Turn first with me in your Bibles
to the book of the Revelation. John begins this book by telling us who it will be all
about. It's not about beasts, end time schemes, dragons, whatever,
is the revelation of Jesus Christ. And he begins in these first
verses in Revelation, talking about the Lord Jesus
Christ. He is the faithful witness. In other words, what He tells
us, we can believe. It is the truth because He is
the truth. And then He comes in verse 8
and speaks on the behalf of that faithful witness. Tells us what
He says. He says, and Omega, the beginning and
the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which
is to come, the Almighty." He is, of course,
Jesus Christ, the same yesterday and today and forever. But if you notice, He also takes
this name to Himself. He says, I am the Almighty. What in the world does that mean? Almighty. Well, that word is a word in
the New Testament that is equivalent to a word we find, I think, something
like 40 times in the Old Testament. If He is the One which was, He's
always been. And if we follow what some call
the law of first mention, In other words, if we go back in
the Old Testament, if we go back in the Bible to find out where
that word or name is used the first time, we often can learn
a lot about it. And if we follow that, that would
take us back to the book of Genesis, all the way back to Genesis chapter
17. Turn back to Genesis 17. And here in this first verse
of Genesis 17, it says, And when Abram was ninety
years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram and said unto
him, I am the Almighty God. Walk before me and be thou perfect."
Jehovah appears to this man Abram. We all find ourselves again and
again in the New Testament brought back to this man. But the Lord
appears to him when he is ninety-nine years old. It's not the first
time. But now thirteen years have passed
since the birth of Ishmael, that son by the bondwoman. And he is ninety-nine now. And over the last years, he has
proved his own inability to bring to fruition the promises God
first made to him. He finds himself now with a son
after the flesh named Ishmael, but he has not yet an heir in
the sight of God. He's shown us, just like we show,
the weakness of human flesh. And it would almost seem like
he's been under the silence of God for this time. But I'm afraid
God often leaves us to ourselves in order that we might know our
own weakness and our own sinfulness. I hear sometimes people say things
like, oh, I would never do that. Let me assure you, if left to
yourself, you would do anything. Anything and everything. So he is now a man with no visible
heir. And he has received many promises. He can look back and remember
these many promises, but promises, are only as good as the one who
makes them. They're only as good as the ability
of that one who makes them to deliver on them. I could promise
you anything, but probably wouldn't be able to deliver on it because
of inability. But the Lord again appears to
this man at 99. He appears to Abram. And the
Lord appears because He says He remembers His covenant. Men prove always promise breakers. Not like they claim to be promise
keepers. There is one promise keeper,
and that is God Himself. And He remembers this covenant,
and He acts accordingly because God's covenant with Him never
depended on Him. never ever depended on Him at
all. God's covenant with Him, and
every covenant that God makes, only depends on God. These promises all had their
assurance and safety and fulfillment in God Himself. And when He promised,
He never changes. He never alters. And so his people
can rest, they can trust, and they can rely on what the theologians
call the immutability of God. That is simply, he changes not. I am the Lord. I change not. Therefore, ye sons of Jacob are
not consumed. All his promises depend only
on himself. And when we find that out, that's
a wonderful thing to find out. All his promises depend only
on himself, and we have to learn this. Abram had to learn this. And this is at the heart of the
good news of the gospel of Christ. Paul says in Corinthians, he
says, for the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among
you by us, even by me and Silvanus and Timotheus, he was not yea
and nay. He was not yes and no. He was not yes or no or maybe. He was not yes one day and no
the next. He wasn't yes, but no if you
don't fulfill this promise. If you don't live up to the conditions
of this promise. No, he said, the gospel we preach,
we preach the Christ whose promises are all yea, and in Him, amen,
for all the promises of God in Him are yes, and in Him, amen,
unto the glory of God by us. That's why God gives all the
glory. All His promises are yes in Christ,
and they can never be no in the Lord Jesus Christ. And they have to be that way
if we simply remember what we're told in Scripture, and what is
pictured in Scripture, and that is that the Lord Jesus Christ
is all. He is all in creation. He is all in providence. But we have to learn and we have
to know and have to believe that He is also all in that salvation
that is of the Lord. And there can be nothing else. Because God is not only the promisor,
He is the promisor. And that is what His gospel is,
the promise, as Paul calls it in various places. But He's not
only the promisor, He's also the provider, and He's also the
producer. He is the provider and the producer. And this man Abram is promised
things pertaining to his posterity according to the flesh. Don't
ever forget that. He was promised things concerning
that line that would go out from Him just simply according to
the flesh. The Son of promise will be born
and through Him will come a physical seed. And that is in the plural. But not only that, there will
also come a posterity and a spiritual seed. And that is in the singular. But then there will also be a
spiritual posterity. Because the Lord's people are
called the children of Abraham by faith. In other words, here
is a natural seed out of Abraham, and they are dividing as they
go, but each of them claims, Father Abraham. They've been
in a conflict all the days on this earth. But then he talks
about that seed in particular, that flows out of his lineage,
and that seed is the Lord Jesus Christ. And then he talks about
that seed that is that spiritual posterity. These children of
Abraham by faith. And the covenant, the true covenant
which is spoken of, is not simply a physical covenant concerning
a physical people, but is especially what the Bible calls the everlasting
covenant. Christ is the angel or the messenger
of the everlasting covenant, so that when the apostle writes
in Hebrews of Christ as the covenant head and His death, it is described
in this way, His blood is the blood of the everlasting covenant. In other words, a covenant is
a testament. A covenant is something like
a will and testament. Men and women have a last will
and testament. But the thing that's necessary,
according to Hebrews, for that covenant to be in effect is the
death of the testator. In other words, somebody's got
to die for the benefits of that covenant to be distributed. But Christ's blood, Christ's
death, was always and is always the blood of the everlasting
covenant. So he says in Hebrews, "...Now
the God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord
Jesus Christ, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood
of the everlasting covenant." What makes all the sheep safe? What assures the salvation of
all His sheep? It is the blood of the shepherd
shed that assures that every covenant promise will be theirs
because He is the producer. And He does so by His death. And so, Jehovah God, He reminds
Abram of all these things, of all these precious promises,
and He even gives him a sign which is a token to remind him,
he changes his name. His name is Abram. But look what
it says in verse 5. He says, "...neither shall thy
name any more be called Abram, But thy name shall be Abraham,
for a father of many nations have I made thee." He said, just
to assure you of what I'm promising you, just to assure you that
everything will be to you as is promised, I'm changing your
name. And the name Abram simply meant
something like this, a high father. But when he was changed in his
name to Abraham, as it says here, that name means a father of many
nations. A father of many people. You're not just going to be a
high father, Abram. You're going to be Abraham, a
father of many nations. And that suffix on the end of
that name in the Hebrews has to do with life or breath. And so Abram becomes Abraham,
just like Jacob becomes Israel. He goes from supplanter and conniver
to prince with God. Why? Because God changed his
name. Everything is according to God. And so, he receives this promise
of God and this assurance of this promise, and though he has
no son yet, he has no heir yet, really? What does the Bible say? It says he believed God. He believed God. And here men
and women are walking around this earth, they're saying, if
I could see this, if I could see that, if I could see another
thing, I'd believe God. No, you wouldn't. Not in this
biblical sense of faith. You and I would never believe
God. They didn't believe God when He stood in the flesh and
spoke to them. They didn't believe God even
though there were miracle after miracle after miracle. Israel,
they didn't believe God as a whole, though all those things transpired,
worked by God. Why? Because faith, according
to Hebrews 11, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence
of things not seen. And men can talk about the evidence
of faith all they want to, but in reality, faith is the evidence
of faith. They can call upon people to
look at their lives and examine themselves and all these kind
of things for some evidence of salvation. All you do is get
in trouble when you do that. You say, well, the Bible says
examine yourselves. No, it doesn't. It says, examine
yourself whether you be in the faith. If I'm looking to Christ, in
truly looking to Christ, He, through that God-given faith,
is the evidence of faith. But before Abraham was told his
new name, He's told the Promiser's name.
Do you remember I said the promise is only as good as the promise? And so now God will say to Abram,
your name now is Abraham. You're the father of a multitude. But before He tells him that,
He tells him his name. What a wonderful thing it is.
to take this book in your hand and begin to study the various
names of God." And so he says to him, I am the Almighty God. Almighty God. Shaddai. What a wonderful, wonderful
name. Like I said, it is translated
something like 40 times in the Old Testament, this word, as
Almighty God, or The Almighty. So that means, either Jesus Christ,
A man walking around on this earth in human flesh, he's either God or the biggest
liar and imposter that has ever been. He said, I'm Alpha and Omega,
the beginning and the ending, the one who was and who is and
always shall be, the Almighty. Almighty. Exodus 6 says, God
says, And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob by
the name of God Almighty. I don't ever remember a time
that I didn't hear somebody make that name as an exclamation. with no reverence for Him, with
no understanding of Him, with no knowledge of who they were
talking about. God Almighty! Now, we know that there is a
sense backed up many times in this book that that carries with
it the notion and the thought of absolute sovereign, all-powerful,
omnipotent God, does what He will in the armies of heaven
and among the inhabitants of the earth, works all His counsel,
does all His pleasure. can stay his hand. He's almighty,
all-powerful, sovereign Lord of all. But it might surprise you to
know that that maybe is not the chief thought in that name. You see, many render the meanings
of those original words something like this, all-sufficient. Actually, here is the picture,
if you will. It literally means something
like, many-breasted. Many-breasted. In other words,
God will have no child that He cannot be their great
sufficiency. be their great sufficiency."
I remember hearing a little story years ago, if you'll forgive
me for this, but the story of a little boy who saw some either
pigs or puppies or something that had just been given birth
by their mother, and he was counting the number of puppies and said
something like this, he said, Said she's got seven puppies,
but she's only got a six-place setting. She won't have sufficiency. That's
not the picture here. The picture here is the all-sufficient
one, or the all-bountiful one. In other words, first of all,
as Jehovah, He is sufficient in and of Himself and for Himself,
and He stands in no need of any or of anything from another. Our generation knows nothing
about such a God. All they've heard is God needs
you and God needs your time and your talents and your tithes.
God needs this and God needs for you to do that. The only
hands that God has got is the ones you've got. The only feet
He's got is the one you've got. That's not the God of the Bible.
He's all sufficient in Himself. Talk about needing you. You and I would find no reason
in seeking to worship a God who needs us." He said, all souls are mine.
He said, all the creation is mine. Everything you say is yours
is His. So what could you give Him? Why would He need you? Can you
add to His glory? Can you increase His majesty?
Can you add to His wealth, His bounty? No. He's the Almighty
God. But He didn't just simply tell
us that to make us know it, although that's the truth, and we have
to be brought to that if we're ever saved. That was the issue
in that garden. It didn't have to do with any
particular kind of fruit. It didn't have to do with attitude. It had to do with that tree that
was symbolic of God's right to be God and His right to do with
His own what He will. He said, don't eat of that tree
in the midst of the garden. But He speaks this name in mercy. This is the name of grace. As
a matter of fact, that's the name of sovereign grace. Omnipotent
grace. Irresistible grace. Bountiful
grace. Grace that where sin abounded,
grace does much more abound. In Christ. He said, I'm the Almighty. Grace and truth. came by Jesus
Christ. Here He is El Shaddai in the
flesh. And God, He has not only a sufficiency
in Himself, He has a sufficiency for all His people. He has a
sufficiency for all these sinners in both the way of providence
and in the way of grace. He's all-bountiful. He's letting Abraham know, this
never depended on you, son. This isn't about what you're
able to do. This isn't about what you're
always trying to pledge and reform and do and make things right,
and Ishmael is the example of your failure to do so. It's not
about that. It's about what I'm able to do. And I'm able to do all that I
promise. And I'm able to do all that I
promised toward you as a sinner and to that people that you are
a symbolic picture of spiritually, all of my elect, all of my people,
all these that will be brought to believe on Christ. And it all depends on me. An old preacher said, I'd rather
have God's promise than the devil's check. No. He said, that's what grace is. Grace is all about God. Grace
is all about the glory of God. Grace has to do with what He
does. Grace has to do with what He
gives. And when men say, yes, that's
right, but you've got to believe grace is about the faith that
He gives His people as a gift. Well, you've got to repent. He
says even the gift of repentance is the gift of God. You see, if God, if there's to
be a seed of faith, if there's to be a spiritual people who's
to inherit the promises, it has to come about through God's gift
and through God's power. He must do everything. Like I
said, what are we to do if it's true that God's done everything?
We just praise Him. We offer the sacrifice of praise
and thanksgiving, the fruit of our lips, the song of our hearts, because no movement and no working
of nature can ever avail. Everything that is for God must
be effected by His almighty power and by His great sufficiency. Faith depends on God alone. And not a promise of God will
be unfulfilled because, as men say, you didn't have faith enough.
Now you talk about a smooth operation. That's the faith healer. He tells everybody to come up. And he's going to heal them. Except there's just one problem. If you'll give a hundred dollars,
I'll give you this prayer cloth, I'll pray over it and all this,
you'll be healed. Somebody comes back, but they've
not been healed. What's the problem? He tells
them, you didn't have enough faith. You can't lose like that. That's a money-making proposition. Blame your lack of success on
their lack of faith. You never saw that with Christ,
did you? Absolutely not. You see, the
one who makes the promise is the one who accomplishes all
the work. And faith depends on God alone
and not a promise will be unfulfilled because He gives faith to believe
it. And all faith does is believe
what God's already done. I heard a preacher one time,
he was talking about giving a definition of faith. And this is, in one
sense, the definition of faith. In part, he said faith is believing
that God will do what He says He'll do. But that's not really where faith
begins. Faith begins with our believing that God has done what
He says He's done. In other words, what good is
it to believe He'll do what He'll do if we don't surely believe
and rest in what He's already told us that He's done? In other
words, when Christ hung up on that cross and in that final
hour cries out, it is finished. Do I believe that? Do I believe that? You see, this
religious world is full of those Hagar and Ishmael propositions. That something can be secured
through the line of flesh and law, but all that has to be set
aside. God can, and God must, and God
has done everything if there is to be a true seed to inherit
His promises and His salvation. He said He made it by grace.
And He gave it through faith that the promise might be sure. How can God talk in the language
He does? I'll be their God. They'll be
my people. I'll save them from all their
iniquities. That language that even long
before Christ came into this world, God through His prophets
is speaking again and again, telling what He'll do, telling
who He'll send, telling what He'll accomplish. I'll tell you why I like God.
Because He talks like God. He acts like God. The God of the modern day preachers,
He's more like that bully in the sixth grade. When I'd had
enough of Him and I had to slam Him against the bathroom wall,
I just had enough of Him. You see, a God that you can manipulate,
a God that's just all talk, all verbal promise and no delivering,
He's not worth worshiping. This God is more than just a
promise. He's all sufficient. He's all-bountiful. His grace
superabounds. God's grace is God's all-sufficiency
in action. He's God our Savior. Whatever
it is that we need. Whatever it is. And the wonderful
thing is, He knows what we need. We don't. He acted according
to what we need. If He's to save us, He's El Shaddai. He's God Almighty. Then He says this to Abraham.
He says, walk before Me. Somebody said, well, I knew. This is where it's at. Walk before
Me. You've got to walk the walk and
talk the talk. I've never walked that walk and
I've never talked that talk. I've tried a long time. But did you ever notice how man
in religion, he always moves the bar a little bit? Preachers,
you do so much, well, we've got to move the bar. If you want
to go higher, if you want deeper life, No. You notice he says, walk before
me. Noah walked with God. Enoch walked with God. It says
that they both had children, so I know they had problems.
But they walked with God. How in the world did they walk
with God? Can two walk together except they be agreed? That's
what that's talking about. That's not really talking about
you and me. We'll never be totally in agreement.
We better agree with God. He better agree with us. Or we
can't walk with God. But you notice, before He said,
walk before Me, He told him of his own all-sufficiency. Don't walk before me, Abram,
in order to get this grace and gifts. Walk before me because
I've given you all things. How shall he not with Him also
give us freely all things? Every single thing. It begins
with almighty grace which brings us to this walk which Paul called
walking in the Spirit. Walking in the Spirit. As opposed
to what? Walking in the flesh. Somebody
says, well, so and so, he's just walking in the flesh. Well, him
and everybody else in that sense. What is it to walk in the Spirit? Two times, just in Romans chapter
8, Paul talks about walking in the Spirit. Walking in the Spirit
and walking by faith, that's the same thing. Walking in the
Spirit simply means we do not rely on that which naturally
is a part of our flesh, which is our doing, and our own accomplishments,
and our own will, and our own way. But rather, walking in the
Spirit means we receive and we trust in the things of Christ,
which is who the Spirit of God reveals. People try to make that so mystical. Oh, I'm walking in the Spirit
now. If you believe and you are. If you're born of the Spirit
of God, you are. Because Christ said, when He's
come, He'll take the things of mine and show them to you. We're
looking to Him. When he speaks in Hebrews 12,
I believe it is, and he talks about this race or this walk,
he says, we do it looking unto Jesus. That's what? The Author
and the Finisher of our faith. Alpha and Omega. The first and
the last letter of the Greek alphabet. In other words, everything,
the beginning and the end, and everything in between. That's
Christ. What He did. Walk before me. Don't crawl. You're not in the
same state that you were naturally. He said, walk before me. I'm the all-sufficient one. Paul said, for we walk by faith
and not by sight. In other words, before Abraham
ever received, this is according to Paul in Romans chapter 4,
before Abraham ever received that right in the flesh of circumcision, before that ever was given, he
believed God. He believed God. We walk in the steps of that
faith of our father Abraham which he had being yet uncircumcised. We live believing on Christ alone. Why did Paul say things like
this? I determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and
Him crucified. Don't you think that man, Saul
of Tarshish, he had a head full of knowledge? He knew a lot of
things about God. But when he found out who Christ
was and how God saved sinners, he said, I ain't talking about
nothing else. You can preach about the historical significance
of this city or that city. You can talk about all this stuff
you want to. I'm preaching Jesus Christ and
Him crucified because He's all. He's everything. Preaching His
person. Preaching His Word. All life
and all faith and all truth and all blessing and all redemption
and all sanctification and all wisdom and all righteousness
must come to Him. Come from Him. If you're righteous,
it's because you've been made the righteousness of God in Christ.
Because God has imputed or charged to your account the very righteousness
of Christ. Made you what you are, acceptable
in His sight before Him in Christ. Paul says to the Corinthians,
He's made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. I have a feeling that those four
words, if we knew what they all really meant and understood,
He'd just simply be saying another way, He's made unto us it all. Everything God requires. Everything God has to give. Christ plus nothing. Nothing. He blessed us, Paul
says to the Ephesians, with all spiritual blessings that He gave
us in Christ when He chose us in Christ before the foundation
of the world. And He has made us accepted in
the Beloved, in whom we have Forgiveness, redemption, the
free pardon of our sins. When we walk in the Spirit, when
we walk by faith, when we walk before God, we have no thought
then of expecting anything from nature or flesh or law. Everything
must come from God. A total relying and a depending
upon everything from God in the Lord Jesus Christ and only in
Him, only by what He accomplished, only to glorify and exalt Him. He must do everything for us.
He must do everything in us. Well, somebody always says, well,
that almost makes us sound like robots then, doesn't it? Hallelujah! That's all I know to say. I've seen myself in action. And He must maintain it. We must be kept by the power
of God. He says, through faith. God's
people, the evidence that they are His people is that they believe
Him. But not only that, they keep
believing Him. And then He says this, and be
thou perfect. I don't know about you, but that
word scares me sometimes. Perfect. Some translations translate
that word blameless. You think there's anything this
morning I could blame on you? I say that because I don't want
you to think about what you could blame on me. Blameless? Perfect? Did you know that God
said of Noah, That he was perfect in his generations? Perfect? He doesn't say here, strive for
perfection. Somebody said, now, I know that
perfection is in Christ. But this is to be our goal, we
are to strive for perfection. See, I can't even say it. Perfection. If that's your goal, you're a
miserable creature. You'll never have any rest, you'll
never have any peace, you'll never really trust the finished
work of Christ. He says, be thou perfect. There's only one we can be perfect
in, and that's the perfect Son of God. He's talking about a
state and a standing, and that's what it is to be justified by
God in Christ. Man is always close enough to
perfect for himself, but he's never close enough to perfect
for God, except in the perfection of holiness. Perfect in the Son of God. And
that's what He requires. If it's your goal to be perfect,
you're on your way to hell. Because you'll never be it if
that's your goal. Perfection is the starting point
for the Lord's people. It's not the finish line. It's
the starting point. Perfect in Christ Jesus. Because as those Old Testament
sacrifices were described in Leviticus in those places, one
thing, it must be perfect to be accepted. Don't bring your best. Don't
come like cane. Fruit of your hands, even if
it's your best, got to have blood. Perfect, sinless blood. God can't accept any less, and
we can't produce anything close. That's the good news of the gospel.
The writer in Hebrews says in Hebrews 10, for by one offering
He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. He did what by that offering?
By that one offering on the cross? He perfected forever. Those that were set apart in
that covenant, chosen by the Father in Christ, set apart in
that redemptive work of Christ, set apart by the Holy Spirit,
set apart by bringing them to believe the gospel. Perfect. Forever. That's amazing. But that's exactly
what Jude said. He said, He'll present us Blameless. You say, I sure could blame some
things on you. I blame a lot on myself. God
doesn't. The psalmist said, out of Zion. You know what Zion is? The church,
His people. Out of Zion, the perfection of
beauty, God hath shined. In Ezekiel he says, "'And thy
renown went forth from among the heathen for thy beauty.'"
What? That aborted infant cast out
in the field dead? Covered with blood and dirt?
A picture of you and I and ourselves? He said, "'I passed by you though,
and it was a time of love.'" And I washed you, and I dressed
you, and I cleaned you." And he said, in your renown, went
forth among the heathen for thy beauty, for it was perfect through
my comeliness which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord God."
Perfect. You know, in the book of Lamentations,
it's pictured that The whole world passes by Christ hanging
on the cross. And the Messiah says, is it nothing
to you, all you that pass by? But not only that, the world
passes by the church, the Lord's true people. He says, all that pass by clap
their hands at thee, They hiss and wag their head at the daughter
of Jerusalem, saying, Is this the city that men call the perfection
of beauty, the joy of the whole earth?" They look at us on the outside.
They said, Is this the city of beauty, the city of perfection?
Oh, look over here at all the splendors of Rome and all the
glorious buildings and all the glorious... Is this the city
of perfection? It is in Christ, the joy of the
whole earth. But not only that, let me just
add this quickly. He is El Shaddai. He is God Almighty. He is the All-Sufficient One,
surely in every part and parcel of our salvation, our righteousness,
our hope, but also in every circumstance. Every trial, every affliction,
every need, every difficulty we have as believers such as
Paul had, What did God remind him of? He
said, Paul, my grace is sufficient for you. Whatever trial you're
in, whatever affliction, whatever I'm facing with my darling wife,
His grace is proving and shall prove sufficient. sufficient. He's enough. He's enough. Because He's El Shaddai. And
He reveals Himself most gloriously as He is in Christ. I'm Alpha
and Omega, the Lord Jesus says. the first and the last, the beginning
and the end, the One that was and is and shall be, the Almighty. What a wonderful name. What a
wonderful God. What a wonderful Savior, the
Almighty. Father, we thank You this day
for grace beyond measure, For salvation full and free, for
acceptance in the Beloved, for freely giving us all things through
Him who loved us and gave Himself for us. Help us in our weakness. Give us more grace, more understanding,
more faith. calls us to nurture in your bosom. We thank you and we pray in Christ's
name, Amen.