the world
to show he has listed Bible verses that prove that the people of
God are now to be under the law. And so we went through his list
and we tried to be as courteous and as polite, as gentle as we
possibly could. And we went through his list
and he would give us a Bible verse and then we would just
simply read the verses around it and put it into context. And
it didn't say what he was saying. And this went on for half an
hour. And Simon will verify it. He
actually got to the stage where on his list He would come to
a verse and say, well, no, no, you can't read that verse, because
he knew that the verse in context denied exactly what he was saying. You see, the question was, did
he hear the law? He actually wanted to close the
book of God and hold on to religion. He wanted to close the book of
God and hold on to his righteousness, really. Hold on to his doing. May the Lord have mercy upon
us. The Lord Jesus made great and
remarkable promises, and if you read his words you'll see how
again and again he encouraged the people of God, he encouraged
those that heard him, to go back to the Word of God and to believe
what he said. He said, if you continue in my
Word then you are my disciples indeed, and you shall know the
truth. To know the truth is to continue
in the Word of God. You shall know the truth, and
the truth shall make you free. In that passage that speaks of
the Lord Jesus being the shepherd of his sheep, in John 10, verse
5, he says, follow, for they know His voice."
John 10 verse 5. They know His voice. They follow
Him for they know His voice. He puts forth His own sheep and
He goes before them and they follow Him. He always is the
leader and he is always the forerunner of his people. We can never be
outside, brothers and sisters in Christ, we can never be outside
and away from the reality of his presence and his shepherding
care of us. We might spend so much of our
time not knowing it, for his word is true. It's really
interesting because he puts forth his sheep, he goes before them
and the sheep follow him for they know his voice. And a stranger
they will not follow but will flee from him for they know not
the voice of strangers. You see in this world there is
just one voice from God. There is one voice from God. I'm not talking about myself.
I'm talking about all of God's servants, all of God's people. Follow one voice. listen to one
voice and they hear one voice. But it's really interesting what
the Lord Jesus says, isn't it? For they know not the voice of
strangers. There are multitudes of voices
in this world. There are multitudes of spirits
in this world, speaking as if they are speaking on behalf of
God himself. They stand before people claiming
authority and ruling over men in spiritual matters. Those who have met God are fearful. They are fearful of speaking
on God's behalf. They are fearful of speaking
something which is not true to His character and true to His
Word. They want simply, and my prayer
continually is that you people will just hear Him speak to you. Speak words of conviction. Speak words of comfort. Speak words of compassion. Speak words that reflect his
character. Speak words that speak truly
of what you are as a child of Adam and what you are in the
struggles in your flesh. Hear his voice. Hear what the
Apostle says. You see, to disagree with Paul
is to go to hell. It's as simple as that. You disagree
with the Apostles, you will spend eternity finding out that the
Apostles were God's servants. How did the Apostle John describe
it? We are of God, he says in 1 John
4, 6, and he that knoweth God heareth us. And he that is not
of God heareth not us. Hereby we know the spirit of
truth and the spirit of error. The spirit of truth and the spirit
of error are people speaking to you. This is how you know,
isn't it? They hear the apostles, they
just want you to believe what God said. Abraham believed God. He believed in the Lord and the
Lord counted it to him for righteousness. He believed God. Before the promise
was fulfilled, he believed God when there seemingly was no natural
way for the promise to be fulfilled. Abraham is a great picture, isn't
he? Galatians 3 reminds us he's the
father of the faithful. Faith, faith cometh by hearing,
and hearing by the word of God. Why it's so critical as we come
to this amazing passage of scripture, and you can turn in your Bibles
back to Genesis chapter 12 and we'll have a look at some of
this remarkable history. remarkable history that without
the assistance of the Holy Spirit leading the Apostle Paul to write
these words, we would be floundering and guessing what all of this
was about. But it is a glorious history. It is a glorious history. It
is in this passage of scripture that's before us, we have as
we do in so many other passages of scripture, we have all of
humanity laid out before us. All of the saved and all of the
lost and how they operate in this world and how God operates
in their lives. In Genesis chapter 12, Abraham
has a call and he has a promise from God. The Lord said unto Abraham, Get
thee out of thy country and from thy kindred and from thy father's
house unto a land that I will show you. And I will make of
thee a great nation, and I will bless thee and make thy name
great, and thou shalt be a blessing. And I will bless them that bless
thee, and curse him that curses thee, and in thee shall all the
families of the earth be blessed." Abraham was promised, promised
that he was going to have a son. He was promised that he was going
to have an heir. He says in chapter 13 verse 15,
he says, For the land which thou seest,
to thee I will give it, and to thy seed forever. And I will
make thy seed as the dust of the earth, so that if a man can
number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered." He continued to promise, and
years and years went by. The Word of the Lord in Chapter
15 came to Abraham in a vision saying, Fear not, Abraham, I
am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward. And Abraham said,
Lord God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless? And this steward of my house
is this Eleazar from Damascus. And Abram said, Behold, to me
thou hast given no seed, Lo, one born in my house is mine
heir. And I love how the Lord responded
to Abram in verse 4. And behold, the word of the Lord
came unto him, saying, The Lord Jesus Christ is the word of the
Lord. The Lord Jesus Christ met with
Abraham. The Lord Jesus Christ ate with
Abraham. The Lord Jesus Christ spoke words
of promise to Abraham. came unto him saying, This shalt
not be thine heir, but he that shall come forth out of thine
own bowels shall be thine heir. And he brought him forth abroad
and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars if thou be
able to number them. And he said unto him, So shall
thy seed be. And Abraham believed. He believed
in the Lord. He believed the word of the Lord
and it was counted to him for righteousness. And time goes
on and time goes on and years pass by and they've now been
living for 10 years in the land of promise. Living 10 years. And Sarah, verse 1 of chapter
16, Sarah, Abram's wife, bear him no children. And she had
a handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar. And Sarah said
unto Abram, Behold now, the Lord has restrained me from bearing. And I pray thee, go in unto my
maid, that I that it may be that I may obtain children by her."
And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarah. And Sarah, Abram's
wife, took Hagar, her maid, the Egyptian, after Abraham had dwelt
ten years. It's a long time to wait for
a promise. Ten years, isn't it? It's a long
time. And he went in unto Hagar And
when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in
her eyes. And Sarah said unto Abraham,
My wrong be upon thee. It is your fault, Abraham, for
listening to me. I have given my maid into thy
bosom, and when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised
in her eyes. The Lord judged between me and
thee. But Abraham said unto Sarai,
Behold, thy maid is in thy hand. Do to her as pleasest thee. And
when Sarah dealt hardly with her, she fled from her face.
And she was brought back. Verse 15, And Hagar bare Abram
a son. And Abram called his son's name
which Hagar bare Ishmael. And Abram was fourscore and six
years old. He was eighty-six years old when
Hagar bare Ishmael to Abram. When Abram was 99 years old,
the Lord appeared to him and said, I am the Almighty God. Walk before me and be thou perfect. The Lord has one demand, doesn't
he, for all who walk before him? You have to be holy. You have
to be holy. He doesn't say, do your best,
Abram. He says, walk before me and be
thou perfect. For those who know anything of
their own selves, the mere reading of those words causes us to run
and flee from ourselves and flee to a refuge. I've got to hide.
I've got to hide somewhere. Hide in Him. be thou perfect, and I will make
my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly.'
And Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying,
As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt
be a father of many nations." It's interesting, Abram had lived
these 99 years, and you know what the word Abram means? Father. All those years. Married to Sarah
for maybe 60 odd years, 70 years at this time. And everywhere
he went and introduced himself. What's your name, Abram? My name's
Bala. Here he is 99 years old, and
the Lord changes his name from Abram to Abraham. And Abraham, he's the father
of multitudes, the father of men." He talks about this covenant.
Then he came in verse 15, and God said unto Abraham, As to
Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, But Sarah
shall her name be. The word, the name Sarai means
princesses. The name Sarah means princess. You are the one chosen princess. And God made a promise, and I
will bless her and give thee a son also of her. Yea, I will bless her, and she
shall be a mother of nations, and kings of people shall be
of her. And Abraham fell on his face
and laughed and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him
that is a hundred years old? And shall Sarah that is ninety
years old bear? Abraham loved his son Ishmael. He said unto God, O that Ishmael
might live before thee. And God said, And Sarah thy wife
shall bear thee a son indeed, and thou shalt call his name
Isaac. And I will establish my covenant
with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him. Ishmael is promised. to be a
great nation as well. And the Lord appeared. The Lord
Jesus appeared in chapter 18, under him in the plains of Mamre,
and he sat at the tent door in the heat of the day, and he lifted
up his eyes and looked, and lo, three men stood by him, and he
ran to meet them. He ran to meet them from the
temple and bowed himself toward the ground and said, My Lord,
if now I have found favour in thy sight, pass not away, I pray
thee, from my servant. Yet a little water, I pray thee,
be fetched, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the
tree, and I will fetch a morsel of bread, and comfort you, your
hearts, after that you shall pass on. For therefore are ye
come to your servant. And they said, So do as thou
hast said. And Abram hastened into the tent
unto Sarah. Make ready quickly three measures
of fine meal. Knead it and make cakes upon
the hearth. And Abram ran unto the herd and
fetched a calf, tender and good, and gave it unto the young man,
and he hastened to dress it. And he took butter and milk.
And the calf which he had dressed and set it before them, and he
stood by them under the tree, and they did eat. And they said
unto him, Where is Sarah thy wife? And he said, Behold, in
the tent. And he said, I will certainly
return unto thee according to the time of life, and lo, Sarah
thy wife shall have a son. And Sarah heard it in the tent
door which was behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old
and well stricken in age, and it ceased to be with Sarah after
the manner of women. She passed through menopause.
She was no longer able to have children. Therefore Sarah laughed
within herself." See, it wasn't a loud public laugh. She laughed within herself. After
I am waxed old, shall I have pleasure, my Lord, being old
also? And the Lord said unto Abraham,
Wherefore did Sarah laugh, saying, Shall I of a surety bear a child
which am old? This is the answer, isn't it?
Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the time appointed I
will return unto thee, according to the time of life, and Sarah
shall have a son. Then Sarah denied, saying, I
laugh not, for she was afraid. And he said, he who knows and
sees all things, even the hearts of men, he says, nay, but thou
didst laugh." Let me turn over and we'll read
on. And the Lord visited Sarah, as he had said. His word is always perfectly
fulfilled. And the Lord did unto Sarah as
he had spoken. For Sarah conceived and bare
Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God
had spoken to him. And Abraham called the name of
his son that was born unto him, whom Sarah bared to him, Isaac. And Abraham circumcised his son
Isaac, being eight days old, as God commanded him. And Abraham
was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born unto him.
And Sarah said, God has made me to laugh, so that all that
hear will laugh with me, all that hear will rejoice with me. And she said, Who would have
said unto Abraham that Sarah should have given child suck?
For I have borne him a son in his old age. And the child grew
and was weaned. And Abraham made a great feast
the same day that Isaac was weaned. And Sarah saw that the son of
Hagar the Egyptian, which she had borne unto Abraham, mocking. Wherefore she said unto Abraham,
Cast out this bondwoman and her son, for the son of this bondwoman
shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac. And the thing
was very grievous in Abraham's sight because of his son. And
God said unto Abraham, Let not it be grievous in thy sight because
of the lad, and because of thy bondwoman. In all that Sarah
hath said unto thee, hearken unto her voice. For in Isaac
shall all thy seed be called. And I will also make, the son
of the bondwoman, will I make a nation, because he is thy seed. and she was cast out. There we have the story, and
without the inspired commentary on it, we'd be thinking this
is a great story of the faithfulness of God. But like all of the stories
of the scripture, They're all laid out by our God to teach
us some extraordinarily important lessons. The first one I trust
is that when God speaks, it is true. Just write it down. When
God says something, that is the end of the matter. When God makes
a promise, that's it. When God promises to do something,
time is irrelevant. The circumstances are irrelevant. The seeming opposition is irrelevant. The inadequacies of our flesh
and our abilities are irrelevant. One thing matters. God has spoken
and God has spoken words of truth. We don't have a lot of time and
it would be nice for us to spend some more time, more fully, looking
at all of this next week. But I thought we just might lay
some groundwork, having read the story, and then we can come
back and look again. Because, as I said earlier, these
two, according to the Scriptures, they are an allegory, verse 24. They are painting a picture. They're painting a picture of
two covenants. Two covenants that all humanity
live under, that all humanity die under, that all humanity's
destinies are determined by. These are two covenants. Sarah, I mean Hagar, is a picture
of a bondwoman, a bondwoman from Egypt. Egypt in the scriptures
signifies the flesh human nature, human nature in all of us activities, and she can only produce children
after the flesh. Verse 23, that he who was of
the bondwoman, whose origin comes from the bondwoman, was born
after the flesh. The Lord Jesus told Nicodemus,
flesh gives birth to flesh. all it ever can do. Fleshly activities, fleshly religion,
all gives birth to flesh and it's a bondage. It is a bondage. But the free woman, the origin
of the free woman, the birth of Isaac is by promise. These represent we represent
these covenants. One represents a covenant of
works, the other one represents a covenant of grace. In a covenant of works, under
all the covenant of works, salvation is dependent upon something that
you do. In the covenant of grace, the
eternal covenant, the covenant in the Lord Jesus, the covenant,
that eternal covenant that we speak of so often and people
might say, well you talk about it all the time. According to
2 Corinthians 3 verse 6, God's servants are servants of that
covenant. And so of course they're going
to talk about it all the time. That is where all their salvation
is wrapped up in. That is where all the glory of
God is wrapped up in. True salvation is dependent upon
what Christ has done. There are no works to be performed
in order to be saved. The works that are necessary
for Abraham to be perfect, for Abraham to be holy, for Abraham
to walk before God and be perfect, are the works of the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's what grace is, isn't it? What works? What works had the
Galatian believers done when Christ Jesus spoke those words
on the cross? When he said, it is finished,
what were the Galatians doing? They had absolutely no part in
it whatsoever. They weren't there physically. But they were there as God's
children, were all there in Christ Jesus. Where were we when Christ
Jesus was crucified? It was done before the beginning
of the world. That is all of our salvation. That is what 2 Timothy 1 verse
9 says. We were saved and called before the foundation of the
world. So the everlasting covenant,
the covenant of grace has no beginning and has no end. You see, Sarah was the original
wife and Sarah remained the wife. And she was the wife by relationship
and she was the wife by choice and she was the wife by love. Salvation has always been in
the pure and finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. This covenant of grace was made
with Christ before the foundation of the world. He was the Lamb
slain from the foundation of the world. Paul in Galatians
3.16 says that the promise, the promise of eternal life, the
promise of the inheritance, the promise of the blessings of God
both now and eternity, to Abraham and his seed were the promises
made. He saith unto seeds as of many,
he saith not unto seeds as of many. He just made a promise
to one and to thy seed which is Christ. The promise was made
with Christ. 2 Samuel 23 verse 5 read it and quote it often, but
it's just such a remarkable, remarkable testimony. David looked
at his life. He looked around at what he could
see through the eyes of his flesh. And he says, although my house
be not so with God. And I'm not sure whether he's
talking about the House of Israel or the House of David in Israel,
or just the House of David himself. Yet, he hath made with me an
everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure. That's all my salvation, said
David on his deathbed. It's all my salvation and it's
all my desire. All I desire is for God to have
made an everlasting covenant that began in eternity, that
has no end. It's all my desire. I don't know
about you. I don't want it any other way.
I don't like to think about it being, as religion paints it,
about something that God tries to do and then fails. Tries and tries and tries and
keeps putting people back under bondage and more bondage. The
covenant of grace is an eternal covenant, and it's based on promises. The fruitfulness of the eternal
covenant is based on the promises of God. And the Jerusalem above,
verse 26, is free, which is above, which is the mother of us all. for it is written, Rejoice thou
barren. I don't know about you, but in
spiritual things, in so much of this life, do you find yourself
barren? He says, Rejoice thou barren
that bearest not. Break forth and cry thou that
travailest not. for the desolate has many more
children than she which has a husband. So freedom brings rejoicing. Because freedom is looking to
the Lord Jesus, looking to what he's promised, looking to his
word, looking to his finished work. As soon as you turn back
to works, all you'll ever do is look at what you have to do
and look at what others have done. Salvation by works is as
natural to us as it is for a fish living in the sea to drink water. It's why it comes and we are
troubled by it. But in the grace of God, Hagar
came in to the life of Sarah and Abraham. And Hagar did a
work in the lives of Sarah and Abraham. And Hagar left and the
work of God in the lives of Sarah and Abraham continued on. The promise was fulfilled because
the promise wasn't based on things that they had done. The promise
was based on who had done the work. Do you know where that
verse comes from in the Old Testament? Paul is quoting scripture there,
isn't he? And they didn't have chapter
divisions. So when he says, rejoice thou barren, are there barren
people here? The one speaking to you is as
barren as the wilderness, apart from the work of God. It's in
Isaiah. And guess what passage it comes
in Isaiah? It comes in chapter 54 verse
1. And what does chapter 53 verse 12 say? He shall see the travail of his
soul, and shall be satisfied. Our God sits on a throne, his
covenant promises sure and sealed, satisfied by his knowledge, his
knowledge of us, his knowledge of God, his knowledge of all
that ever comes to pass in the lives of his people. Shall my
righteous servant justify many, he'll declare them in the court
of God perfectly free from sin, as if they had never ever sinned
at all. Why? For he will bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a
portion with the great, and he shall divide the small with the
strong, because he has poured out his soul unto death, and
he was numbered with the transgressors, and he bared the sin of many,
and he made intercession for the transgressors. Sing, rejoice,
O barren, thou that didst not bear, and break forth into singing,
and cry aloud, There are the disnot travail with child, for
more are the children of the desolate than are the children
of the married wife, saith the Lord. I trust as this week unfolds
you might have time to go back and look at Genesis and Galatians
and you might find many more things that we'll look at again
next week. Our time is done. I trust the Lord will take you
to his word, cause you to have hearing ears, cause you to see
that he who promises is faithful and you will find yourself. delightfully
and rejoicingly a daughter of Sarah and not a child of Hagar.