you. Radio is probably one of the
reasons to understand what this is about. And yet, we don't. This is vital.
Paul wrote about it there. We read about it in Galatians and
the whole point of that is it's a mystery. We don't understand
it. We try to do. That's how serious
it is to be honest. It's a message to understand
that doctrine, theology, is just another line of dead men. It's
the difference between law and grace. Hope of the Romans, hope
of the Galatians, is about the salvation. Well, we're studying
Sarah and Hades. Go back to Genesis. Look at Genesis.
The difference between law and grace, man and worship, or Christ. That's how simple it
is really. A couple of weeks ago, Abraham
was called. Remember that? Remember, Abraham
was 75 years old. God chose him. God elected him. Abraham was not adopted. He didn't
even believe that God was adopted. God called him. He wasn't calling on God. After
they called on him, they'd not heard the belief. God spoke to him. God made all
the promises to him. God did it all. God chose him. God called him. God brought him
out. God did everything for him. God
promised him a seed in the parish land that God promised Abraham
a seed. Well, ten years went by, okay?
Ten years. Now, let's not be hard on Abraham. like the apocryphal or even the
pure vision that these Old Testament saints didn't have the understanding
and didn't have the knowledge. But ten years went by after John's
first call, Abraham. Just fifteen. Now, being a man, you can imagine
Abraham doubting. He doesn't understand. He doesn't believe. Verses 1 through
6, After these things the word of the Lord came unto Abraham
in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram, I am thy shield. and by exceeding great reward. I need to call him Apron, don't I? Thank God, James.
I am thy shield, I am thy shield, and by exceeding great reward.
And Apron said, Lord God, what wilt thou give me, saying, I
go shy? Well, what do you know? I don't chide them. Verse 3, it is to me that I was
given no sin. The one born in my house is going
to be my heir and my servant. Behold, the word of the Lord
came unto him, saying, This shall not be thy name, but he that
shall come forth out of thy own bowels shall be thy name. Your
very flesh and blood, son. And he brought him forth abroad,
and said, Look now for him, and tell the star that you are able
to number them. And he said unto them, So shall
thy seed be. And he believed in the Lord,
and he counted it to him for life. Well, that's what it is. All right? Chapter 16 now is
where our story begins. So ten years went by, and God
called Abraham. And he was beginning to want to establish himself. And God said, Thysse, Thysse
came again to him, Henry. Now once God spoke, and twice,
Thysse. Okay? Not once, but twice. Thysse of Jerusalem. Where Abraham
came from? I know we said it, but, but, I know we promised, but, you
know, surely we're going to have to do something. Sariah, Abraham's wife, married
him no children. She had a handmaiden, an Egyptian,
whose name was Peter. Sariah said, I don't know how
to say it, Sariah, Sariah, said unto Abraham, aren't you glad
your name is Sarah, Sarah? Everybody, Sariah, how do you
say it? Sariah said unto Abram, Behold
now, the Lord hath restrained thee from bearing. I pray thee,
go in unto my maiden. It may be that I may obtain children
by her. Abram hearkened to the voice
of Sariah, his wife. Hearkened to his wife. Does that sound
familiar? Does that sound familiar? Adam and Eve. Well, they got the whole
world in a mess, didn't they? And, uh, April, Sarah, and Brian,
they got this world in a mess, didn't they? They spawned an
old generation. And, uh, John Hayden, people
of John Hayden, people of John Hayden, All right, he hearkened to his
wife. Verses three and four, Sariah Abram's wife took Hagar,
her maid, the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelled ten years in
the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram, who
could be his wife. And he went into Hagar, and she
could see that when she, that is, Hagar, All right, that's what happened. All right, and April married.
Hey, wasn't Mary And there's no excuse for that, even among believers,
Abraham, and Abraham, and David, and Solomon, and all that. Well,
this was an unlawful marriage, and that's very important. He
was already married. This was an unlawful marriage,
and she had an illegitimate child, a child that God didn't A couple of times in referring
to the son of the bondwoman, he referred to him, called him
by name, called him the son of the bondwoman. He called out his name. The old gentleman, child, man,
there was instant strife in the house of God. Instant strife. Now, Chapter 17, now here's the
third time God's talking to Abraham. But Abram was ninety years old. At nine, ninety-nine, the Lord
appeared to Abram and said unto him, I will make my covenant between
thee and me, and will multiply thee exceedingly. I will establish my covenant
between thee and me, and thy seed after thee, and their generation's
one everlasting covenant. to be a God unto thee, and to
thy seed after thee. And I will give unto thee, and
to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art estranged, all
the lands of Canaan, for an everlasting possession. And I will be their
God." Verse 19, God said, I'm glad. That's how I'm going
to refer to him now. Abraham, meaning the father of
many. Abraham, that's where we got
the term father of many. And again, Hagar, the lady from
Rome, didn't write much about Abraham. Abraham didn't write
much about him. But Sarah, Sariah, her name is
changed to Sarah, princess. Princess. All right. Now, look
at verse 19. God said, Sarah, thy wife. Thy wife, when you marry the
woman you have gone to, might be by God legitimate. God sanctify
thee, and accept thee as her husband. Covenant, thou, O God,
true marriage. Sarah, thy wife, shall bear thee
a son in Jesus. It is true. Thou shalt call his name Isaac,
and I will establish mine covenant As for Ishmael, I have heard
thee, behold, I have blessed him, and I will make him fruitful,
multiply him exceedingly. The fact that the people come
from him makes it great that it is not a gospel for good nature,
but a law in faith. He represents parables. Parables to this day claim Abraham
as their father and Ishmael from the line of Israel. They claim that. They make no
bones about it, all right? But this goes much deeper than
the Jews and Arabs. So the Jew is not one that is
outwitted either. It's an error. All right? We're talking about God's
people as opposed to our God's people. And just because you're
an Arab doesn't mean you're not God's people. Just because you're a Jew doesn't mean you aren't. Okay? Deal with it. All right, verse twenty-one. I mean, he quit talking. There's
nothing more to say about it. That's what he said. God went
up. God went up. That caught my eye when I read that. God
went up. But to us, it's simply our children,
not even our little children can understand it. This is all about, not about
Jews and Arabs, although there is definitely a conflict between
those nations, which is prophesying, which started right there, immediately. It started at a slave woman and
a free woman. And they were at odds. This is
all about the gospel. This is all about how God saved
the Jews. You understand me? God's way. When I say that,
I mean His own way. That's the big way. But salvation, God's way or man's
way? Salvation by grace, by promise,
by Christ, by faith. a little helpful man, by words,
by the beauty of the flesh. Right? That's what this is all
about. Understand? All right now, let's look at
it. And I hope I can greatly simplify this and hold your attention. I've already thought about it. Now, verse 21, he said, Tell
me, ye that desire to judge the law, do you not hear the law?
Now, the law, law, law good, totally,
it's just, it's true, but it's never done, it never has done
one thing but being on this earth. It will not be the same as it has been. Can you not hear the law? That's
what he's saying. Don't you hear it? Now, here's
what he's saying about the law. Now, here's a story. Verse 22
is written. Abraham had two sons. One by a bondman. Bondman. Bondman. Slave woman. And slave too. A slave woman. We talk about women's work every
day of the day. In webinars, slaves. at all, ever since I saw him. That's a good man. He had ribs.
I said, well, he never had two ribs. All he did was do,
do, do, do, do. He didn't have enough time to
do it, so it begun. You hear that? The bomb was made. The other three were at 23. Now,
he was born as a bondwoman, was born after the plague, and just
read about that. Abram, Sarai, got together and said, well, let
God see as I see, but maybe back to us. It's God and man. Oh, yes, we
believe God, huh? We believe God, but man. We've
got to help God. It's God and man. It's God and
man. It's God's work and man's work. No, no, no, no, no, it's not. He said, after the plague, once
a boy after the plague from a barn woman, that child was illegitimate.
God never exempted him. He was able to medicate that
woman. It was wrong from the start. And when you told Abram what
to do, your agent was really concerned about it. Come on.
The whole thing was a wicked thing.
Follow the line of what I'm saying now. It was wicked. Abram answered, yeah, I think
that's the right thing to do. There was nothing good about
the whole thing. She was wicked in God's sight. She was illegitimate.
She wasn't married. She wasn't in the town. It was
all a sin. She had gone unbelieving and
had lust for the faith. And Sarah, right after Hager
conceived, Sarah said, I was wrong. She read on down and she
said, I've done it. Well, we don't. Now it says in verse twenty-three,
one of four in the flesh, he of the free will hold by promise. Abraham was eighty-six years
old. I mean, way ahead of him, I'd say. Go back to Genesis sixteen. All right? Back to Genesis sixteen. Keep the flesh, don't turn it
back and forth. All right? Salvation by grace, isn't that
clear? Salvation by God and man. Salvation by God alone. Salvation by what God
does to help, or what man does to help God out, or by what God
provides and directs us to do. Now, I made a point to point
this out. Who will stay from marriage to
a sinner? A person, right? A person. What was it? A lawful union accepted
by God. Sarah, Grace, the Covenant of
Grace, was punished. The Covenant of Grace was burned,
and Paul is going to tell us that later, how that Abram was
saved by Grace long before the law had come around. to inherit the land to this youth. And God, every human being that's
ever been saved, has been saved by Christ. And from Adam and Eve,
Adam was a saved man. I'll tell you why. He was saved by
Christ. Adam failed to do the law that he did. In the beginning,
God said, this good will live. Now what's his hope? He already
failed it. He already broke the law. God's
not going to say, just try it again, is he? Here, try it again. Here's another set of rules. Try these. Here's the end rule.
Try those. Oh, how's that? Somebody's going to come and
say to you, Adam, you're lost. You need to be found. You're dead. You need to die. Well, chapter 16, Hagar represents Mount Sinai, Paul
said. Chapter 16, look at, uh, it says,
verse 1, make them wise, bearing no children, yet a man made an
executioner. Wasn't just Egypt always representing
the Jews? Always. Throughout the, throughout
the history of the Egyptian representation of the world. You know, it's always wisdom
and culture and other artists and paganism. It's the work. It's always working. It's the
work. The old work. The old work. And
the book doesn't say anything the same. It's wrong. It's not wrong. It's the book.
It's your culture. It's my culture. Thank you, Jesus. and all that has to do with the
work of the world. Once everything's evolved, say
that you've said it, and everything else has evolved. The whole world
has changed. Every man has to stop, and all
the world will come to do it. Satan, as a taker, is a slave.
He's a bondage. And that represents the world, and the world is a bondage. All right? Now look at verse one, it says,
a handmaid, she's a handmaid, she's a parent. Handmaid. Women
have never had a handmaid, let alone a daughter-in-law. But a handmaid
is somebody who waits on you. Well, didn't he say, God, I did
it, he did it. He's guilty too. The whole world serves, somehow,
serves the purpose of God. And all in all, the whole world, we live in this
world, the world exists right now for a certain reason. That's amazing, isn't it? The world will be covered. It won't catch a man. It's over. All right, look at
the next thing. Back to Galatians 3. Back to Galatians 3. All right,
Abram had a wife. Abram heard the word of the promise.
Abram believed. And it says he was accepted. Canada never liked him. Well, how does the law serve
them? We're talking about the law. Nature represents the law. The world is bonded to it. How
does the law serve us? How does the law serve them? Now, look at Galatians 3, verse
7. Scripture foreseeing that God
would justify the heathen to prove faith, preached before
the gospel of Abraham, saying, Indeed, the law of Abraham is
faith. That's the gospel. So then, they which be of faith
are blessed with faithful Abraham. For many as are of the works
of the law of the church, in Scripture, personally they're
going to continue, not in all things, which are written in
the book of the law of the truth. And no man is justified by the
law Just to live by faith. The law is not a faith. The man
that doeth these things to live by Christ hath redeemed us from
the law. The curse of the law. All right?
Verse 19. All right, let me read it. Wherefore then serve them? The law. To
be out of hatred serve? Serve? No, not the law. How does the law serve us? This is Bible, or it wouldn't
be. All right, what purpose does
the law serve man, Captain Andrew Roman? Romans 4. Romans 4. All right? Romans chapter 4. What purpose does the law serve
man? Abraham should be the heir of
the world. If not to Abraham, what do you see through the law
or through the righteous faith? They which are of the law, the
heirs, they made rules. The promise was made of no effect. It didn't need to make a promise.
It was made to them. So the law worketh right, where
no law is, there is no transgression. All right, now look at chapter
5. All right, what's the law about? Verse 13. Well, he just said,
there's no law, there's no transgression. Verse 13, chapter 5, 13. Until
the law of sin was in the world, sin's not a duty, but there's
no law. In other words, say there's no speed limit time.
What does that mean? You can go fast
if you want to. And if somebody pull you over
and try to give you a ticket, why? You can't give me a ticket. Yeah, but it's undone. It doesn't
say anything. I go and do what I want to. And
they post a sign, 35. You do 36, you can program the
law. Now Sam's law was given to show And look at verse, chapter 5,
verse, chapter 7. Chapter 7, Romans 7, look at
this. Romans 7, verse 7. Got it? Right, got it? What shall we say then? Is the
law sin? No, God forbid. I have known sin. See that? I had not known lust,
for the law said don't covet. Verse 9, I was alive without
the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. Verse 12, law holy, commandment
holy, just and good. Was it bad for me? God forbid,
but sin, that it might appear sin. But by the commandment, Michael,
it comes to be sent, you see. You understand, don't you, Mark?
That God gave the law not for us to try to keep it and be accepted
by it, but to show us that we've broken the law. Oh, the law does
restrain some outward sin, yes. God won't accept it by the law. That's what Paul says in Galatians.
It's evident that no man is justified or accepted by the law. It's
evident. Adam was the best man to ever live. He died. He broke
the law. He was cast out. How's he going
to get back in? The law? Well, that's what Paul
was dealing with in Galatians about, wasn't it? The whole book.
He said, are you begun in the spirit and have you made perfect
by the flesh? You're saved by grace, now you go back to the
law and be sanctified. Call me chosen by grace here. Called by grace here. Kept by
grace. If you're saved by grace, you're
sanctified by grace. I'm not. I'm not. All right? Listen to this, very
carefully. The moral law, the end commandment, and everybody
wants to oppose it. Boy, they don't need to do that, buddy.
Scripture says they're written on our hearts. They're already posted. Yes,
they are. Every human being on the top
side of this earth, even a jungle lady, knows it's wrong to kill
you. Wrong to spit a dog. Even a jungle
lady knows that. A man's marriage, no matter what, you can't have
him say, you got to be blind, and so on and so forth. Moral law was given to show us
sin. We've broken it. Rob Martyr one time, I spilled a glass the other day,
I wouldn't do what he did. He did things to get people to wake
up. But Rob Martyr one time, preaching
on the 10 Commandments, And he'd read one of those commandments,
and he'd burst into that glass. Broken. He'd read the next one,
broken in the glass. Boy, that got everybody's attention,
I'll tell you that. What would they remember after that? He'd
broken the law. Every one of the laws, the immoral
law, moral law, that's the intent and commandment, was given to
show us we protest. Every God-given law. All right, but look into the
laws. Some are ceremonial laws. What were they given for? Ceremonial laws. To point us
to Christ, who's going to keep the law for us, who's going to
fulfill the law. All right? Neither one of them
was given to give life. One's given to show sin, the
other one's given to show Christ. Everything in the ceremonial
law of washing, and the blood, and the clothes, and all that,
if you point to Christ, it's going to fill up every John's
head. And really, even the moral law
points to Christ, the only one, everything. He's not given to
make us righteous. Are you in the system? Okay. As I showed you, Abraham and
Sarah decided to try something else. God had already promised
God that she would marry him. Abraham and Sarah were married.
It was a lawful relationship, and God said, You're seed, my
seed, and it's just going to be wonderful. Everything's going
to be wonderful. God's going to be blessed. You're going to
be blessed. You're seed is just yours. I'm your God. You're my
people, and just sit back and wait, and everything's going
to be wonderful. Smile. God loves you. God doesn't make a covenant concerning
you. You can just rest, rest, don't
do anything. And Henry Paul made a point to
bring out that April was 400 years before the Law of the Earth,
but any law, any law. God said, you're mine, you leave it, I'll
leave it, you're set, you're set. Right there, you're mine,
you're holy, you're sealed. Well, they tried and tried to
help God, and they messed things up bad. Verses 2 and 3 here,
it says, Sarah said, Behold, the Lord has restrained me from
fairing. I pray thee, go in unto my mail,
that I may have changed your mind. Oh, she's got a selfish
motive behind her. Abram had a lusty motive. She
had a selfish motive. Abram heard the voice of his
wife, and Sarah, Abram's wife, took Hagar, her maid, the Egyptian,
after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land, and gave her to
Abram to be his wife. They went away that seemed right
to them. And it was all wrong. And it
was just about destroying everything, their relationship and everything. That's exactly what Adam and
Eve did then. Well, it says in verse four that she conceived,
and it says that Hagar despised Sarah. And so it is, the world, religion,
those who fancy themselves to be law keepers, hate the leader.
You can say it's all about God. And they say, if you just keep
the law like that, look at us. We're proof of it. Isn't
that what Hager would say? Look at us. Look at all the people here.
We must be something, right? Look at all these. Do you remember
Elcano Roots? Hannah's husband, Elkana, he
had two wives, a new one and a better one. Well, she had a
bunch of kids, and she just fancied herself just a wonderful young,
just something special and something better, but Hannah had none. And old Elkana, You're divine, and though you're
not fruitful and you haven't cured, you're divine. So she may have many. And that's
what we read, that prophecy in Isaiah, the barren woman. And that represents this world
of religion that fancies itself keeping God's law, moral, so
forth, good, going about to establish the righteousness that God will
accept. It's law. Well, no matter what
you call it, it's law or prayer. People either look into themselves
or they look into 100% Christ. It's not 99.9% Christ and a little
bit of man. No, no, no. You're either looking
100% Christ, believing sovereign God,
all your hope is held. Do you understand this passage?
100% of what you're mixing up is a little bit of one. And there's
a whole world full of people doing that. And they move down on it. The
spies go and they say, it doesn't matter what we do. We're not exceptive about what we do. We're all unacceptable to God.
We don't like that. We don't believe that. But so, and no matter how sincere,
and we're not going to get into that much. We want to take her,
take her. Now, she just meant it by saying her name. It kind
of scares everybody. And she was in on it, and she got all hooked up and
looked down on Sarah. And then after a while, she had
a son named Ishmael, okay? A little while later, 14 years
or so, Abram and Sarah. We need to look at that. We need
to look at that. Chapter 18, look at this. Abram and Sarah, just as God
said, Abram and Sarah want to have
a child. Verse 9, chapter 18, verse 9. Where is Sarah thy wife? He said, in the tent. God said,
I will certainly return unto thee, according to the time of
life, and lo, Sarah, thy wife, shall. God said, I will, and
she shall. She shall have son. Sarah heard
it. She laughed, you know. Huh, it's
impossible. That's exactly where I'm bringing
this experience. That's exactly why I waited this
long. That's what this is all about. to show you the utter
impossibility of salvation. In my words, salvation is a miracle
of God's grace, a promise, a miraculous promise. Look at chapter 18,
verse 14. Is anything too hard for the Lord? With man, it's
impossible. Now, by this time, Sarah is ninety years old and
Abraham is ninety-nine. Is anything too hard for the
Lord? At the time appointed, I will return unto thee, for
it is the time of life. Sarah shall. I will. Sarah shall.
Right there is the covenant of grace and salvation. Chapter
twenty-one is when they have this baby. Chapter twenty-one,
verses one and two. Came to pass. It came to pass. After these things, that God,
wait, chapter twenty-nine, "...the Lord visited Sarah as
he had said, and the Lord did unto Sarah as he had spoken."
See that? He said it, he did it. Verse
2, Sarah conceived and bare Abraham a son in his old age, at the
set time of which God had spoken, in the fullness of time. That's
what Galatians says, in the fullness of time God sent forth His Son,
made a woman, made her the lawful redeemer of the earth. Now tell
me now, you should hear this. Now Ishmael, and now this may
seem hard, And go back and read some more
of these things, in relation to Paul. Sarah had Isaac, the
son of God, the promised son, the one God said is to be son,
the accepted son, from whom the Christ came. And from whom the Christ came,
all right? When that baby was born, and it grew up and was
weaned about two, three, however old it was, what, four years
old or whatever, it says that Ishmael mocked him. Ishmael was about 15 years
old at that time. And Ishmael looking at that four
or five-year-old boy, Isaac, and, yeah, you're a momma's boy. You could be a little brat, probably
picking on him, just like all the brothers did. Harmless, fun,
another problem. And Sarah saw this, and Sarah
said to Abraham, get rid of this. A pager, and that boy. Kick them out. I don't want no
rascals anymore. And Abraham said, oh,
I can't do that. Oh, no, I can't do that. I love
you. And God said, you listen to your
wife this time. You listen to her this time.
She's spoken right. The son of the mom woman can't
live with the son of the bride woman. Kick her out. Whew, that's hard, isn't it? Isn't that severe? Isn't that
terrible? No. Works and grace can't make
it. Two ends, two opposite ends of
a magnet there. Won't go just now. Can't abide. God can't allow anybody. He won't share His glory with
another. Abraham's on another, Sarah's
on another, that this whole thing is of God. What they did was
unacceptable. Do you understand that? Ma'am,
do you understand what this is all about? What they did was
unacceptable. And so is anything that mankind
produces. It's unacceptable. By the deeds
of the faith, by the works of the law, no pleasure. Just that. Nothing. Kick them out. Filthy
rats. See, it works. Again, this whole
thing is by Christ, Christ alone. By the cross, by Christ. We're going to look to and depend
upon and give all the glory to God and God alone for that Son
of Man, for He is Son of Man, Son of the Father. Is that it? Everybody understand
that? I think you pretty much understood
it before. I love it when it's revealed
to me what I'm supposed to preach. I was going to preach this Sunday
morning. And again, you can't ever excuse
me of holding it back, you know, for a bigger crowd. You've got this, the whole world
needs to hear this. If it's not Christ and Christ
alone, no works of your own, you'll be cast out. It doesn't
matter how sincere you are. Hager, poor Hager. No, not poor
Hager. He's guilty. Poor Hager. No, not poor Hager.
No innocent party. Not Abraham,
not Sarah, not Hager, not Hager. No innocent party. All were guilty. Two were accepted. Two were cast
out. Three were accepted. Two were
cast out. All right, the whole world needs
to hear this, but they didn't, you didn't, we didn't. Our Lord, we thank you for opening
up your word to us. We preach in part, we know in
part, yet we are thankful for what part we do know. Thank you
for the little bit of understanding we do have. It's enough to make
us rejoice and know that salvation is by grace, through faith, in
Christ alone. How we thank you. While the world thinks it is acceptable to God, God, you've made known unto us
the mysteries of your will and covenant, promise, promise to
us, just as you did Abraham, that we are children by faith,
children of Abraham by faith. We believe in the dearest Son
of Christ as all our salvation. In his name we are met today.
Amen.