One thing I love about this time
of year is getting to hear these songs of our Savior's incarnation
and birth. Adam's likeness now efface. Stamp
thine image in its place. It's hard for me to think of
better words ever written than that by man. It's just outstanding. Thank you, Isaac. Or if you would,
open your Bibles again now to Genesis chapter 21. I've titled the message this evening,
redemption in Beersheba. Now the singular message of all
of scripture is this. Salvation is of the Lord. That's
the message of scripture. God the Father in eternity purposed
the redemption, the salvation of his people in divine election.
The Father elected a people to save and he elected, he chose
the Savior to save those people. He appointed his son to be the
Savior of his people. God the Son came in human flesh,
as we just heard, and He purchased that redemption for His people
with His own blood shed at Calvary's tree. And God the Holy Spirit,
He comes and He applies that salvation to the hearts of God's
people in the new birth when He gives them a new heart. Now
that salvation that God purposed, that God purchased, that God
applied, that's the message of all of Scripture. The New Testament
is filled with this message, how God has already fulfilled
this redemption for his people. God's people are justified. They've
been made righteous in Christ. It's all over but to shout. It's all accomplished except
for Christ's return in it. And the Old Testament has the
very same message as the New Testament. The Old Testament,
instead of telling what has already happened. The Old Testament gives
us pictures. Everything in the Old Testament
is a picture of how Christ will come, how God's going to save
his people through the obedience and through the sacrifice of
his son. And God gave these Old Testament pictures long before
that redemption was ever accomplished in time for this reason, to show
us that salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ, that's God's eternal
purpose. God didn't give the law and that
failed to save anybody. So the sacrifice of God's son
was plan B. Salvation in Christ was always
God's eternal purpose. And our text tonight gives us
a really good picture of that, that redemption has been purchased
by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the lamb of God.
I have five points. The first one is this. The redemption
of God's elect is all for Christ's sake. verse 22, Genesis 21. And it came to pass at that time
that Abimelech and Phicol, the chief captain of his host, spake
unto Abraham saying, God is with thee in all that thou doest.
Now, therefore, swear unto me here by God that thou will not
deal falsely with me, nor with my son, nor with my son's son. But according to the kindness
that I have done unto thee, thou shalt do unto me and to the land
wherein thou sojourned. And Abraham said, I will swear.
Now Abimelech's name may sound familiar to you. We've met him
before. Remember back in chapter 20, Abraham traveled down to
the land of Kadesh where Abimelech is king. And when they got there,
Abraham and Sarah told everybody, Sarah is Abraham's sister. They
didn't say she's his wife. She said that she's his sister
so that nobody would kill Abraham so they could take Sarah to be
their wife. Sarah was a very beautiful woman, and as far as
Abimelech knew, she's unattached. So he took her to be his wife,
made her part of his harem. And the Lord came to Abimelech
in a dream before he had an opportunity to go into Sarah, and told Abimelech,
you're a dead man for doing this. And Abimelech said, I didn't
know. I mean, he told me she's his sister. And the Lord told
him, Abraham, you give her back, and Abraham will pray for you,
and you'll be spared. household will be healed. They
had not been able to have children or some other, something was
going on there and Lord spared Abimelech and healed his household
because Abraham prayed for him. Now, just humanly speaking, Abimelech
had to have a very, very low opinion of Abraham. Don't you
reckon? I mean, what would you think
of a man that prostituted his wife like that? I mean, just,
we'd have a very low opinion of him. But Abimelech told him,
now you just live wherever you want in the land. And Abraham
did. And Abimelech had been watching
him. And this is what he saw. God blessed everything Abraham
did. And Abimelech was smart enough to know the enemies of
Abraham are not going to prosper. But the friends of Abraham, they're
going to prosper because of a relationship with Abraham. They're going to
be blessed for Abraham's sake. So Abimelech came to Abraham
and asked him for this peace treaty. And that's why he said,
now swear to me, promise. The way this language is, it's
like he made a promise seven times. Seven, the number of perfection. You promised me. I remember that
you had dealt falsely with me in the past. Now promise me that
you won't do that again. And Abraham promised, and he
and Abimelech entered into this peace treaty, this covenant.
All right, here's the picture. Long before creation, God the
Father and God the Son entered into a peace treaty. They entered
into the covenant of grace. And that treaty, that covenant
said that the Lord Jesus Christ would come into flesh and he
would redeem God's elect and he'd give them peace with God.
And at the appointed time, the Lord Jesus came to earth as a
man. He came to earth to ratify that
peace treaty between him and his father. He would ratify it,
he would establish it by his obedience to the law. He'd seal
it with the blood of his sacrifice. And all during his earthly ministry,
anybody that was paying attention could see this. The father was
with the son. The father blessed everything
that the Lord Jesus did. Of course he did, it's perfect.
What he did is perfect, so of course the father blessed it.
But if you're paying any attention whatsoever, you know God's with
this man. Nicodemus didn't know a whole lot when he first came
to the Lord by night, did he? But he knew God was with him.
He said, nobody could do what you're doing except God be with
him. And when his earthly ministry
was over, the father was perfectly satisfied with everything his
son did. He's perfectly satisfied by his
obedience. He made that obedience to be
the righteousness of his people. He's perfectly satisfied with
the death of his son. The death of his son took away
everything that made God angry, took away the sin of his people,
and there's peace. Everybody can see the father
is well pleased with the son. You don't have to read much of
this book to figure that out. The father is pleased with his
son. He's going to bless everything
that his son has ever done. Everything the son has done is
going to be successful. Well, then the smart thing for
you and me to do is hide in Christ, trust in him, because that's
the only way the father could ever be pleased with somebody
like you and me is if we're in Christ. And if God saves us,
this will be our confession. God saved me for Christ's sake. God saved me because of Christ
obedience. My only righteousness is the
obedience of Christ. God saved me for Christ's sake
because his sacrifice put away my sin. It's never, God's never
going to accept me because of what I've done or what I haven't
done. It's all in Christ because of who he is and what he has
done. Now this is just obvious. The father can't be pleased.
He's holy. He can't be pleased with sinners
in their sin and in their rebellion. But He's pleased with everyone
who's in Christ. Everybody who trusts Christ,
the Father is pleased with them. He'll always save them. And He'll
always keep them. And eventually, He'll bring them
to be with Him where He is. For Christ's sake. Because Christ
accomplished their redemption. It's not going to be our morality.
It's not going to be our orthodoxy. It's not going to be our good
works. It's for Christ's sake. Now, the father and the son have
entered into this covenant, into this peace treaty. It's been
ratified by the blood of Christ. And because of that, the father
will never deal falsely with anybody. So this is what Abimelech
was concerned with. Abraham, don't you deal falsely
with me now. Promise me you will not deal with me falsely. Well,
because of this covenant, well, really because of his character,
but in this covenant, God doesn't deal falsely with anybody. He's
not going to deal falsely with somebody, unjustly with somebody
when he sends them to hell. It's going to be for their sin.
They're going to get just exactly what they deserve. No more. Not
an ounce more, not an ounce less. And the father will never deal
falsely with his people either. In spite of their sin, in spite
of their rebellion, in spite of their weak faith, the father
will not deal falsely with them. For Christ's sake, the father
won't condemn them. because Christ has already been
condemned in their place. And the father is not going to
have to deal falsely and accept them in their sin. The father's
not going to accept somebody in their sin and just say, well,
I'm going to pretend like you don't have any sin. I'm going
to pretend like you're righteous even though you're not. He's
not going to have to do that. He's not going to deal falsely
with people that like that. You know why? Because the Lord
Jesus Christ has made his people to be truly and actually righteous. and God's going to deal truthfully
with them and accept them for Christ's sake. Salvation is always
for Christ's sake. All right, number two, this covenant
of grace, this peace treaty, always save sinners. Verse 25,
now they've already entered into this covenant now. And Abraham
approved Abimelech because of a well of water which Abimelech's
servants had violently taken away. Abraham entered this peace
treaty. He told Abimelech, I swear I'll
deal truly with you. Even though he already knew there's
a serious problem between him and Abimelech. And he entered
into this covenant anyway. And the problem is Abimelech's
fault. And Abraham still enters into the covenant with him. What
had happened is some of Abimelech's men had come and they violently
took a well that Abraham had gone out in the desert. He dug
for himself for, for his flocks and things to, to water them
and so forth. And you know, in that desert
place, boy, water was a precious commodity. And these men came
and violently took it and Abraham's upset about it. He took away
this, this precious commodity, you know, that, that he worked
hard for. He's upset about it. This is a sin that's been done
against him, a wrong that's been against him. But he entered into
the peace treaty. anyway. It's very good for us to know
Abimelech didn't have to correct his sins before Abraham entered
into covenant with him. Abimelech didn't have to quit
sinning and give the well back before Abraham entered into a
covenant with him. Abraham entered into a covenant
with him knowing this was between them. All right, here's the picture. The father and the son. In eternity,
when they entered into a covenant of grace, they both already knew
there's a problem. They already knew Adam would
sin against God. And by his fall, Adam would plunge
the whole race into sin and death. That's a problem. But the father
and the son entered into this covenant anyway. Because the
covenant of grace is intended to say Real sinners. See, the covenant of grace is
not intended to save good people and righteous people. It's meant
to save sinners. Sinners who've sinned against
God. Sinners who don't have any other hope of salvation other
than God's grace in Christ Jesus. Now here's the good news. You
don't have to correct all of your past sins before God will
save you. You don't have to quit sinning
in order for God to save you. God only saves sinners. Now, if you're a sinner, I'll
tell you what to do. You come to Christ just as you
are. Don't try to clean anything up.
Don't try to hide your sin. Don't try to make yourself look
better than you really are. Remember, this is a faithful
saying. Worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came to this
world to save sinners. whom I'm chief. Well, don't try
to make yourself look better than a no count lowdown sinner. Come to God as a sinner begging
for mercy because the covenant of grace is meant to save sinners. See, the only question for you
and me is this, are we a sinner? It's not what we know. It's not
who we know. It's not. The only question is
this, are you a sinner? If you are, Christ came to save
you. I come begging for mercy. All right, number three, the
only way that we can really see our sin is to see Christ. Verse 26, and Abimelech said,
I want not who has done this thing. Neither didst thou tell
me, neither yet I heard of it, but today. Now Bimelech didn't
know anything about this whole matter. He didn't know anything
about his men going and taking Abraham's well from him by force.
They didn't do it on his orders. He never wanted them to do that.
And this is the first he's hearing about it. He enters into this
covenant with Abraham. And the first thing he finds
out is we got a problem and it's my fault. Well, here's the picture. You know, we really don't know
anything about the nature of sin. until God saves us. Until God saves us, all we think
of sin is, you know, it's breaking the rules. It's really not that
bad. I don't really have all that
much sin. I do more good things than I do bad things. Only the
new man can see the sin of the old man. Only the new man can
see all those things that I thought was righteousnesses that I was
doing that was making God happy with me. Only the new man can
see those things are sinful. Those things are plenty enough
to send me to hell. Before God saves us, we don't
know this. Sin is spiritual. Sin is in the heart. Sin is our
nature. It's not just an outward act.
Sin is in our nature. And the only person who can understand
that is a person who's been born again by God the Holy Spirit.
I'll give you a few examples. Our brother, Job, thought he
was pretty good stuff, didn't he? He spent a whole lot of time
trying to justify himself, didn't he? Thought he was pretty good.
Until he saw the Lord. And then he said, I bore myself,
I'm putting my hand over my mouth, I'm not saying one more thing.
But he didn't say that until he saw the Lord. Isaiah, well
this fellow thought, I mean, he had a tiger by the tail, didn't
he? He thought he was qualified to go around and woe everybody
everywhere. Woe is you, woe is you, woe is
you, woe is you. Until he saw the Lord high and
lifted up. And then what did he say? Woe is me. Woe is me. I'm a man of unclean lips, and
here's how I know that. I've seen the King. I've seen
the King, the Lord of hosts in His glory. Saul of Tarsus. Saul of Tarsus thought he is
a righteous man. Everybody knew him, thought the
same thing. Outwardly, nobody could find a blemish in him.
And Saul actually thought to himself, outwardly I have no
blemish. He really did think that. And then he saw Christ. And Lord showed Saul the spirituality
of the law. And then, Paul said, he saw then,
then I understood I was dead. I thought I was using the law
to earn eternal life. And in fact, the law slayed me
because I didn't know it was spiritual. He didn't know that
until he saw Christ. And you and I can never really
see what our sin really is. We can never see the heinousness
of it. Heinousness, I think it's a word.
We can't see what our sin really deserves until we see Christ. See, when I see Christ and his
holiness, then I understand my unholiness. When I see the righteousness
of Christ, when I see his perfection, then I can see the filth of my
sin. Then when I see Christ's righteousness,
I see the filth of my righteousnesses. When I see Christ crucified,
When I see him slain by his father in the most horrible way imaginable,
then I see what I really deserve. That's the only way I can see
what I really deserve, what my sin really deserves, is to, by
faith, see Christ crucified. See, that's why here we don't
preach against committing outward acts of sin. I mean, y'all not
do it, but you don't need me to tell you that. We don't preach
against committing outward sins. I'm going to refuse to do this.
I refuse to waste my time telling somebody how they're supposed
to act. Don't do this and do this. I've got enough problems
to tell my own self to do that. That's not what we're preaching.
If somebody preaches that, you've got to do this, you've got to
do this, you can't do this, you can't do this. I'll tell you what that's
going to promote every time. Self-righteousness. Because it's
going to make us look at ourselves and see what we're doing and
how well we're doing instead of looking to Christ. By God's
grace, we here intend to just keep preaching Christ. Just keep
telling sinners who Christ is. Keep telling sinners, look to
Christ. Keep telling sinners, go to Christ. If the Spirit is ever pleased
to take that word, bless it to your heart, He's pleased to reveal
Christ to you, you'll see what your sin is. And you'll run to
Him. But you're not going to see your
sin. You're not going to see your need. until you see Christ
the Savior. That's why we keep preaching
Him. All right, here's the fourth thing. God's the wronged party. Our sin is all against God. We've
sinned, we've wronged God, but we don't make the payment for
sin. God provides the payment for sin. Now this is the problem
that man has in trying to figure out I know, man just inherently
knows I've got to answer to God. I've got a debt. I've done something
wrong between me and God, and we're trying to figure out how
to get rid of this problem. We're trying to figure out how
to pay God something for our sin. Now man by nature also inherently
knows this. I can't pay all of my sin debt
to God. I know that. I need Jesus to
come and shed his blood to do the part that I can't do, but
I can still do my part, I can still contribute something. And
man by nature thinks, well, you know, if I pay some of the debt
and then Jesus pays the rest of it, why God be more inclined
to be happy with me. Cause you know, it costs him
less to redeem me. Listen to me, nothing can be
more wrong than that. God is only pleased with the
sacrifice that he provides. God is only pleased with the
blood of his son. And here's that, that given to
us in a picture here, beginning of verse 27. And Abraham took sheep and oxen
and gave them unto Abimelech. And both of them made a covenant.
And Abraham sent, set seven new lambs of the flock by themselves.
And Abimelech said unto Abraham, what mean these seven new lambs,
which thou set by themselves? And he said, for these seven
ewe lambs shall thou take of my hand, that they may be a witness
unto me that I have digged this well. Wherefore he called that
place Beersheba, because there they swear both of them." Now,
Bimelech's men, they were the ones that did wrong, didn't they?
They took Abraham's well by force. They took something that didn't
belong to them. And you'd think a Bimelech would compensate Abraham. This has been done wrong to you.
I'm going to compensate you for this. But that's not what happened. Instead, Abraham, the one who'd
been wronged, he pays Abimelech these seven ewe lambs and all
these other goats and oxen and sheep and stuff that he gave
him. Now that just seems backward, doesn't it? It's all backward.
The one who's wrong is paying the debt. Well, this is a picture of how
the sin debt of God's elect has been paid. We're the ones that
sinned against God. We're the ones that did him wrong.
We didn't give him the glory he deserved. We tried by violence
to take what doesn't belong to us. Yet God is the one who makes
the payment that satisfies his justice. You know, the number
seven represents perfection. These seven lambs represent the
perfect atonement that's found in the blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ. I love how Abraham says this in verse 30. I'm giving
you these seven new lambs as a witness to me. I've been like,
they're not a witness to you that I dug this well. They're
a witness to me that I dug this well. Now you can only understand
that when you look at this picture of redemption in Christ. The
blood of Christ is the payment that God made for the sin of
his people. It's a payment made by God to God. See the blood of Christ is a
witness to God that the sin debt of his people has been paid in
full. See the blood of Christ never offered to you and me.
Was it? No, it was offered to God. The
blood is offered before the Lord. God's the one who is the offended
party and he's pleased with the blood of his son. He accepts
that as payment in full and the blood of Christ is a constant
reminder to God. There's no reason for him to
condemn his people. The blood put it away. When I
see the blood, I'll pass over you. See, the blood is a token
to God. It's before the Lord. Oh, as
a witness that the blood of Christ put away the sin of his people.
Now remember when this whole conversation started, Abimelech
wanted a promise from Abraham. that you won't deal falsely with
me. I can deal falsely with my children or my grandchildren.
And Abraham promised. Well, Abraham, here's a picture
of God the Father. Almighty God will not deal falsely
with anyone who's covered under his covenant of grace. Now, God
won't falsely accept them in their sin, but he didn't have
to. He paid the price for their sin. The blood of Christ is a
constant reminder, a constant witness of that. And God will
never falsely condemn any of his people. And again, there's
no reason for him to condemn them, is there? When Christ was
condemned as their substitute, he paid their debt in full. And
the blood of Christ is a witness to that. And Abimelech, he wanted peace
with Abraham, but he wanted it in truth. He wanted this peace,
but Abraham, you're not gonna deal falsely with him. I want
this peace in truth. Well, that's God's covenant of
grace. It's been fulfilled in truth. Justice is truly satisfied
by the death of Christ, by his obedience, by his sacrifice for
the sin of his people. He has made his people truly
righteous so that they have no sin. Then there's no more reason
for war, is there? There's no more reason for hostilities.
The blood of Christ fulfilled his promise to his father in
the covenant of grace. It sealed the covenant and the
father and the son are in full agreement. Redemption has been
accomplished. The price has already been paid
and there is eternal peace between God and his people. Here's how
salvation is accomplished. We do all the sinning and God
does all the saving. That's our relationship with
God, isn't it? Just like Abimelech, he's the
one that did everything wrong, at least in regard to this well,
and Abraham's the one that made it right. Our relationship with the Savior
is this, we do all the sinning, and he does all the saving. Christ
does all the giving, and we do all the receiving. All right, here's the last thing.
Now this is a result of this covenant of grace being ratified.
God's people grow in grace. Verse 33. And Abraham planted
a grove in Beersheba and called there on the name of the Lord,
the everlasting God. And Abraham sojourned in the
Philistines land many days. Abraham planted a grove of trees
by this well that he dug. And I don't know that anything
else has ever said about these trees, but I'm just confident
of this. Those trees flourished. It just
stands to reason they grew well, they flourished because they're
planted by the water. Stands to reason, doesn't it?
And that's a picture of how God's people, they grow in grace. Every believer I know would say
this. I'm not satisfied with myself. I'm not satisfied with
my faith. I'm not satisfied with my growth
in grace. I'm just not satisfied. Well,
you wanna know how that's gonna grow? It's gonna be by being
where the well of water is. That growth is gonna come by
being near where Christ is preached. Let me show you that in Psalm
92. Psalm 92. Verse 12. The righteous. Now these are
those that the Lord Jesus Christ has made the righteousness of
God in him. The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree.
He shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Those that be planted
in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our
God. See here, now we're going to
flourish. We're going to grow by being in the courts of our God.
They shall still bring forth fruit in old age. They should
be fat and flourishing to show that the Lord is upright. He
hadn't dealt falsely with one of them, has he? To show that
the Lord is upright. He is my rock and there is no
unrighteousness in him. Now that spiritual growth that
every believer wants, that's going to be slow. Even when we
find ourselves planted right where Christ is preaching, spiritual
growth will be slow, but there will be growth. Now there will
be growth in grace. Because when God does the saving,
he's also gonna be the one to give life and to sustain that
life and cause that growth in grace. Now that's the redemption
that's pictured in Beersheba. And that's your redemption too,
if God's the one to save you. All right, let's bow together.
Our Father, we thank you for this time together to worship,
to open your word, to read it, study it, have Christ preached,
Father, I pray you get much glory to yourself through the preaching
of Christ our Savior. How we thank you for the covenant
of your grace. How we thank you for Christ,
the mediator of that covenant. How we thank you for the mercy
and the truth of that covenant. That despite all of our sin,
you saved your people to the uttermost, completely and fully
by the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Father, how we thank
you. I pray you cause each of us to
leave here this evening, rejoicing in and resting in Christ our
Savior. It's in his name, for his sake we pray, amen. All right,
Sean.