Alright brethren, let's turn
to Genesis chapter 48. Now concerning the passage we're
going to be finishing up today, we saw how the Hebrew writer
said, by faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed both the sons
of Joseph, and worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff. Now last time we saw lessons
from Jacob's faith, and we looked at five lessons from Jacob's
faith. This time we're going to take
the last two lessons and we're going to title this, The Glory
and the End of Faith, because that's our two points. The believer
perseveres to the end in faith, giving God all the glory. We persevere, we continue, we
do not stop in faith. We keep trusting God to the end
of our life, giving God all the glory. We even give Him all the
glory for our persevering to the end. God receives the glory,
the praise, the honor for our salvation from beginning to end. Now these are our two points.
We'll look first of all at the end of, I'm sorry, the glory
of Jacob's faith, and then secondly, the end of his faith. First of
all, faith glorifies only God in all things. This is true God-given
faith. True faith is God-given. True
faith is not something we muster up within ourselves. It's God-given. And you know it's true faith
because true faith gives God only all the glory in all things. Verse 15. He blessed Joseph and
he said... Now here's the first way he glorified
in God. He said, God, before whom my
fathers, Abraham and Isaac, did walk. God before whom my fathers
Abraham and Isaac did walk. It means God looked upon Abraham
and Isaac. He shined His face upon them. He had communion with them. He
fellowshiped with them. He preserved them. He kept them. He saved them. How could He do
that? He declares by this that every
child of God Every child of God is saved by God's unchangeable
covenant of grace. God's unchangeable covenant of
grace. When God chose a people, that's
who He saves, His chosen people. Only His chosen people. When
God chose a people, He did it by grace. He did it by grace. Every one of us are sinners. We're all sinners. We all deserve
justice. We all deserve the wrath of God.
So it's not unfair or unrighteous for God to choose to save some
who deserve nothing. We don't have anything in us
to commend us to God. We got nothing about us that
will say, this right here, this thing right here about me is
a reason why God should save me. You and I have nothing like
that. So God chose His people by free, sovereign grace. That means it was free, it was
not based on anything in us. It's sovereign in that God can
do what He wants to. God can choose whom He will.
He told Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. And
I'll have compassion on whom I will have compassion. And He'll
pass by whom He will. He's God. He can do what He wants
with His own. When we look over Abraham and
Isaac and Jacob's life in the Old Testament, we see a lot of
sin. Just like if you looked over
your life, you see a lot of sin. We see a lot of sin with Abraham
and Isaac and with Jacob. But then you go to the New Testament,
and you read about them under that everlasting covenant of
grace, and you see there how God saw them. And no sins mentioned. I'd encourage you to go read
Hebrews 11 at home and you'll see what I'm talking about. Nothing
but faithfulness is spoken of. That's all. By faith, Abraham
obeyed God, it says. He looked for a city which hath
foundations, who builder and maker is God. He looked to God. By faith, Isaac blessed Jacob
and Esau concerning things to come. How in the world did He... How did He bless them concerning
things that was in the future? He had no control of the future.
But He trusts God to bring to pass everything God said He would
because God entered into covenant with Him. And God won't break
that covenant. It's an everlasting covenant
of grace. We read nothing about their sin. That's why it says,
by faith the elders received a good report. Now what was it
that their faith rested in? What did their faith rest in? The very faith of our faith is
God's everlasting covenant of grace. What our faith is resting
in is not our faith. We're not looking to our faith
and trusting in us being faithful. Oh, no. If we did that, we'd
perish. What we're trusting in is God's
faithfulness to His own covenant of grace. And we know God won't
change that. He said, I'm God and I change
not. Therefore, that's the one reason
you sons of Jacob are not consumed. That's Scripture. I change not,
the Lord said, therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed.
What God did in the beginning when He chose His people and
put them in Christ, that's forever. God will not go back on it. He
will not change it. How was it that Abraham and Isaac
walked before God and had communion with God and were preserved without
any change in God's view toward them? How did that happen? Because
you know they sinned. You know they were sinners in
themselves. All their old man did was sin, just like yours.
How then did God look upon them and have communion with them
and never change that? How could that be? Turn over
to Romans chapter 8. It was because they were perfect.
You hear me? They were perfect. They were
whole. They were complete. In Christ. by God's grace. And His covenant toward them
would never change. Look at Romans 8, 28. Here's
where we rest right here. Here's the faith of our faith.
This is God's everlasting covenant grace spoken of in detail. What
does God promise us in the covenant of grace? That it's all done. That God's doing it, has done
it, it's all done in Christ. This was done before the foundation
of the world right here, what we're fixing to read. And God
surely brings it all to pass because God changes not. Look
here, Romans 8, 28. We know that all things, good
and evil, all things work together for good to them that love God. To them who are the called by
God. How do they work together for
good? According to His purpose. That means God, that covenant
of grace is God declaring, I've done this on purpose. I'm doing
this on purpose. I'm not accidentally saving people.
I'm not just giving people a chance, a roll of the dice to be saved.
I'm saving them according to my purpose. Solid. Substantial. Set in stone. This
is how it is. I'm saving them by my purpose.
Now look here. For whom He did foreknow, that
means foreordained. Remember when the Scripture says,
as many as were ordained to eternal life, they believed. God foreordained. He ordained before. And those
He ordained before, He also did predestinate. He set their predestined
end. And what was it? To be conformed
to the image of His Son. That He might be the firstborn
among many brethren. Moreover, whom He did predestinate,
them He also called. And whom He called, them He also
justified. And whom He justified, them He
also glorified. Do you see anything in there
that you and me do? No, you don't. God's salvation
is by God, by His purpose, by His covenant grace beginning
to end. What shall we say then to these
things? If God be for us, who can be against us? Can you say
that about yourself? Or do you stand there and say,
you shake your fist at God and say, I don't think that's fair. If that's the case with you,
then anybody can be against you, including God. But for all who
sit there and say, that's my hope right there, that's my salvation,
there's nobody that can be against you. God won't even be against
you, because He's done this work for you. That's good news. Why would a man fight against
that? Now the legalist, a man who's a legalist, he won't receive
what I'm about to say. He just won't receive it. But
the fact is, whenever God told Abraham and Isaac, walk before
me and be thou perfect, that was much more than a command
on how they should walk. That was a statement of fact
about their state of holiness, their state of wholeness, their
state of being complete in Christ. You know when God said, look
unto Me and be ye saved. Was He telling you to look unto
Him and now you need to do something to be saved? No. He was saying,
look unto Me and here's a statement of fact, you're being saved. And He said to them, walk before
Me and here's a statement of fact, be thou perfect. How could
that be? How could they be? That word
there is complete. It's whole. It's the same word
that was used whenever God said the offerings that they bring
shall be perfect to be accepted of God. There should be no blemish
therein. God can't accept anything but
perfection. God would not have had communion
with Abraham and Isaac and let them walk before Him looking
upon them. He's of two pure eyes to behold
iniquity. And He wouldn't have looked upon
them unless they were perfect in a substitute. With that substitute
dwelling in them, making them holy, and them holy in Him, that's
the only way God could look upon them. That's the same word, perfect,
that's the same word used when it says in 2 Samuel 22, 3, As
for God, His way is perfect. Same word. See, to be before
God and accepted of God and walk with God, you've got to be perfect.
as God is perfect. You and I can't achieve that.
You can tell a man all day long to go back to Mount Sinai and
do this and do that and do the other. He can't make himself
whole. He can't make himself complete
and walk before God. God has to do that. Go to Ephesians
1 and look at verse 3 and 4. You've heard this preached from.
And you've heard this declared now. So you've got to be holy
now. You ought to be holy because
it says you should. It's saying the same thing that
he said to Abraham and Isaac. When God did this before the
foundation of the world, He did it so that when we walk before
Him, we will be holy. Look here. Blessed be the God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with
all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. That means
when you're blessed with all of them, there's not one left
out, including holiness, including justification. Everything we
just read in Romans 8 was done when God put us in Christ and
chose us in Him. Look here. He 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, for this purpose, so that we should be holy and without
blame, where? Before Him. Before Him in love. What did He tell Abraham? Walk
before Me. How is He going to be before
Him with His eyes upon Him and God have communion with Him and
look upon Him and bless Him and keep Him and preserve Him unless
He is perfect? The only reason He could do that
is God had chosen Him, put Him in Christ and blessed Him with
all spiritual blessings and Christ was dwelling in His heart by
the Spirit of grace and now by Christ and in Christ He is perfect. And God can dwell with Him. God
can have communion with Him. God can look upon Him. Do you
get that? It's covenant grace. We can pass
by this great cloud of witnesses which doesn't tell us to look
to their faith, it's telling us to look to the God who they
trusted. Walk before that God they trusted, look into the God
they trusted. Abraham rejoiced to see my day,
Christ said, and he saw it and he was glad. Abraham looked for
a city whose builder and maker is God. Walk before God looking
to Him. We got this cloud of witnesses
and you can be assured of this. God's everlasting covenant of
grace won't change because God did it all by grace. He told
Abraham, I'm going to make with you and with your seed an everlasting
covenant. And I'll never take you, I'll
never forsake you, I'll be a God to you, he said. That's why David
could say, although my house be not so with God. This house
I'm dwelling in right here is not so with God. It's not ordered
and sure, that's for certain. I'm a sinner. Everything I do
is sin. And it's so with my children,
and my wife, and my father, my mother. Yet, God has made with
me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things insure, and this
is all my salvation and all my desire. Lamentations 3.22 says, It's
of the Lord's what? Mercies. His everlasting covenant
grace, His mercies that were not consumed because His compassions
fell not. Now listen to Jacob glorify God
in this next thing, verse 15. The second part there. He says,
The God which fed me all my life long unto this day, the angel
which redeemed me from all evil, blessed the lands. The Son of
God, the pre-incarnate Christ, before He came in human flesh,
the Son of God is the angel which redeemed Jacob from all evil
and blessed his sons. He is that angel, the Son of
God, Christ. He redeemed Jacob from the law
and He redeemed him from the law's curse. He redeemed him
from his sin He redeemed him from his dead sinful flesh so
that he could have liberty to serve God. He redeemed him from
every temporal evil that Jacob came into. He redeemed him out
of it. And at last, he redeemed him out of this world into the
glorious liberty of the sons of God. How could he be the redeemer
for Jacob before as yet he had ever gone to the cross? God does
not know time, brethren. God's not a God of time. Time's
this little bubble right here that we dwell in, where we think
everything has to revolve around the ticking of the clock. God's
out here. He's eternal. That little bubble
don't affect God. Whatever God's determined from
the beginning, that's what the end's going to be. Christ just
came into this little bubble and worked it all out for me
and you so we could see it be done. And no, In our little feeble
minds, it's finished. It really is. And he, brethren, I'm telling
you, you're going to go through this life. Every believer here, you
can go through this life and you're going to have difficulty.
It's going to be difficult. Man, you watch Jacob's life.
He came into one trial after another. Jacob is a man who I
see myself in him a lot. Just a wicked man. fell all the
time, stumbled all the time, rebelled all the time. God kept
him all the time. And he comes to the end of his
life here, and now he's just broken. And he knows it now,
and he sees now, everything that I was ever saved from, my sin,
my condemnation, my flesh, this world, everything I've been saved
from, the angel of the covenant redeemed me from it. Christ my
Savior, redeem me from it. You need that Savior. Some of
you sitting here are closer to the time that you're going to
stand before Him. You're going to stand before
Him. And when you stand before Him, make sure you realize this,
the one you're rejecting right now, that's the one before whom you're
going to stand. Because God has committed all
judgment to the Son. And you are going to stand before
the Son. And the righteousness you think you have, which is
why you are rejecting Him. Men don't reject Christ because
they think they are sinners. Men reject Christ because they
think they are righteous. They don't need Him. And the
righteousness you think you have is going to have to measure up
to the righteousness of that one you are going to stand before.
So He is your judge and He is your measuring stick. I'm going
to tell you something, you're going to be found short. You're
going to be found wanting that which you have to have. Believe
on this God. I'm telling you He's salvation
now. And because He gave His only begotten Son and did all
that for His people, everything that we need in this
life, the bread that perishes, that bread that perishes, He
said He fed me all my life long to this day. God's given us the
manna from heaven. He gave us the bread from heaven.
He gave us His Son, His only begotten Son. If you gave your
only Son for somebody, and then they came back to you and said,
hey, can I borrow a cup of sugar? Well, now I'll give you my Son,
but I'm not going to give you a cup of sugar. You say, here,
take the whole bag. I gave you my Son. What's a cup
of sugar? And that's everything else you need in this life. It
may seem like it's huge to you. It may be totally out of your
reach and unattainable by you. And it's a need. It's something
you need or you're not going to survive or your children are
not going to survive. That's just a cup of sugar to
God. He gave his son for his people. He that spared not His
only Son, but delivered Him up for all His people, how shall
He not with Him freely give us all things? The Hebrew writer says, Jacob
blessed these boys and he worshiped God leaning upon His staff. Leaning
upon that staff. He may have had an earthly staff,
but I'm telling you the staff he leaned upon all his life was
the angel. Christ the Lord. His shepherd. Alright now, look at this. So
by faith, trusting God to save, and trusting God to bring his
promises to pass, Jacob blessed these boys. And when he did that,
he glorified God. He glorified God, blessing these
boys. Worshipping God. Verse 16. He said, Let my name
be named on them, and the name of my father is Abraham and Isaac,
and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth. How
in the world So did he name these boys Jacob, Abraham, and Isaac? Jacob, Abraham, Isaac, come here.
They're one boy. Were those three names? No. What was Jacob's name? What was
Abraham's name? What was Isaac's name? What's
your name who believed? The Lord our righteousness. This is the name wherewith he
shall be called, the Lord our righteousness. Then you keep
reading in Jeremiah and it says, This is the name wherewith she
shall be called, the Lord our righteousness. Our name is His
name. And so we'll be blessed and grow
into a multitude in the midst of the earth. Not just our natural
families. We're talking about our spiritual
family. A multitude. Sons and daughters
by God's by Christ's blood, by His effectual grace. Now, secondly,
and I'm just going to say a few brief things on this. Here's
my second point. The end of his faith. Jacob persevered
in faith. No matter what he was going through,
no matter what trial he faced, no matter how he fell, how he
stumbled, this one consistent thing continued in his life.
He trusted God. He looked to God. He believed
God for all his salvation. Are you looking to God for all
your salvation? Let me tell you what it is to look to God for
all your salvation. First, let me tell you what it's
not. It's not to look for God for 9 out of 10 things that you
need, but that 10th thing you say, but I'll provide that. That
disallows the other 9 things. Then you've got to do those too.
If you could keep all the laws except for one law, and you said,
I just need Him to make up that, this one I have a little trouble
with, so I need Him to make up the difference on this one. You've
got to do all the law. It's all up to you. If you look
to Him and say, I trust God for all my salvation, but now I'm
the one that turned myself and brought myself to Him, and by
my will I believed on Him, you've got to do all the rest. You can't
just have God in salvation as part of it and then you make
up part of it. You've got to have Him for all.
That's glorying in God. And faith trusts that, believes
He's all my salvation all the way to the end. I don't believe
Him just for a little while in my life and then start trusting
myself when I get so holy now that I can walk on my own and
I don't need Him. You're not getting more holy. You either
are or you're not. We need Him from the beginning
to the end. Listen to this. Verse 21, And
Israel said to Joseph, Behold, I die, just a few short hours
from death, but God shall be with you. He believed that. He believed God. And He'll bring
you again to the land of your fathers. Turn to Philippians
1.6. I'm going to end with two verses. Philippians 1.6. True God-given faith perseveres
trusting God. And the way we persevere trusting
God is because God preserves us. He preserves us. Philippians 1.6, being confident
of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in you,
Now let me ask you this, did God begin the work in you? Now
if it was a co-effort between you and God, God didn't have
a thing to do with it, you did it. Whatever righteousness you
think you have, whatever you think you have in religion, it's
all of your hand and God won't have it. But if God began the
work in you, if He was the one that quickened you and brought
you to see what Christ has accomplished for you, what God the Father
did in choosing you, if He began this work, Guess who's going
to end it? Same God that started it. Look
here. He that hath done a good work in you will perform it until
the day of Jesus Christ. That's faith's confidence. That's
what we're trusting. That's the only reason we persevere.
Now, turn over to Colossians 1.20. But by that same preserving
grace, we do persevere. We do persevere. There's times,
you know, and I'm just being honest with you, there's times
when I don't believe God. There's times when my old man
of flesh is so strong and so rebellious in me that I find
I just don't even see any faith or feel like I believe God at
all. But see, that's not really what I'm depending on. Faith
is something God has put in you by Christ dwelling in you. And
even when you can't You don't know or you're not aware consciously
that He's dwelling in you. He's still dwelling in you. And
He keeps us looking to Him. No sooner have you begun to feel
that unbelief and totally feel like you're turned out of the
way. If you're His child, He's going to chase you and turn you
back to Christ. Why? What did the Hebrew writer
say in Hebrews 12? That you might be partaker of
His holiness. That you might run that race
looking to your holiness, Christ Jesus. and be found in Him. And He's going to keep His child
there. And so by Him doing that, we find ourselves continuing
to believe and trust Him. Now look here at Colossians 1.20.
Having made peace to the blood of His cross, drop down to that
part where it says, I want you to read it and it will be a little
more clear to you. Having made peace through the
blood of His cross, you that were sometime alienated and enemies
in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath He reconciled in
the body of His flesh through death to present you holy and
unblameable and unapprovable in His sight. Who is going to
do that? God who began the work. Christ is going to present His
people to God, holy by His hand, unblameable by His hand, unreprovable
by His hand. By His righteousness and holiness,
that's how He's going to present us. Look at the next line. If ye continue in the faith,
grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope
of the gospel. which you've heard and which
was preached to every creature which is under heaven." You see,
when you go over there and you read that passage, I preached
on this one time. You read that passage over there
where it says, Joshua said, as for me and my house, we're going
to believe the Lord. When I go and halt between two
opinions, we're going to believe the Lord. Everybody credits that
to Joshua. But I've preached this to you
before. You start back up in that chapter and read it. And
you'll see where the text opens, the quotation opens, and he's
speaking the word of the Lord. And the quotation don't close
when he says, now you choose whom you're going to worship,
either these false gods on the other side of that flooded Jordan,
or your false gods on this side of that flooded Jordan. See,
when you're in unbelief, you've got choices to make, but all
your choices are just vain choices. False God on that side, false
God on this side. And then the Lord said, but as
for me and my house, Christ the Lord, when He was made a servant,
He served God. And He said, by His grace, as
for me and my house, we shall serve the Lord. He's the only one that can say
that. I can say that about my children, but I can't make them
serve Him. Christ can say that about His children. He's going
to make them serve Him. As for me and my house, we shall serve
the Lord. My point to you is this. When you love the Lord
and serve the Lord, there are no choices. You're not halting
between any opinions. You're grounded. and you're settled. This is it. I found Him. I found
the truth. I'm not moving. I'm not going
back to Egypt. I'm not hungry for them garlic
and that onion and them leeks and that vanity and that dung
heap. I'm not going back to it. I found Him. I found Him. Has He made you settled? Has
He made you grounded? If He has, the proof of it's
going to be you'll continue trusting Him and Him alone. Alright, let's
stand together. Father, thank you for this word.
Thank you for your grace, your mercy, your faithfulness to us,
faithfulness to keep that covenant. Thank you for grace. Thank you
that it's not up to us. Thank you, Lord, that you're
not looking to us, you're looking to His Son. Keep us looking to
Him. May all eyes, the eyes of God
our Father and the eyes of all your people and of every angel
be all upon your Son. And we all give Him the preeminence,
just as you ordained, Father. Forgive us our sins now. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen.