Galatians chapter 3. The book
of Galatians was written to these people who lived in this area
called Galatia. They were Gentiles. That's important
as we enter into what we're going to study today. Remember that
they were Gentiles, but they had been taught by false preachers
and teachers that in order to be justified, in order to be
sanctified before God, they had to do something in addition to
what Christ had done. And so the book of Galatians
is written to correct that. In chapter 3, we pick it up.
He says, O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you that you
should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath
been evidently set forth crucified among you? Through the preaching
of the gospel, God has set forth Christ so clearly before them,
it was almost as if He had been crucified before them in that
preaching. And so they had heard that, and
some of them, at least, had failed To continue in that truth, they
had failed in faith. That's what it means when they
did not obey the truth. They had begun to believe a lie.
Verse 2, This only would I learn of you. Received ye the Spirit
by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith. Now that's
a very important verse. You cannot earn the Spirit of
God. It's entirely of grace, isn't it? How could you possibly
earn God? And the way we receive the Spirit
is not by doing something ourselves, but God preaches His Word, the
Gospel to us. And in preaching it, He gives
us faith in believing Christ. That is His gift of the Spirit.
He gives His Spirit to us to give us life. And the breath
of that life is not only the Spirit, but that breath is realized
in faith. Verse 3, Are you so foolish,
having begun in the Spirit? Are you now made perfect by the
flesh? Have you suffered so many things in vain, if it be yet
in vain? He therefore that ministereth
to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he
it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? That's
Paul, the apostle. He ministered to them, he preached
the gospel. That's what it means, ministering
the Spirit. And he worked miracles among them. None of that was
by the works of the law. It was simply by preaching it
and God giving faith to those who heard it. Verse 6, even as
Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness.
Know ye therefore that they which are of faith the same are the
children of Abraham. And the scripture, foreseeing
that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before
the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be
blessed. So then, they which are of faith
are blessed with faithful Abraham. For as many as are of the works
of the law are under the curse, for it is written, Curse it is
everyone that continueth not in all things which are written
in the book of the law to do them. But that no man is justified
by the law and the sight of God, it is evident, for the just shall
live by faith." A quotation from the Old Testament itself. And
the law is not of faith, but the man that doeth them shall
live in them. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law,
being made a curse for us, for it is written, Cursed is everyone
that hangeth on a tree, that the blessing of Abraham might
come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, that we might receive
the promise of the Spirit through faith. Here you see in verses
13 and 14, the Spirit of God is given by God because Christ
redeemed us. That was necessary that we were
set free from our sin and the law, the curse of the law, made
holy before God by His work in order that the Spirit of God
could be given to us and come and live in us, giving us life
and faith. Verse 15, Brethren, I speak after
the manner of men, though it be but a man's covenant, yet
if it be confirmed, no man disannulleth it, or addeth thereto. God's
covenant is irrevocable. You can't change it. Now, to
Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not,
and to seeds, as of many, but as of one, and to thy seed, which
is Christ. And this I say, that the covenant
that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which
was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul that it
should make the promise of none effect. God gave the law 430
years after he promised Abraham that through Christ he would
justify the Gentiles. And the law can't make that promise
of God. It can't nullify that promise. It can't change God's covenant.
Verse 18. For if the inheritance be of
the law, it is no more of promise. But God gave it to Abraham by
promise. Wherefore then serveth the law?
Good question. Why would God give the law if
he already made this promise to Abraham? It was added because
of transgressions, till the seed, Christ, should come, to whom
the promise was made, and it was ordained by angels in the
hand of a mediator. The law was added to make evident
our sin. Men were sinners from Adam, but
the law amplified their guilt. It shut them up and left them
without hope in themselves until Christ came." Now, a mediator
is not of one, but God is one. In other words, the covenant
of God was made in the Godhead between God the Father and God
the Son. Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid. For if there had been a law given,
which could have given life, verily righteousness should have
been by the law. If there were any way that God
could have given a law by where we could live and be righteous
before Him, God would have done it that way, but there was none.
Not a little law, no law. Not a big law, no law. Nothing
we do can give us life or make us righteous before God. God
had to do it. By grace, Christ had to fulfill
the law for us. Verse 22. But the scripture hath
concluded all under sin. that the promise by faith of
Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. But before
faith came, before the gospel was preached, we were kept under
the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.
Wherefore, the law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, or until
Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith
has come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. For you are all
the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many
of you as have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ,
there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free,
there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ.
And if you be Christ's, then are you Abraham's seed and heirs
according to the promise. Let's pray. Our gracious Heavenly
Father, we thank you that you have, from the beginning of time,
even before time, predestinated your elect people to be your
sons by Jesus Christ. and you have brought it about
in time by the redeeming blood of our Lord Jesus and sent your
spirit to those you so chose and so redeemed that we might
know our adoption, we might know the grace of God, we might hear
this promise and believe. And in believing, we might receive
this life and this righteousness which you have given to us in
Christ, which is ours because of your work and nothing that
we've done. Help us, dear Lord, now to see this from your word
in the life of Abraham. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Turn with me, if you would, now to Genesis chapter 12. Genesis
chapter 12, we didn't read the last half of Genesis 11 last
week because of time, but it gives the generations through
Abraham, I mean through Shem, Arphaxad, and all these people,
Eber, and so on, all the way down from to Abraham's father
Tira, and then to Abram himself. And we're going to pick it up
in, actually in chapter 11 verse We'll pick it up in verse 20,
verse 30. I'll just pick it up here. You
can read that before in your own time. But Sarai was barren,
she had no child, and Tira, that's Abram's father, took Abram his
son, and Lot the son of Haran, his son's son, and Sarai his
daughter-in-law, his son Abraham's wife, And they went forth with
them from Ur the Chaldees to go into the land of Canaan, and
they came into Haran and dwelt there. And the days of Tira were
two hundred and five years, and Tira died in Haran." Now I read
that because it's important to see just a little bit of what
happened before. I want to connect chapters 10
and 11 with you to the chapter we're looking at here. A lot
of years have passed, several hundred years. If you remember
after the flood, The men began to assemble together and to devise
their own religion. They wanted to establish their
own name. One of the things they did is they built a tower that
was intended to save them from the wrath of God that they had
seen come on the world in Noah's day through the flood. And so
they thought, let's build us a tower. Let's make us a name.
And everything they did was about man because that was man's religion.
They were idolaters. The definition of idolatry is
given throughout scripture. It's the work of men's hands. That's what idols are. They're
the work of men's hands. And we could read in Galatians
chapter 4 verse 8 that the Gentiles were previously idol worshipers. And they were tempted to go back
to trusting their works. And Paul says why? You were idol
worshippers and now in trusting your works you're going back
to the very thing that God saved you from. So works religion is
the synonym for idolatry. It's really the definition of
it. So men were worshipping the works of their own hands. They
were all man-centered. They were not coming to God as
Abel did, as Enos did, as Noah did, as Enoch did. All these
men who came before them. And it's no wonder because in
the heart of man is only wickedness. God has to save us. So chapters
10 and 11 show us that the world was under, the world then was
under the complete dominion of idolatry. There were no distinction
between Jews and Gentiles. There were just people. And God
came down at that time and He confused their languages because
their religion was confusion. They were in confusion and that
confusion split them up and divided them because They were opposed
to God and opposed to His gospel. And so God consigned them to
that judgment of becoming slaves to their own wickedness. Their
confusion. And thus God saves us from our
confusion and our blindness and our pride of self-righteousness.
We too will be left in our idolatry. And so here we see the context
from which God comes to Abraham. The world and Abraham's family
are in idolatry. If you look at Joshua chapter
24, I just want to point this out to you from scripture. Joshua,
which is just before Judges. Joshua Judges chapter 24. In
verse 2, Joshua is speaking. He says, and Joshua said to all
the people, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, your fathers dwelt
on the other side of the flood in old time, even Terah, the
father of Abraham, and the father of Nacor, and they served other
gods." So you can see right there, there's no possibility that Abraham
and his family were not idol worshippers. They were idolaters.
And that seems strange, that God would would take notice of
an idolater. You would think that God would
take notice of someone who was actually doing the right thing.
But there is an unrighteous. If God didn't save a people for
himself, we would all be in the enslavement of our own unbelief,
deserving the wrath of God, as we are by nature. And so God
has declared to us that the whole world is in wickedness. The wickedness
of man comes from his heart. The guilt is ours, the fault
is ours, and the sin is ours. And the wrath of God is just
against us. And unless God saves a people for himself, we will
all be as Sodom and Gomorrah. That's what Romans chapter 9,
verse 27 through 30 says, is that unless God had left to himself
a very small remnant, we had all been, as Sodom and Gomorrah,
destroyed for our sins. And you know that Abraham's family
also was an idolatrous family because later on, remember, that
when Rachel and Leah and the children of Jacob were about
to leave Syria, to flee from Laban, Jacob's uncle, that Rachel
had hidden idols under her camel's furniture. And so they were escaping
with these idols. And there was a time when finally
Jacob said, bury the idols at the tree. We're leaving this
place. So these people were an idol-worshipping people. And
throughout their history, the one thing that God pointed out
about the nation of Israel is they were continually going back
to idolatry. Remember, even when Moses was
up on the mountain, The people had commissioned Aaron to make
them a calf, and he did. These were idol-worshipping people.
They came from this. And so we see in chapter 12 what
happens next. The point here is this. God knew
Abraham before Abraham knew God. That's significant, isn't it?
God called Abraham before Abraham knew God. God chose Abraham before
Abraham knew God. God had a purpose for Abraham
before Abraham was aware of that purpose. God always saves men
as He saved Abraham. Abraham is set up in order to
teach us this is how God saves His people. Abraham was nothing
more than an idolater before God saved him. He was a Gentile
by nature, just like us. He was uncircumcised before God
said he was righteous. And that was said in Scripture
to teach us how God saves the Gentiles. Last week I entitled
the message, Of Such Were Some of You. of such all of us were. Ephesians 2 says that we all
had our conversation in times past in the lust of our flesh,
serving the flesh and the desires of our mind. And we're by nature
children of wrath, even as others. So this is nothing special about
Abraham that God said, ah, here's a good man. I'm going to lead
this man out of all the rest of this idolatry. No, God chose
Abraham when Abraham was in the middle of idolatry, and God called
him then. And this is how God saves us.
What we see in the life of Abraham, I want you to, because the scripture
spends a long time on this man's life. There's, I think there's
about three people, three men, other than our Lord Jesus Christ,
that most of the Bible speaks about. Abraham is one of them.
Moses is another. King David is another. But he
really focuses a lot of attention for us on Abraham in order to
teach us so much about how God saves his people. The first thing
we learn about Abraham is that God called him, chose him and
called him when he was in sin. When he was in idolatry. Look
at Nehemiah. Nehemiah chapter 9. Let's see this, what God says
about Abraham. Nehemiah chapter 9, this is a
prayer. In verse 6, it always, prayers
often start this way in scripture where God is extolled as being
the great creator, the sovereign Lord. He says in verse 6, Nehemiah
9 verse 6, Thou, even thou, art Lord alone that has made heaven,
the heaven of heavens, and all their host, the earth and all
things that are therein, the seas and all things that And
all that is therein, and thou preservest them all, and the
host of heaven, all the angels, everything, worship thee." Now
that first verse is given to us to help us understand God's
place as sovereign over all, the creator of heaven and earth.
Verse 7, Thou art the Lord, the God, who didst choose Abram,
and brought him forth out of Ur the Chaldees, and gave him
the name of Abraham. And foundest his heart faithful
before thee, and made a covenant with him to give the land of
Canaan, of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites,
and the Perizzites, and the Jebusites, and the Girgashites. To give it, I say, to his seed,
and hast performed thy words, for thou art righteous." Here
God says, God chose Abraham. God brought him out. God gave
him this name, Abraham. And God found his heart faithful
because God did it. It's God who works in you both
to will and to do of his good pleasure. Philippians 2, 12 and
13. This is God rehearsing what he did to save a man. This is
God rehearsing what he did to save every man that he saves. Abraham is a picture of how God
saves all of us by his grace. What we see in Abraham is God's
electing grace. God's calling grace. God's bringing,
drawing grace. God's righteousness given to
Him. The righteousness of Christ.
God's gift of faith. God's keeping Him. God sustaining
Him, bringing trials into His life and sustaining Him through
all this in faith. And God finally giving Him the
hope that He lived His life looking for. Look at 1 Thessalonians
1. See this pattern. Also testify
to of these Thessalonians who were Gentiles. 1 Thessalonians
1 says this. In verse 4, Paul the Apostle
says to the Thessalonians, Knowing, brethren, beloved, your election
of God. How did he know that? Did he
put his electometer on their forehead? There's an elect person
there? No. This is how. For our gospel
came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the
Holy Ghost, and in much assurance, as you know what matter of men
we were among you for your sake. So, they responded to the gospel. And that response was faith.
That was the work of God. As God commanded the light to
shine in the darkness, He has commanded the light of the glorious
gospel of Christ to shine in our heart. It took the same power
that raised Christ from the dead to save each of us. That's what
he's saying here. That's how he knew their election.
Because God did it. Verse 6. And you became followers
of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction,
with joy of the Holy Ghost. Because when we see Christ is
our only hope in all of our righteousness before God, that God has saved
us from our sins by Him alone. It creates joy in our heart,
doesn't it? And thankfulness too. Verse 7. so that you were
examples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia. For
from you sounded out the word of the Lord not only in Macedonia
and Achaia, but also in every place your faith to God is spread
abroad, so that we need not to speak anything. For they themselves,
those who heard you, For they themselves show of us what manner
of entering in we had unto you, and how you, listen, turned to
God from idols to serve the living and true God. That's Abraham,
isn't it? And look at verse 10. This is his walk. And to wait
for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even
Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come. I point that
out to show you it's the same. It doesn't matter who God saves,
He always saves them the same way. By His sovereign electing
grace, by the redeeming blood of Christ, by His call of the
Spirit of God in their lives. That call which comes to us because
Christ has redeemed us. Galatians 3 verse 13 and 14. And so, now, let's go to Genesis,
chapter 12, verse 1. I want to read a few verses here. It says in verse 1, "...Now the
LORD had said unto Abram..." At this time, his name is just
Abram, without the H-A-M on the H-A-H-H-M. Whatever he added. Abraham. It was just Abram. Abram means father of many. Abraham
means father of many nations. So the name Abraham points forward
to the fact that he, through him, God would save the Gentiles. In fact, God would save all that
he saves in the way that he saves Abraham and also through the
one that would come through Abraham, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
why he gave him that name as we read in Nehemiah chapter 9.
He named him Abraham because it was God's promise of how he
would save many nations through Christ. So he says here, Now
the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country.
Who is the LORD here? The LORD is capital, all caps,
L-O-R-D, which is the Lord Jesus Christ, Jehovah God. You might
think, well how do you know that that's talking about the Lord
Jesus Christ? I'm glad you asked that question. Because I've often
asked that question myself. How do you know that? Well, let
me show it to you from scripture. In Jeremiah 23, verses 5 and
6, it says that the Lord Jesus would be a branch that springs
out of David. And he would be called this,
by this name, the Lord, our righteousness. There it's plainly said that
Christ is called Jehovah, our righteousness. So there's no
question that He is the Lord. But also in Malachi 3.1 it says
that He would be sent by the Lord, Jehovah, and He Himself
would be the Lord who came. And He would be the messenger
and the message, and the one who brought it. And then also in several other
places, Isaiah 45. Verse 22, as we often quote it,
it says, And that, again, is the
Lord Jesus Christ speaking, as is proved from Romans 14. But
I like this also in Romans chapter 10. Look at this in Romans chapter
10. This is the Lord Jesus Christ here. There's no question about
it. And notice this. This is the only way we can be
saved. Romans chapter 10. In verse 13, he says, "...for
whosoever," this is a summary of what he had said before, "...for
whosoever shall call upon the name of the LORD shall be saved."
Now, in the Old Testament, in Joel 2.32, where this is first
stated this way, this is speaking about Jehovah God. But here he
says the Lord, and he's referring to Christ because in the next
verse he says, "...how then shall they call on him in whom they
have not believed?" And how shall they believe in Him of whom they
have not heard? And how shall they hear without
a preacher? And so on. And he goes on, he says, these
people will believe, will call on the Lord, because they believe
on the Lord, and they believe on the Lord because they've heard
the gospel which is spoken in Isaiah 53 concerning Christ and
Him crucified. And so this is the Lord Jesus
Christ. Isaiah 65 says, those who haven't sought me shall find
me. And that's what Abraham was.
He hadn't sought the Lord, he hadn't called upon him, but the
Lord came to him. Back in Genesis 12, he says,
now the Lord had said unto Abram, get thee out of thy country.
We know it's the Lord because no one has seen God at any time.
No one has heard from him. John 5.37 says, You have neither
heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape. The Lord
Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God. Colossians
1.15 Therefore, the Lord who speaks to Abraham here is none
other than the one who spoke to Paul on the road to Damascus,
when that light shone from heaven. And he heard the voice of Jesus
say, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? The one from heaven
speaking. And Saul said, Who are you, Lord? And he says, I'm Jesus, whom
you persecute. Because when you've done it to
the least of these, my brethren, you've done it to me. And he
was trying to destroy the church of the living God. And God saved
Paul, just like He saved Abraham. So the Lord had said to Abram,
Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from
thy father's house, to a land that I will show thee. Now, to
get out means more than merely to leave one place for another.
That's what we normally think, isn't it? It means, rather, to
leave one master for another. It means to leave the worship
of what is false to worship God in truth. It means to leave all
I formerly trusted in salvation to find my all in Christ. That's what it means to get out.
To get out of this country. Remember what God said in Revelation
18.4 concerning those in Babylon, which means in false religion.
He says, "...Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith
the Lord my people." Come out from among them. Until God calls
us in Christ, we only know idols, just as all those who came before
in chapters 10 and 11, as we read in 1 Thessalonians. The
Lord Jesus Christ calls men to come, doesn't He? Remember what
He says in Matthew 11, 28, "...Come unto Me, all you who labor and
are heavy laden, I will give you rest." That's God's call.
Revelation 22, the Spirit and the bride say, come. And let
him that heareth say, come. And let him that is a thirst
say, come. And whosoever will, let him take
of the water of life freely. That's the message of Christ
to sinners. Come. Get out. Come away from
all you formerly trusted. Remember the woman at the well?
Jesus came to her. And she says, we know that when
Messiah comes, he'll tell us all things. And Jesus said to
her, I that speak unto you am he. And then she left her water
pot. She left everything because she
had heard from him. Get out. Get out of that country.
Now when God first spoke to Abram, he was in the land of Ur of the
Chaldees. This is not clear here, but you
see it in Acts chapter 7. And while he was in Ur, the Chaldees,
and God had spoken to him to get out, he didn't leave immediately
from his father's house. And his father Tira must have
known that God called him and he wanted to go with Abram. So
it says in the last part of chapter 11 here that Tira took Abram
and Lot and Sarai and they went to Haran. But while he was in
Haran, Tira died. And then God spoke again to Abraham,
evidently, and God told him, get out of the country. Because
that area really was the land of Babylon. It was the same area
that all these people lived in that served idols. And they needed
to leave it. And so, if you read Acts chapter
7, in fact, let me read that to you there. In Acts chapter
7, it says what it said in Nehemiah chapter 9. He says, in Acts 7,
verse In verse 2, he says, Stephen
is preaching, men and brethren and fathers, hearken. The God
of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia
before he dwelt in Haran and said to him, get out of thy country
and from thy kindred and come to the land which I shall show
thee. Then came he out of the land of the Chaldeans, and dwelt
in Haran, and from thence. When his father was dead, God
removed him into this land." I put the word God there when
it says he removed him because that's who did the removing.
God removed him into this land wherein you now dwell. You see,
God had to remove Abraham from that land. First he called him. And then by his grace, in providence,
he arranged it so this call would become effectual in his life.
He took the life of his father. Now all men's lives are in God's
hands. God gives life and takes life according to his own purpose. Our life is in his hands. Daniel
told Nebuchadnezzar's son, in whose hand? In God's hand, thy
breath is, and whose are all thy ways. So our life is in God's
hands and He takes it at His will. It was God's purpose to
call Abram, not Terah. It was God's purpose to call
Abram, not all those who were in that land. Just this man.
Just this one man. And that's grace, isn't it? That's
God's distinguishing grace. That's God's call. Look at John
chapter 6. I want you to see this call of
Christ to Abraham and how it accords with God's purpose, His
electing grace. John chapter 6. God has a people. It says, "...the
foundation of God standeth sure, the Lord knoweth them that are
His." That's a powerful verse of scripture. God knows those
that are His. And in John chapter 6, Jesus
is saying the same thing here. He says in verse 35 of John 6,
"...I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never
hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst." To
come to Christ is to believe Him. To believe Christ is to
come to Him. In verse 37, he says, "...all
that the Father giveth me shall come to me." That's the certainty
of God's purpose being fulfilled. What Christ said here cannot
fail. Jesus said in Matthew 24, verse
25, "...heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall
not pass away." Here he says, "...all that the Father giveth
me shall come to me." They were given by God before they came. They were God's because He had
chosen them. And He gave them to His Son in
that covenant of grace. God gave a people to His Son
to save by His redeeming blood. And He brought them. He says,
"...all that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me, and him
that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out." How do I know
God gave me to Christ? Because He draws you. You come
to Him. You look to Him. You call on
Him. You trust Him only, and everything
else is worth less than dung to you to have Christ. You realize that salvation is
in Him alone, and you come to God by Him, and you're thankful
that God brought you. You say, Lord, how could you
save a wretch like me? You saved me by your grace when
I had no power, no will to come. You brought me. You revealed
your Son to me in the preaching of the gospel. I heard that you
saved And you saved by Christ, and you persuaded me. That was
my only hope. That's coming. Verse 38, Jesus
says, For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but
the will of Him that sent me. And this is the Father's will
which has sent me. What is God's will that sent
Christ? That of all which He hath given me, I should lose
nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. When
Moses was leaving Egypt, Pharaoh said, you can all go out, but
just leave the cattle and the sheep and all these behind. And
Moses said, no, we're going to go out with everything. Not a
hoof shall be left behind. The Lord Jesus says, all that
the Father giveth me shall come to me. And this is His will,
that I should lose nothing, but raise it up again at the last
day. In other words, everyone raised up at the last day and
given eternal life was given by God to Christ to save. And
those are the ones for whom He died. And that's the reason we're
saved. And He says in verse 40, and
this is the will of Him that sent me, that of everyone which
seeth the Son, And believeth on him may have everlasting life
and I will raise him up at the last day. Verse 44. No man can come to me except
the Father which has sent me draw him. like Peter drew his
sword out of his sheath, or like they drew the net of fish. The
Father draws us to Christ. How? By the preaching of the
gospel, He closes us up in the prison of our sin and unbelief,
and makes us helpless and guilty before God, and then He reveals
Christ. He says, He's your only hope. He's accomplished all and we're
persuaded, yes, that's the way it is. And we embrace it gladly
in faith. Back to Genesis chapter 12. That's what the Lord Jesus did
for Abraham. He chose him. He brought him. He called him. He revealed himself
to him. And so, we read here. If you were to look on in Genesis
just a little bit further, in verse 7, it says, And the Lord
appeared to Abraham and said, Unto thy seed will I give this
land. And there builded he an altar to the Lord who appeared
to him. Verse 7 of Genesis 12 shows that not only did Christ
choose, call, bring, give Abraham faith to depart, but He kept
him and He revealed Himself to him. And when He revealed Himself
to Abram, what did Abram do? He built an altar. Why? Because
everyone to whom God reveals himself in Christ, they come
to him by Christ. We have an altar. And what is
that altar? The Lord Jesus Christ. He offered
himself to God. His divine nature is the altar
on which he offered his human nature. And his blood was spilled
and received by God. And by that offering he obtained
our eternal redemption. That's what the altar is. The
altar sanctifies the gift Christ offered himself to God. What
an offering. What an appearance that Abram
would come to God in this way. Throughout his life, not just
once, but throughout his life, he kept coming, kept building
these altars, kept calling on the name of the Lord that revealed
himself to him. Just like all of us do to whom
the Lord gives us faith. We keep coming. I have nowhere
else to go, Peter said. Who else will we go to? Once
the Lord saves us, we don't have another hope, do we? God keeps
us. That's His saving grace and His
preserving grace. So He says, get thee out. Let me go on here. The Lord calls
us. There's many things we could
save. It says in Acts 2.39, that those the Lord saves are those
the Lord calls. Let me just read this to you
in Acts 2. These people were hearing Peter
preach on the day of Pentecost and they were saying, what should
we do? What can we do? We've killed the Lord Jesus Christ,
what should we do? In verse 37 in Acts chapter 2,
Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart and
said to Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren,
what shall we do? And Peter said to them, Repent,
and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ
for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of
the Holy Ghost. In other words, you change your
mind. How can I do that? God has taught you through the
preaching of the gospel, this is the way things are. This is
the way God is. This is the way his son is. This
is the way you are. This is the only way you can
stand before God. And you're persuaded. This is
the truth of heaven. Your mind is changed. You believe
Christ. for the remission of sins. In
verse 39, for the promise, the promise is to you and to your
children and to all that are far off, even as many as the
Lord, our God, shall call. The promise is to those God calls. Isn't that amazing? While we're
there, while we're talking about that, look at Galatians 3 again.
Galatians chapter 3. Listen to what he says here.
We read this before. I just want to look at it with
you once here. Oh, I'm looking at the wrong
chapter. Galatians 3. Oh, shoot. Got the wrong verse. Well... Yeah, verse 16. Now to Abraham
and to his seed were the promises made. That's not the right one.
That's a good one. But anyway, I'm sorry. I got... Well, look at the last verse.
This is good enough. And if you be Christ's, then are you Abraham's
seed. And listen carefully, "...and
heirs according to the promise." You see, all the promises God
gave to Abraham, He gave to all those that believed Christ. That
was the point I was trying to make in the scripture. I was
going to put my finger on it, I didn't get it, but that one
establishes that truth. But back in Genesis chapter 12... We see here in verse 2 of Genesis
12, he says to Abraham, Now these verses These verses show us that are
really the gospel being preached to Abraham. That's established
in Galatians 3.8. It says the scripture, in Galatians
3.8, the scripture For seeing before that God would justify
the heathen through faith, preached the gospel before to Abraham,
saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed." That was the gospel.
In thee shall all nations be blessed. In thee. How could it
be in thee? In the Lord Jesus Christ who
would come from him. How would they be blessed? They
would be justified by God. Who would be blessed? All nations.
all people out of every nation, kindred, tribe and tongue. This
is the gospel, isn't it? That God's eternal purpose was
to save a people out of every nation under heaven by the redeeming
blood of Christ. Now this was given by a promise.
A promise. I want to emphasize this because
God emphasizes this. There's a big distinction we
see in how God saves in the life of Abraham. It's either by promise
or it's by the law. It's either by what God does
or it's by what man does. It's either by grace or it's
by our works. It's either by Christ or it's
by something we do. You can't mix the two. Galatians
was written in order to correct that fact, that error. That men
were trying to add a little bit. to what Christ had done in order
that they might be just before God, in order that they might
be more holy before God. But in Galatians 5.8 Paul says, A little yeast makes the whole
lump full of yeast. It ruins the whole dough. The
unleavened lump is the grace of God purely, without any mixture
of man's work. But the leavened loaf is an idolatrous
loaf of man's work plus Christ's work, like Cain. He came to God,
bringing something of his own to mix with what God had done.
And that's totally salvation by man. And so what God says
here, He gives to Abraham by promise. God sets before us the
truth that salvation is by His promise, by His work, His fulfilling
that work. He sits us down, as it were,
and tells us to look at what He said. This is the only way
sinners can be saved. It's in Christ what God has done. Stand still and see the salvation
of the Lord. This is so wonderful, beyond
words, that we, idolatrous ungodly sinners, would, in our ungodly
state of enmity in our mind and by wicked works, God would announce
to us what He had purposed from eternity and done in Christ,
and give us His Spirit to be persuaded. This is the whole
truth about the way things are. I can't believe it. It's too
good to be true. But it is true. God has done
it. Abraham, I'm going to make your
name great. I'm going to make you a great
nation. And I'm going to bless you and
you will be a blessing. Because Christ would come from
you. What an amazing thing. God saves by promise. And that
promise is the promise of Christ. That promise includes the promise
of justification of sinners by the obedience, the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. That righteousness that fulfilled
all of God's law. That righteousness that's imputed
to sinners according to God's grace, by His grace, His eternal
purpose. Not by anything we do. And we
stand in awe of that. How could it be that God would
save me, a sinner? How could He save me? I can't
save myself. I'm totally helpless. I can't
do one thing of all that God requires. And when I do, it is
so full of sin. He tells us, stop looking at
yourself. Look away to Christ. Salvation
is in Him. But what must I do? Believe Christ. Believe the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved. But I don't feel, I don't feel
like I have the right attitude. I don't know if I believe enough. I don't know if I've done the
right things. If my life is straightened out
enough. I haven't resolved, I haven't shed enough tears. I don't know
if I was such a great sinner. I don't know all these things.
Stop. Considering yourself. Look at
God's promise. Look at God's Savior. Look at
God's Son. Salvation is in Him alone. That's
what Abraham teaches us. It's by God's electing grace.
By God's promise. His eternal purpose. By Christ's
redeeming work. By the Spirit He gives us to
see this. To live by this faith. And when
trials come, He upholds us in this. so that we don't fall. Peter, I've prayed for your faith,
that your faith may not fail." That's what Jesus said. That's the one who called Abraham.
That's the one in whom alone our salvation rests. Do you hear
God's promise to Abraham? Do you hear that salvation is
in Christ alone? Does it give you peace in your
conscience that God doesn't look to you at all? God, in spite
of you, by the blood of Christ, has covered all your sin. He
sees a robe of righteousness on His Son that He places, that
was His Son's obedience, places on His people, and He sees in
that righteousness such beauty In His glorious dress, how does
the song say, Jesus, thy blood and righteousness, my beauty
are, and glorious dress, in these I'll appear. And without any
accusation, no one can charge me. Who can lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies. Who
is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died. That's
the peace and joy of our heart. That's what God has told Abraham.
That's what he's fulfilled in Christ. And that's what he declares
to us. Idolatrous Gentiles, we need
this salvation, don't we? Let's pray. Father, we pray that
according to your grace, according to your purpose in Christ, that
you would have mercy upon us as the public, and pray, Lord,
look upon the sacrifice of your Son. It's what you think of Him
that is all of our salvation. We pray, Lord, receive us for
Christ's sake. And take glory to yourself. Don't
let us boast in anything that we are, for we're nothing. We
are sinful and deserving of your wrath, but in Christ we find
great comfort and peace and joy. In fact, this is the one in whom
we worship you. Thank you, Lord, for this grace.
Thank you for this salvation that you've declared from your
word, the scriptures which cannot fail. Help us, Lord. Give us
your spirit that we might believe on the Lord Jesus Christ even
today. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.