God comes along when a man's
been in a battle. He just had two great things
happen to him. He had his nephew to separate
from him, and they had a strife, and they had this trouble between
him and his husband, and he said, we don't want no strife. You
choose your way, and I'll go the other. And then, He was worshiping
God, enjoying his life, and all of a sudden these kings came
in and took his nephew and the whole other body out of Sodom.
And he took 318 men and went and brought everything back,
brought everything back. And then on his way back, he
met this man named Melchizedek, the priest of the Most High God,
possessor of heaven and earth. He met Melchizedek. And Melchizedek
blessed him. And Abraham gave him a tenth
of everything that he'd got from those spoils. And then after
he fought that, so he had these things happen to him, the king
of Sodom offered to give him everything that there was, if
he'd just give him the people back. And he said, I've lifted
my hand to God and I so much as take a thread or a shoelace,
I won't take anything, lest thou say I've made me rich. And now,
so Abraham, God comes along and encourages him, speaks a very
encouraging, comforting word. Proverbs says this, a word spoken
in season, how good it is. A word fitly spoken is like apples
of gold in pictures of silver. In God's words, for us and to
us, is always in season to come just when you're supposed to.
He knows how, He knows when to speak to His children, to encourage
them, to comfort them, and to rebuke them if they need it,
and to strengthen them. He's called the Father of mercies,
the God of all comfort. And here our covenant God came
to encourage Abraham, and to strengthen Abraham, and to bless
Abraham. And look at the time, it says
in verse one, after these things, after the separation of Lot,
after the battle of the four kings to rescue Lot, and you
know after this happened, Lot and Abraham probably got to thinking,
what was I thinking? What was I doing going down here
to do all this? After something happens and we
look back on it and how we dealt with it and how it come about,
we tremble to think that what we did and how it come through
and how we got through it. And that's probably what happened
to Abraham. The achievements of faith. Now
Abraham went down here, the man of faith. Rescued Lot. Rescued Lot's wife. Rescued all
the people and all the goods. Everything that they had taken,
he took it every bit back. But the achievements of faith
never bring self-confidence. They never do. Because they know
it's the Lord. He said, he told him, Melchizedek
told him, he says, the Lord, the Possessor, the Most High
God, Preserver of Heaven and Earth, He hath delivered these
enemies into your hands. You didn't do this by your own
strength. You didn't do this by your ability. He said, the
Lord delivered these into your hands. And beloved, if God don't
get to glory, then he's not going to be in it. And he does everything
he does to get to glory for himself. Now Abraham or Abram, Maya feared
that the kings would return. Maybe they'll come back. Maybe
they'll come back and they'll come after me. Maybe Satan whispered
in his ear, you should have taken all them gifts from the king
of Sodom. Maybe, you know, if you'd have thought about that
for a little while, you might have taken all that. You'd be more
wealthy than you are now. But oh, but God comes along and
speaks a word in season. Look what he says. After these
things, the word of the Lord came. The word of the Lord came. Thank God the word of the Lord
came. It always comes. You know, and
that's why it's so important for us to listen to the preaching
and understand some things about God's Word like Peter did this
morning. You know, the whole Testament
was in his heart, it was in his mind. He understood it. And he
says, the Word of the Lord came unto Abram. And oh, may the Word
of the Lord come unto us. And he came unto Abram in a vision. Now, it was a vision. Abraham
was sitting there and a vision come upon him. God is under times
and in diverse manners spake unto the fathers by the prophets.
And this is one of the ways that he spoke to them. He spoke to
Abraham in a vision. Abraham was sitting there in
a vision. God just took his mind and took his eyes and took his
heart and took over. And here's the first thing he
said to him. fear not you know how many times you go
through the scriptures and it says fear not fear not and first
thing he told Joshua when Joshua was called to be over Israel
the first thing he said be fear not and be not dismayed for I
am thy God fear not and I Lord Jesus Christ how many times did
he tell his disciples fear not And I don't want to say fear
not, but be of good cheer. And so the word of the Lord was
to Abram a revelation of God's blessed love. He says, fear not,
Abram. Fear not, Abram. I know you. I know you. I knew you before
I ever called you out of the Ur of the Galilees. I know who
you are. I know what you are. And I know
all of your need. Every need you have, I know what
it is. I know where you are. I know who you are. I know what you was and I know
what I'm going to do for you. And I know where you are and
I know what you need and I'm going to give you everything
that you need. Oh, he said, there's a great
revelation of, you know, our Lord Jesus Christ. He oftentimes
proved people and told them to do something because he knew
what himself was going to do. And that's what happened here.
Abram was sitting there wondering, no doubt, no telling about what. But Christ come to him, God come
to him and said, fear not. I love you, Abram. You're mine,
Abram. You belong to me. And I tell
you what, beloved, Fear not, if God delivered up His own Son
for us. Delivered Him up for us. And
that word delivered up means it's just like when they came
out for our Lord Jesus Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane,
He delivered Himself. Here I am, take me. And what
God did when sin was put on Christ, and it's time for Him to die
and His hour had come, there was this howling, screaming mob,
and these men that hated Him, rejected Him, and mocked Him,
and did all these awful things to Him. And God just, here's
my Son! Here He is! He delivered Him
up to the mob. He delivered Him up to sin. He
delivered Him up to judgment. He delivered Him up to wrath.
and all beloved if he delivered him up for us and freely delivered
him up for us his sin for us how shall he not with him freely
freely I love that word freely freely ain't gonna cost me and
you nothing freely give us what all things that's what he's telling everybody
I'm here That's what he's telling Abraham here. And not only was
it a revelation of God's love, fear not, but look what he says
again there. He said, I am thy shield. Oh, you know what a shield's for?
To protect you. He said, I'm going to be your
shield, Abram. I'm going to be your shield.
You know who his shield was going to be? The omnipotent, all-powerful,
omniscient, all-wise, omnipresent, all ever-present, ever-word God. And God declares Himself here,
I'm going to be your protector, Abram. Don't worry about these
kings. Don't worry about anybody else.
Don't think anything is going to happen to you, Abram. He said,
I'm going to be your protector. I'm going to be your shield.
Whenever something comes at you, I'm going to cover you up. Whenever
Satan comes with his fiery darts, I'm going to cover you up. Whenever
enemies come and doubt comes and faith fails, I'm going to
cover you up, Abram. I'm going to protect you. And,
oh beloved, he's the protection of his people. You know, David said like this,
God is our refuge, a very present help. Very present help, when? In a time of need. Now you know
when he says a very present help, that means that he's right there.
And that's what God is telling Abram here. He said, I'm going
to be your refuge. I'll be your hiding place. Our
life is hid with Christ in God. Where is a better place for protection? Lord, if you know me and I've
found grace in your eyes, let me see your glory. Well, we've
seen God's glory. We saw it in the person of his
blessed son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And there we are. We're in with
God in Christ. And you're talking about a safe
place, a secure place, a place where nothing or anything can
ever harm us because it did it all to our Savior. And oh my! He said, I'm your shield and
the Lord's blood shields us from sin. The Lord's blood shields
us from God's wrath. The Lord's blood shields us from
judgment. You know, when God was getting
ready to bring Israel up out of Egypt, He said, take a lamb. Take a lamb. And when you Take that lamb's
blood. Put him up and examine him 14
days. And watch him. Make sure there
ain't a spot or a blemish about him. Take him in the prime. And you take his blood. You put
it in a basin. And you take that blood. And
you sprinkle it on the door post. Cross a little. And on this door
post. Don't put none on the floor.
We ain't gonna walk on that holy blood. You put that blood over
there and God said, when I see the blood, where was the refuge
at? Behind the blood. Whenever you
know when God went through there at midnight and the darkness
was to be felt, that's what it said. When God went through there
at midnight and people began screaming as their children died,
as their firstborn died. Those folks behind that, no doubt
some of them were scared to death. But God said, not only when I
see the blood, I'm going to pass over you. But have on your shoes,
have on your clothes, everything you got, for I'm fixing to bring
you out of here. And since the blood's been shed,
God's going to take us out of here one of these days. But the
safety was behind the blood, and it wasn't whether they seen
the blood or not, but that God saw it. That's the key. God saw it. And that's all that
matters sometimes when we're weak. And that's what God's telling
Abraham. Abraham, listen. I know. I know you. But I'm going
to be your shield. I'm going to be your protector.
And our Lord Jesus Christ, He's our shield not only from sin,
His blood. He's our shield from the world.
He's our shield from the world. So the world don't consume us.
The world don't destroy us. And our Lord, our Lord Jesus
Christ especially, shields the weak. You know, we was talking
about it at lunch today, when Paul asked the Lord, you know,
to deliver him from this thorn of Satan. And the Lord told him,
he says, My strength is made perfect in
weakness. And my grace is sufficient for
thee. And Paul says, you know what?
I don't care what happens to me. I don't care what happens.
Cause when I'm weak, that's when I'm strong. You know who makes
him, where he said, you know what he's saying there? I'm weak,
but my strength is the Lord. That's what he's saying. And
like our Lord Jesus Christ, when Simon Peter was getting ready
to die, Can really deny Him. You know what our Lord said to
Him when Satan sought to steal the Jewish week? You know what
our Master said to Him? I prayed for thee that thy faith
fail not. That's what I did. I prayed for
you. Oh, does He not protect the weak? Is He not the shield
for the weak? And oh, look, you not only see
a revelation of God's love and power, but a revelation of God's
fullness and richness. Look what he says there, not
only of thy shield, but I love this right here, an exceeding
great reward. Not just a great reward, but
exceeding. It'd be enough for him to say,
I'm going to be your reward. But he said, I'm going to be
your exceeding great reward. Oh, my. He said to Abram, said,
Abram, you're a wealthy man. Abram, you're right where I put
you. Abram, you've got an altar and you worship me. And one of these days you're
going to go to glory, but right now, I'm your exceeding reward. What else do you need? What else
could you desire? Be satisfied with me is what
he's telling me. I'm all you need. And God's people
are satisfied with Him. And I've said this the other
day, no matter what we have in this, I've got everything, everything
that I could possibly want or need in this world. I've got
everything that I need in this world right here. But you know what my greatest
need is? It's not this world. It's not what I have in this
world. It's not who I have in this world, but my greatest need
is the Lord Jesus Christ. And there he says, I'm going
to be your reward. People talk about going to heaven
and getting these rewards. Oh, you know, talk about, I'm
going to get more rewards than you and I'm going to get this
reward and God's going to give this. But listen, Christ said,
I'm the prize. And every time He took somebody's
glory, He said, today thou shalt be with Me. And when they got the glory,
they didn't sing about the rewards they got. They didn't sing about
the redemption by the blood of the blessed Son of God. Christ
is our reward. Why in the world would anybody
want anything other than Him? What crown could compare to Christ? What reward could a man get that
would compare to Christ? If they made you rule over a
thousand cities as reward, what would that be compared to Christ
who owns the world and everything that's in it? Oh, my. Oh, we're satisfied with Him. We ain't looking. No wonder Paul
said, Christ is all. He's all to God. He's all to
the scriptures. He's all to us. And not only that, but He's in
all. He's all in all. That means He's
everything there is and in a heap sight more beside that. When
you get all, and then He said in, you get some more all to
go with it. He said of His fullness, of His
fullness have we received grace. And to make sure we understood
He said grace upon grace. I'm going to be your Lord. I'm going to be your Lord. Oh
my. Our Lord's incarnation when He
came into this world was to give us a revelation of the fullness
of God. The fullness of God was in Christ. The fullness of the Godhead.
The fullness of His glory. The fullness of everything that
God is, Christ was. And He came to show us the fullness
of His redemption, of His salvation. And He's our reward. Paul said,
I pressed toward the mark for the prize. of the high calling
of God we're at in Christ Jesus. And ain't that what we're doing,
every one of us here tonight. That's why we're here. We're
pressing toward that mark And do you know we press, and we
press, and we press. That means we just keep on keeping
on. We just keep pressing forward.
Keep pressing on. And there's whatever's going
on in this life, we just keep pressing on. Why? Because Christ
is that mark that we're going to have prized. It's going to
be ours one of these days. When a believer goes, we say
they've gone to be where? With the Lord. They've gone to get what? To
get the reward. Who is he? Christ. I tell you, I don't want any
more than that. Old Clarence, poor, I don't know
if you all know Clarence or not. You know, he goes up to Bruce
Krabs. He comes down here all the time. Big old boy. But there's
this fella preaching one time and they was in a meeting and
this fella preached that there's more in the scriptures than just
Christ. There's more that a man's got
to say than just preaching Christ. Boy, old Clarence met him before
he got out of the pulpit and he says, listen, if you find
anything more in Christ than the Bible, you done found too
much. He said, you done found too much. Because I don't want
to see nothing else but Him. Oh yeah, I could go in there
and find messages to tell us how, you know, like these fellas
do, talk about works and all the works we ought to do. I could
find all kinds of stuff like that because I used to do that.
I used to do that. Oh my goodness, you weren't dressed
right, I'd get all over you. I'd talk about women wearing
britches with Looked like two pounds of sausage stuffed in
a two pound bag. It's awful. It's awful. You know, it's awful the things
that I said. Oh my. You know, Christie smoking the
little ciggy ants and dress like major ants, living in the little
kitchen ants, you know, play, listen to little sermon ants.
Just stupid stuff like that. trying to make folks live right. But that's what God used to teach
me the gospel with. I'd preach, but nobody would
live what I preached. They'd live it six months, and
they'd go back out in the world. And I started saying, Lord, show
me, show me why. Why? I preach one thing and people
do something else. Show me and I ask you my salvation.
And this is the way I prayed. I said, Lord, is salvation of
works? Or is salvation something that
you do? Or is it a mixture of both? Is
holiness something we do or is holiness something you do? And
I'll never forget it as long as I live. I was sitting up in
the woods behind the house, way up on a hill, sitting there with
a shotgun, and I had a Bible in my jacket, and I was squirrel
hunting, and I got that Bible out, and I opened it up and began
to read. And, Lord, behold, there's a light come on on 2 Timothy
1 night. God who hath saved us. That's the first thing that got
my attention. God has saved us. And called us, not according
to our works, but according to His own purpose. Purpose! Oh
my goodness, God does something on purpose? Purpose and grace. And where
did God give us this grace? In Christ Jesus before the world
began. That changed my life and my message. And everybody that knew me before
can tell what a difference the message is. What a difference
it is. Thank God that God won't leave
his sheep. wandering around in the wilderness.
And that's what he's talking about here. Christ came to give
us this vision, this fullness, this surest in God, grace upon
grace. And let me ask you, what more
can God give us than Himself? What more can He give us than
Himself? What more wealth can He give
us than the riches of Christ? What more blessedness can He
give us than the Holy Spirit taking the things of Christ and
showing them unto us? And oh, God telling Abram said,
you don't need the King of Sodom and anything that He's got. I'm
your reward. What does that King of Sodom
got that he can do for you when I'm your reward? Exceeding great
reward. And I tell you, I'll deal with
these other things in these verses next week. But look what he says,
the result. And he goes down there, he told
him, said, I'm going childless and God gave me no child. And Abram said, well, there ain't
no big guy in your house gonna be your heir. I'm gonna give
you an heir out of your own self. Brought him forth and said, look
under the heavens and tell the stars, count the stars if you
can. That's what he said. So shall
your seed be. And the scripture said in verse
six, here's the result of God saying, I'm your shield, I'm your reward, don't
be afraid. And the scripture says he believed
in the Lord. He said, God, I believe you.
I believe you. I believe everything you said
to me. I believe you. I believe you're just exactly
what you said you were. I believe you do just exactly
what you said you'd do. I believe you. I believe you.
And I tell you what, I'm gonna rest calmly on your word and
live on you because you're the one that made the promise and
the promise wouldn't be any good unless you made it. And listen, and God said, Abram,
you're a righteous man. You're a righteous man. Did his
faith make him righteous? No. God counted him to be righteous. God counted him to be righteous.
A righteousness not of works, but of faith. I want you to look
with me over here in Romans chapter 4. Talking about a righteousness
not of works. And Abram didn't do any works
here. All he did was listen to what
God said. All he did was have this vision of God. He didn't
do anything but listen. Didn't do anything but God done
all the talking. God did all the work. God gave
the vision. God made the promises. And Abram believed it. Abram
believed it. He'd have been a fool if he hadn't
believed it, wouldn't he? And let me tell you something
else. You know why he had faith? A man can't believe unless he's
regenerated. And Abraham had to be regenerated. He had to be born of God. A man
can't believe unless he's born of God. So that's the first thing
we need to understand about Abraham. Abraham wasn't just a natural
man out here. He was called of God, chosen
of God, called out of idolatry. So he was a man God had already
saved by His grace, already called by His grace, already chosen
by His grace, and gave him life already. And that's because,
as you know, man, we say it all the time, faith is not the result,
or life is not the result of faith. Faith is the result of
life. And so that's the way it was
with Abraham. God don't change the way He saves
people. But anyway, look what He said here in Romans 4 and
verse 3. He, excuse me, verse, yeah, verse
3. What says the Scriptures? Abraham believed God and it was
counted unto him for righteousness. Now, to him that works, is the
payment or the reward or the debt not reckoned of grace? No,
no, if he works, grace ain't got nothing to do with it. God's
gotta pay up. God's gotta pay up. It becomes
a debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that
justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.
Oh, David, he says, even as David describes the man unto whom God
imputeth righteousness without worse, blessed is the man to
whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity. salvation and a grace and a righteousness
apart from works? Yes. We just believe God. And always believe in God. And
you know we have the same righteousness that Abraham had. In fact we
go beyond that. We have the very righteousness
of God in Christ. The very righteousness of God.
And I tell you, believe in God and have in this righteousness
of God, this righteousness of Christ, that's a life transforming
power. I mean, it will change you like
you've never been changed. Whenever you realize that your
righteousness has nothing to do with you. that is completely
outside yourself, that God gave it to you, God provided it for
you, God clothed you for it, God told you about it, God made
you believe it, and God counts you as righteous as his own son. Now that will change your life.
You will go and rest in Christ when that happens. No wonder
he says there is now no condemnation to them that's in Christ. Who
shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It's God that
justified. Who is He that condemned? It's
Christ that died. Yea, rather, is risen again.
And oh, not only is He risen again, but He sits at the right
hand of God. And makes intercession for us.
You see, the Scriptures tell us it's He who works in us, both
to will and to do. And that's what He done for Abraham.
And that's what He did for him, He does for us. Amen? Amen. Oh, blessed Savior. Blessed,
blessed Savior. How gracious, how gracious, how
gracious. Oh, Lord, thank You for the righteousness
You give us. Thank You for giving us faith
to believe. And Lord, we believe, oh how we believe, but help,
help, help our unbelief. Oh Lord, we wouldn't not believe
you for nothing, but this flesh is so weak. And Lord, we pray
that you'd bless the gospel today, that you'd bless it to our hearts,
you'd bless it to our understanding, you'd bless it to our faith,
bless it to our souls, bless it to our understandings, And
Lord, help us always, always to look to you, believe you,
trust you, commit ourselves to you, put everything we have into
your trust. Everything we have, put it in
your trust. Let you deal with it as you see
with good in your sight. God bless the dear saints, encourage
them, uphold them, keep them till we can meet and worship
again. And we do again pray for Mark and Glenda, Shirley's sister
and brother-in-law as they go through this great fight of affliction,
this burden they've got to bear. asking you to be strong, be their
strength, be their comfort, but Lord, especially, especially
be their salvation. We ask these things in Christ's
name. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Lord, for saving my
soul. Thank you, Lord, for making Thank you, Lord, for giving to
me thy great salvation, so rich and free. See you Wednesday night. God will. Good night. God bless
you.