Before I get started, I just
want to remind you that the first week of November will have a
baptism, and it's going to be at Joe and Joanne's house in
Ozark. Missouri. So that's right up
65. There, I'll get the address of their house. We'll have just
the one service, the 10-15 service, then we'll do the baptism, and
then we'll take the Lord's Supper together. That'll be the first
month, and then we'll have a meal together afterwards, if you guys
are okay with that, now that I just announced it to everybody.
So that'll be the flow of how it'll go, brethren. One, yes, 1015. 1015 at Joe and
Joanne's. Then we'll have the baptism.
That'll be the first Sunday in November. Then we'll be at, sorry,
the one service, 1015, followed by baptism, followed by the Lord's
Supper, and then we'll have a meal together at Joe and Joanne's. All right. And Michelle and I had a granddaughter
born this morning, Arabella Rose Sly in Kentucky. So she was,
I was at 530 something this morning, 532. Yeah, so it's Alyssa's birthday. It's her birthday now as well.
So she shares a birthday with her niece. And she was a good
20, 20 inches, 20 and a quarter inches and only seven pounds,
11 ounces. So she's tall and slender with
big chunky cheeks. All right. All right, brethren, let's be
turning to Genesis chapter 15. Genesis 15. When the Lord saves His child,
they see all things new. They see everything through justified
eyes. It says, and Paul said in 2 Corinthians
5.17, Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things have passed away.
Behold, all things are become new. knew in the Lord Jesus Christ. And Abraham, we're told from,
by Paul in Romans, that Abraham is the father of all them that
believe. And we're told here in Genesis
15, verse six, that Abram believed in the Lord. He believed the
Lord. He believed the promise of God
made unto him. and God counted it to him for
righteousness. And so when the Lord manifested
His grace to Abraham, Abraham, being a new creature, saw all
things new, all things through the grace of God. And when the Lord communicates
His grace, His gracious work of justification to the sinner,
we too, like Abraham, see all things We see them through justified
eyes. We see what the Lord Himself
has done for His people. Now before we get to our main
text, let me just give you five things that we see differently.
Based off of verse six here, five things we see differently
through this fruit of faith that the Lord works in us, that the
Lord has given to us. And just as Abraham saw these
things, so it's true that we have these same fruits born in
us. Like Abram, we are made to know that this gospel, this good
news that we preach, is the very Word of God. These words are
not after the thoughts of man. They're not according to man's
will. They're not our opinion or what we would like to believe.
This is the word of God. And it comes as good news to
us because it declares what God has done for us. It doesn't speak
of what you need to do, of how you need to please God and how
you need to fix this and get this right and sacrifice that.
It declares what the Savior has accomplished for His people. And that's comforting. That's
a comforting word to sinners. That's a comforting word to you
that are poor and have no righteousness of your own and nothing to bring
to God. That's good news and he makes
this good news known to his people. You know, when Nicodemus came
to the Lord by night, He confessed something that only a living
child can see. He confessed, he said, Rabbi,
we know that thou art a teacher come from God because no man
could do the things that you do except God were with him. And Christ said back to him in
John 3, 3, he said, verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man
be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. If you see
that, Nicodemus, if you know that I am sent to the Father,
it's because God has given that to you. God revealed that to
you. You must be born again, otherwise
you wouldn't see it. You wouldn't believe it. You
wouldn't confess that. You wouldn't know it. And so
God reveals this gospel to his people so that we know this is
God's gospel. This is his good news to sinners. And he's revealed this to me,
to me, a filthy sinner who has nothing to give to him. Glory
to his name. Thanks be unto God. Paul told
the Thessalonians, he said, when our gospel came unto you, it
came not in word only. You didn't receive it as the
word of man, but it came in power and in the Holy Ghost and in
much assurance. That's what the Lord does for
his people. He reveals, he manifests his power through this gospel
that looks away from self and looks to the Lord Jesus Christ
so that we know this is God's work. This is according to his
word. God has done this. Second, like
Abram, We are made to know this word concerns God's Son, Jesus
Christ. This good news is all wrapped
up. It's all found in Jesus Christ
himself and what he has done. Galatians 3.16 says, to Abraham
and his seed were the promises made. He saith not unto seeds
as of many, but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ. And so Abraham, at that time,
when the Gospel was preached to Abram, he understood that
that seed which would issue from his loins, that God had promised
him, he hadn't even had him yet, but he understood that through
his loins, the promised seed, spoken in the garden, would come
through him, through his lineage. He believed God. that the Messiah
would come, that he would come through his loins, and he believed
God, even though he was already dead according to his body. I'm
getting ahead of myself, but he believed God, and we believe
that Christ has come. He looked to Christ's coming,
he looked to the Messiah, and we look back knowing that the
Messiah has come, and we believe him also. Three, like Abraham,
we're made to know that God does what is humanly impossible for
us to do. We can't do this. We can't work
salvation, but God does. God does. It's impossible for
you or I to save ourselves. It's impossible for us to work
a righteousness accepted by the Father, but God does it. He works
that righteousness for his people, and he makes his people righteous
as Christ is righteous. We are with him, with him. It
says in Romans 419, being not weak in faith, Abraham considered
not his own body now dead when he was about 100 years old, neither
yet the deadness of Sarah's womb. That's not possible for a person
as old as Sarah to have a child. She was 90 years old. And even
if things were a little different back then, that's a long, long
time after the normal course when a woman can have a child.
And yet, he believed God. He trusted, he trusted the Lord. And so we're sinners unable to
save ourselves, but faith, which God gives to his child, faith
believes the promise of God. Christ what's impossible for
man is absolutely possible with God because he's God and he can
do all things all things even turning the heart of a dead corrupt
vile sinner like me to look to and trust in and believe the
Lord Jesus Christ that's what he does for all his people Christ
is the Savior of all God's children He was delivered for our offenses. He was raised again for our justification. And faith believes it. Faith
believes and knows that, yes, all my sins have been put away
by the faithful sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. for me,
a wretched sinner who could not save himself. God did the impossible. For, like Abraham, we are made
to believe the promise of God to us. In Romans 4.8 it says,
blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. God's people are sinners saved
by grace because God does not impute their sin to them. He
imputed their sin to Christ and Christ's righteousness to his
people so that we are delivered from death. We are delivered
from condemnation. We live in and by the Lord Jesus
Christ. And the sinner saved loves Christ. That's why we glory in Him. That's
why we speak of Him every time we meet. We declare what Christ
has done because He's our glory. He's our hope. He is our salvation. He's our all. Christ is all and
in all. And five, like Abraham, we are
made to know the gospel of God is personal to us. It's personal. He works this,
he's done this for us, made this known to us. Ephesians 1 verse
13 and 14 says, In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard
the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also
after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit
of promise. which is the earnest, the down
payment of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased
possession unto the praise of his glory. And so this salvation
is very real and it's made personal to us. It's revealed and manifested
in us so that we know, we know what God has done for us through
his son, Jesus Christ. And when we speak of our salvation,
we don't talk of what we've done. We speak of what God has done
for us. We boast in Him. We glory in
Him. We honor His name and tell others
God is gracious and merciful to sinners. Look to Him. Go to
Him. He's the Savior. He washes the
sinner clean of all their sins. Believe Him. Trust Him. And so
Abraham was made of God to stand upon justified ground. God justifies all his people
through the Lord Jesus Christ. David had said, blessed are they
whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. And so the Lord does this for
his people and he manifests this justification that he's done
for them. He reveals it and manifests it in us, revealing faith, the
fruit of the spirit of faith in his child. How do we know
who the Lord died for? He manifests faith in them. He
gives them life. He reveals what he's done in
his child by manifesting faith in them which believes and looks
to Christ. Paul said this very thing to
the Romans. In Romans 1, verse 16 and 17,
he said, I'm not ashamed of the gospel. I know this is not popular. I know that man wants the glory
in what he's done for God. He wants the glory in his works.
But Paul said, I'm not ashamed of this gospel, of what God has
done for his people. It is the power of God unto salvation
to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the
Greek. All men, if they are saved, they're saved this one way, through
the Lord Jesus Christ. There's not many mediators. There's
one mediator between God and men, the Lord Jesus Christ. And
so, he said, therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to
faith. As it is written, the just shall
live by faith. Brethren, I stand here before
you preaching, declaring what Christ has done. He came, being
sent of the Father in the flesh to fulfill all righteousness
for his people, and he did that. fulfilling that which the Father
sent Him to do, declaring the truth of God, doing the miracles
which the Father gave Him to do, so that we would know this
is the Son of God, and He laid down His life as the Lamb of
God, bearing the sins of His people, and put them away, bearing
the wrath of God in our place, bearing the death that we earned
for ourselves under the curse. But Christ took it and put it
away, And he was buried and rose again from the dead. And all
who believe in him shall be raised again like unto him. And that
life begins now. We'll see that in the next hour,
Lord willing. But we declare what he's done,
and the Lord works faith in the hearts of his people through
the hearing of this word, by the ministration of his spirit,
to open your heart, to open your ear, to make you to hear and
to believe what Christ has done for you. It's God's power. So standing upon this justified
ground of salvation, by the grace of God in Christ, the believer
sees what Abraham saw himself by faith. we see what Abraham
saw. We have that same hope that Abraham
had, that believes the promise of God made unto us in Christ. So, let me give you another five
things. This is going to cover our text
from verses 7 down through verse 18. First, being justified by Christ. The believer sees that it's God's
effectual call of grace that delivers me out of darkness.
I didn't work myself out of this hole. I didn't bring myself out
of this pit. I didn't take myself out of darkness
and bring myself into light. God did this. God has done this
for me. When Paul was writing to the
Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 4, 7, he asked, who maketh thee
to differ? And what hast thou that thou
didst not receive? Now if thou didst receive it,
why dost thou glory as if thou didst not receive it? God puts
a difference between His child and the child of wrath and destruction. God puts that difference between
you to give you his grace to give you his spirit and to cleanse
you with the blood of Christ. He makes a difference between
you. You know, in Abraham's day, the world was full of idolaters. under the influence of Nimrod
and that city of Babel there, and Abram and his family lived
in Ur of the Chaldees. Oh, there's many idolaters that
God could have chosen, that God could have blessed. But he said
to Abram, he said, I am the Lord that brought, verse seven, I'm
the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees to give
thee this land to inherit it. You know, sometimes when reading
commentaries, they speak of some of the Jewish writers and some
of the writings that they have on the scriptures. It's basically
Jewish commentaries. And a lot of those commentaries,
all of them, they're junk. They're garbage because they
glory in Abraham. They talk about what Abraham
did and how wonderful of a man he must have been for God to
so bless him. And they miss entirely the glory
of God and what God did for Abram and what God did in calling Abraham
out of darkness. Abraham was an idolater. There's nothing for us to glory
in in Abram. And that's why the Lord said
to him, I'm the one that did this. I called you out of Ur
of the Chaldees. I brought you out of that place.
into this land to give it to you. And so here we see God's
choosing, God's calling, God's blessing of Abraham. And Abraham was made to understand
and to know by the teaching of God that his faith is the result
of God's blessing, not the cause of God's blessing. If you believe
the Lord Jesus Christ, if He's all your hope and all your righteousness
to stand before God, that's not why God saved you. That's the
result that God has saved you. You believe because of what He's
done for you in the Lord Jesus Christ. You hope in Christ. You confess Christ because God
has been gracious and merciful to you. And so, God is the first
cause of all things. Man is not the cause of what
God does. God is the cause, the first cause
of all things. Just as we read in John 3.21,
but he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds
may be made manifest. They will be seen, they will
be made clear that they are wrought in God. God brings His child
into the light that we may know that God has done this. God's
worked this salvation in me for His glory, for His praise, for
His honor. Who am I? What am I? I'm just
a sinner who was born dead in trespasses and sins, living in
darkness, doing foolish things, wicked things, carnal things,
fleshly things that cannot save, thinking they were good, and
they were denying the Lord of Glory. But God has been gracious
and merciful to me, a sinner." And that's what he is to all
his people. What a blessing that God should
give us faith and hope in the Lord. And so second, Being justified
by Christ, the believer sees the blood atonement of Christ
that's put away their sins. That's the cause of God's forgiveness
and grace toward them. Let's read Genesis 15, 8. And Abram said, Lord God, whereby
shall I know that I shall inherit it Here we see the Lord stirred
up the heart of Abraham. And Abraham asked, how can I
be justified? How can I know that I have this
inheritance which you promised to give to me? How do I know
that I will be justified? A man who's a sinner. And so
because of God's call, Abram sought God. He sought to know
how it is that God saves sinners. How does God justify sinners? was, I think, Bildad and Job
asked that same question. How can a man be just with God? How can someone who's born of
a woman, born unclean, be made righteous? How is this possible? How can it be done? Well, in
response to Abram's question, Lord, how do I know that I'm
gonna receive this inheritance, which pictures eternal life? That land promised to Abraham
is a picture of what the eternal life that we receive of Christ.
How do I know that I'll receive this? And what did the Lord do? In verse nine and 10, he showed
him the sacrifice of Christ. He showed him Christ through
that sacrifice. Verse nine and 10, and God said
unto Abram, take me an heifer of three years old and a she-goat
of three years old and a ram of three years old and a turtle
dove and a young pigeon. And he took unto him all these
and divided them in the midst and laid each piece one against
another, but the birds divided he not. And this sacrifice pointed
to the Lord Jesus Christ, to the blood atonement of Christ. Because Abraham understood, just
as we understand by faith, that the blood of bulls and goats
does not put away sin. The blood of Christ does. The
blood of Christ does. That's what put away the sin
of Abraham, and that's what puts away the sin of all God's people.
The blood of Christ. And so he obtained eternal forgiveness
and he gives the gift of eternal life to his people. And so this,
the Lord Jesus Christ, is the only ground of our acceptance
with holy God. We do not come to God with any
other hope. with any other work, with any
other confession, but the Lord Jesus Christ alone. He is the Son of God. He is the
salvation of God. And by Him, sinners are received
of holy God and received into His presence. precious blood
of Christ, Peter said, as of a lamb without blemish and without
spot. He sacrificed himself justly
that God may justly forgive you that come unto him by the Lord
Jesus Christ. It's a perfectly just sacrifice
and God is just to forgive his child for the sake of Christ,
for what Christ has done. Believe him. Rest in him, brethren. Third, being justified by Christ. Faith wrought in the believer
knows God raised his son from the dead. We are justified. God declares, I am satisfied
with what my son has done. And all who come to me and my
son, I am satisfied. You that believe him, you declare
that God is true. God is just and God is holy and
God has wrought salvation for his people just as he promised
he would back in the garden when we fell in Adam. God has fulfilled
his word of promise to you that believe him. to you that trust
him. Genesis 15, 11. And when the
fowls came down upon the carcasses, Abram drove them away. And we looked at these scriptures
last week in greater detail here. And these scriptures declare,
it's a picture that Christ our Savior, when he went into the
grave, saw no corruption. Thou wilt not let thine holy
ones see corruption, the psalmist wrote, because God raised him
from the dead. His body did not rot and decay.
He was raised from the dead. And God gives his child the same
hope that just as he raised his son from the dead by that same
glorious power, which is raw to me through faith which believes
Christ and doesn't trust his own works, but that God shall
raise me up also and give me a new body like unto his body.
in that day when he returns, and I shall dwell in the presence
of holy God. And that's the hope he gives
us, that one day, according to this faith, according to his
word, we shall dwell in the presence of our God. being without sin,
without this weakness and this frailty and without these fleshly
lusts and sins and all this darkness and corruption. All this will
be put off and we shall put on that new body for we shall see
him as he is. We shall be made like unto him
for we shall see him as he is. And so faith now drives away
every vain thought which would seek to destroy that hope that
we have in the Lord Jesus Christ. Second Corinthians 10.5 says,
casting down imaginations. This is, go back to Abram, driving
away the birds. Casting down imaginations and
every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge
of God and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience
of Christ. Now fourth, being justified by
Christ, the believer rests in the covenant of God's grace,
which is established for us by the blood of Christ. Let's first
see verse 12, Genesis 15, 12. And when the sun was going down,
a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and lo and horror of great darkness
fell upon him. Drop down to verse 17 and 18.
And it came to pass that when the sun went down and it was
dark, behold, a smoking furnace and a burning lamp that passed
between those pieces. In the same day, the Lord made
a covenant with Abram, saying, unto thy seed have I given this
land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river
Euphrates. And so these verses speak of
the gracious covenant which our God has done for us in Christ. Being justified by the blood
atonement of Christ, we see now God's purpose of mercy and grace
toward us, which is established not from my work, not because
I've put my hand to it and done anything, but because of what
Christ has done. this covenant of his mercy and
grace is fulfilled unto me. This smoking furnace pictures
affliction, and the burning lamp pictures the comfort that God
shows to his people. Our Lord tells us in Isaiah,
because I have refined thee, but not with silver, I have chosen
thee in the furnace of affliction. And what he's saying there is,
for Christ's sake, All the afflictions that we bear, those things that
we go through, we see. It's for our good. It's for our
good. Christ propitiated the wrath
of God. He turned away the wrath of God
from me. He's obtained eternal forgiveness
for me so that the afflictions I now go through, those things
which I now suffer, they're for my good. They're for my learning,
therefore, my instruction. God has done this according to
purpose. He's sovereign, holy, in control
of all things. He's done it according to purpose,
and he's done it for my good and for my happiness. And being
assured of our blessings in Christ, he comforts us through this gospel.
We're not comforted by the things that we see. by the things that
we can measure and determine by what we see in this flesh,
we're comforted by the promises of our God made unto us in Christ,
and we rest in Him in spite of what we see. In spite of what
we see. And so we're comforted. He says
in another place in Isaiah 62, 1, regarding this lamp that burneth,
he said, for Zion's sake, will I not hold my peace? And for
Jerusalem's sake, I will not rest until the righteousness
thereof go forth as brightness and the salvation thereof as
a lamp that burneth. We're blessed of God in this
gospel of grace. If you doubt God's mercy and
grace to you, He's gathered you together in this place to hear
His word, to hear declared what He has done for you. I'm not
whipping you and beating you with tasks of what you need to
do for this salvation. I'm declaring to you what God
has done for you in the Lord Jesus Christ. And He is able
and sufficient to save all that come unto God by Him, believing
that He is the Savior. He is the salvation of God. And
fifth, being justified by Christ, the believer learns the faithfulness
of God by God fulfilling these very things, working these things
in us. Look at verse 13, Genesis 15, 13. And he said unto Abram,
know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land
that is not theirs, and shall serve them, and they shall afflict
them four hundred years. There's going to be trials, brethren. There's going to be a trial of
faith. The Lord's going to prove His work to you. He's not giving
you trials to prove it to Him. He knows what He's done. He gives
you trials to prove to you that He is your God and what He has
done and does do for you, for your good. 1 Peter 1 7, that
the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold
that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found,
found in you. Look unto praise and honor and
glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. God brings you through
trials, fills you with his spirit, shows you your weakness in yourself,
but seeing all the power and glory of God in keeping you. Many people, when they go through
trials, turn away. Many people fall away, but He's
kept you. He keeps you looking to Him.
He keeps you crying out to Him for grace and mercy. Lord, don't
let me fall away. Lord, keep me. Lord, save me. Have mercy on me. Help me, Lord. That's the cry He gives to His
child and keeps you ever looking to Him, ever seeking Him so that
it's a praise and honor and glory to His name. And so faith is
tried in this world, but it's given for our good. It reveals
the blessings of God to us. And when you look back, you that
have been some time in the faith and you look back and all those
days and months and years when you thought, what a fool I am,
what am I doing here? You see how the Lord has led
you through it all and delivered you and kept you and didn't turn
you away. but gave you repentance and turned
your heart from dead things that cannot save and brought you here
as it is this day to hear this blessed gospel word to give you
hope to give you an expected end in the Lord Jesus Christ
that with all the crazy going on in the world you have one
sure hope the Lord Jesus Christ, that when your eyes close in
death, you shall awake in the presence of your God and Savior
unto joy unspeakable and everlasting. And so these trials, they strip
us of fleshly, vain confidences. They turn us to plead with God
for his mercy and grace. They turn us from trusting in
self and trusting only in him, confessing, Lord, only you can
save me. Romans 5. Turn there. Romans
5. I'll wrap this up. Romans 5 verses 1 through 5. Verse 1. Therefore, being justified
by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. by whom also we have access by
faith into this grace, wherein we stand and rejoice in hope
of the glory of God. And not only so, but we glory
in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation worketh patience,
and patience experience, and experience hope, and hope maketh
not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our
hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us. Brethren, the
flesh doesn't talk like that. The flesh doesn't glory in trials
and tribulations and strippings and beatings and being brought
low and humbled. But the new man does. The new
man glories in what God has done and is doing and trusts him and
believes him. Though he slay me, yet shall
I trust him, Job said. And the new man confesses that
same thing. Lord, keep me. We don't ask for
it. We're not looking for trouble. We're asking for grace. And we
trust him for his grace to keep us and to bless us. And I'll
just close with the last verses in Genesis 15 verses 14 through
16. And also that nation whom they
shall serve will I judge. And afterward they shall come
out with great substance. And thou shalt go to thy fathers
in peace. Thou shalt be buried in a good
old age. But in the fourth generation,
they shall come hither again, for the iniquity of the Amorites
is not yet full." Brethren, there's thrones, principalities, and
powers doing wicked things. But your God promises that He
knows exactly what's going on. He's sovereign over all things.
And He shall return and put down those things and make all things
right. And you shall come out of here
with great substance to an inheritance with joy unspeakable in the Lord
Jesus Christ. I pray he bless that word to
your heart and show you comfort your hearts with the same comfort
Abraham received through the faith that God had given him.
Amen. Let's pray and be dismissed for
15 minutes. Our gracious Lord, we thank you
for your grace. We thank you, Lord, for your
mercy, your covenant mercies, your covenant grace established
in the blood of Christ. Lord, thank you that you did
all this work and it doesn't rest or rely on us and what we've
done or can do. But Lord, we thank you that you
gave it all to Christ's hand and you committed us to Christ's
care and put us in him before the foundation of the world that
nothing can remove us, nothing can take us out of your hand.
And He accomplished our redemption. We thank You for this. We thank
You for this faith, this sight which You've given to us by faith,
and this hope that You've given to us, and the love that You've
put in our hearts for our Savior and for one another. Lord, we
pray that You bless this word to the hearts of Your people.
Keep it there. Let it find good ground and bear
fruit unto the praise and glory of Your name. It's in Christ's
name we pray and give thanks. Amen.