Go back to Genesis chapter 15.
Genesis chapter 15. The message tonight really has to do with
assurance. Abraham asked the Lord in verse
8, Whereby shall I know that I shall inherit this land that
you've promised, that you've promised that your seed will
inherit this land. And Abraham wants to know, whereby
or give me a sign or a token that I shall inherit this land. There's definitely nothing wrong
with assurance. We ought to be, we truly ought
to be full of assurance. We have the complete Word of
God. Abraham didn't have what you
and I have, as far as the written Word. He didn't have this. But
you and I have it. And there's nothing wrong with
having assurance. Not to have it, not to have assurance,
really, it's just unbelief. It's unbelief. And you'll notice
here, as we go down through this, that when Abraham asked God to
give him some assurance of him inheriting and his seed inheriting
this land, the Lord directed him to a sacrifice. That's where
the assurance is going to come from. Our assurance of salvation. Our assurance that God will do
just exactly as He has promised, that all the promises of God
in Christ are yea and amen. Our assurance of that is the
Lord Jesus Christ. It's Christ in Him crucified. And it's God's satisfaction with
Christ that really gives us our assurance. It's God's satisfaction
with Him. And when we really come to understand
that God Almighty is satisfied with His Son, with the sacrifice
of His Son, with the blood of atonement, that His blood is
the blood of atonement, and that in Him God is well pleased. This is my beloved Son in whom
I am well pleased. When we understand that, if we
come to a realization and understanding of God's satisfaction in His
Son. That's when we'll have real assurance.
It's not when I looked at myself or I'm getting way ahead of myself
in this message. I'm going to give you the message
and I'm going to go back here and try to preach it. But this
is the message. The message is, Lord, give me
some assurance here that what you said you will do, it'll happen. And He's going to direct him
to the sacrifice. And if you and I are to have any assurance
in salvation, that we are His, I am His and He is mine, it's
going to be in the sacrifice. It's going to be in Jesus Christ
and Him crucified and God's satisfaction in Him. If God is satisfied with
Him and I am in Him, my soul, God is satisfied with
me. There's not anything that God is not satisfied concerning
me. In Christ, we're complete. That's what it says. It says, in Him, we are complete. We lack nothing in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Everything that we need to stand
in God's presence, complete, accepted, we have in the sacrifice. We have it in the sacrifice.
Now let's look at this. I've already preached it. That's
the message. So now let's look at it. How can I know that what
God has promised, He will give? That's the title of the message.
Now, back in verse 6, Abraham, it says, believed in the Lord.
He trusted the Lord. He stayed upon, one of the literal
translations is, he stayed upon the Lord. Took him at his word,
and it was counted to him. That is, God counted, He reckoned,
He imputed it to Abraham for righteousness, which just means
it is now His. If God imputes righteousness
to me, then that righteousness is mine. It's mine. When the
righteousness of Christ is imputed to a man, that righteousness
belongs to that man now. It belongs to him. It's not borrowed. It's mine. It's mine. And the Scriptures make it very
clear that Abraham, as well as all who believe, are justified
through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ apart from any kind of
works. When this is mentioned here of
Abraham having righteousness accounted to him, not one thing
is said about Abraham's exploits or his works or anything, just
that he believed God. He believed God. Now here in
verse 7 is where we're going to pick up. I left off in verse
6 last week. It says, And he said unto him,
that is the Lord, and notice the Lord, this is Jehovah, this
person speaking here is Jesus Christ. This is the Lord Jesus.
This is the Son of God. This is the Word of God speaking
to Abraham that became, this is the Word that became flesh
and dwelt among us. This is the one speaking to Abraham.
And he said unto him, I am the Lord that brought thee out of
Ur of the Chaldees to give thee this land to inherit in. You
know, when God purposes to bless His people, He always lets them
know that He's the one that's doing the blessing. The blessing
is coming from Him. He's the one that's going to
do the blessing. And He declared what He's done for Abraham. He
declares to Abraham, first of all, who he is. He lets him know
who he is. I am the Lord. I'm the Savior. I'm your Savior. I'm your Redeemer.
I'm Jehovah. That's who I am. There could
be no mistake as to who the Savior is. No mistake. He says, the Lord. And what he
declares here, what he did to Abraham, Brought thee out of
Ur of the Chaldees, that idolatrous people, that dark nation. He said, I brought you out, Abraham. It's not that I called and you
cooperated. Yes, he called Abraham and Abraham
obeyed. But now here he says, I brought
you out. Is that not salvation? I saved you. I chose you. I called you. You're mine. I
brought you out. I brought you out of that place."
And here He declares the purpose for which He brought him out,
to give thee this land, to inherit it. Abraham, I brought you out
here to give you this land. The Gospel declares, this is
the Gospel, the Gospel declares what God has done for us in His
Son and through His Son. The gospel declares who saved
us? The Lord Jesus Christ. He's the
one who has saved us by His sacrifice, by His blood, and He's the one
who has saved us. It declares where He's brought
us from. Sin, darkness, idolatry, death. This is what He's brought
us from. He declares this in the gospel.
This is what I brought you from. And then the gospel declares
what He's given us. Life. Not just physical life. Eternal
life. Life. The life of God. And you
have that right now. If you believe Him. He's given
us life. He's given us forgiveness. A complete forgiveness of sins.
Pardon? He's given us the land of glory. A new heaven, a new earth. He
said, I've given you these. These things are yours. These
things are yours. And then Abraham asked this question. And it seems a little unusual
from a man who had just declared righteous because he believed
God. Doesn't it? It seems just a little unusual.
I don't believe, I don't know why, other than, I know this,
all these things are written for our learning. If you notice,
when Abraham asked him, he asked the Lord to give him a token,
a sign, the Lord did not chide him. The Lord did not say that
you have little faith. He didn't say anything to Abraham
by way of chiding him over his lack of faith. You know, what
he did, he poured it into the sacrifice. He poured it into
the sacrifice. Abraham says, whereby shall I
know that I shall inherit this land? Well, for assurance here. And it's what Abraham wants.
And there's nothing wrong with having assurance. I'm not talking
about presumption. A presumption and assurance are
two totally different things. Abraham is just asking God for
assurance here. That what he said and what he
promised, he'll have it. And there's nothing wrong with
having that assurance. We ought to have assurance. We
ought to have it. I'll take God at his word. So
here's what happens. The Lord directs him to the sacrifice. He directs him to that which
points and is a picture and is a type of His Son, the Lord Jesus
Christ. You see, false religion will
send you everywhere except to Christ and Him crucified. False religion will send you
everywhere except to the Lord Jesus Christ. If you want assurance, don't
look at how you feel. You won't get it there, not unless
you're self-righteous. You won't get it there. Don't
even look at the way you live. Say, well, the Lord has enabled
me to live in a way that I never would have thought before. Don't
love the things I used to love. Don't go after the things I used
to go after. Don't find assurance in that
either. Paul did that, didn't he? He found assurance in the
way he lived. That's not where assurance is found. Assurance
is found. by looking to the Lamb of God.
Does that sound too simple? Does that sound too simple? It
just comes from looking to God's Lamb. It comes from looking to
the same One God looks to. The Lord Jesus Christ. Any assurance that is based upon
any other thing, anything else, other than God's satisfaction
with Christ, is no assurance at all. It's a false assurance
which comes from false faith. Real assurance is based upon
God's satisfaction with the sacrifice. That's what it's based upon.
God's satisfaction with Christ. We can see that if we can get
a hold of this, that God Almighty, God who is holy, God, who above
know means clear of the guilty, is absolutely satisfied with
the death of His Son, the sacrifice of His Son, the blood of His
Son. He's satisfied with it. I'm telling you this, you believe
on Christ, that's where you're going to find your assurance.
The same place God is satisfied, in His Son, in Him. If God is satisfied with Christ's
sacrifice, then that gives me assurance that God is satisfied
with me. It doesn't matter how I feel. It doesn't have anything to do
with my life. It has to do with God being satisfied with the
sacrifice. And if He's satisfied with it,
He's satisfied with those in Him, in His Son. True assurance,
remember this, true assurance always comes from without, never
from within. It comes from the Lord Jesus
Christ looking to Him. And then God said here in verses
9 and 10, and He said unto him, unto Abraham, Take me an heifer. You know, He didn't say, Abraham,
take you a heifer of three years of age and all these others that
He mentions which represent Christ. If you'll notice how young they
all were. They were all three years of
age. You know, our Lord had a three year earthly ministry. As far
as preaching goes. And these all represent Him.
And they were all, all these were tamed. That was used. It all represents the Lord Jesus
Christ. But He says, God says, take Me.
Take Me. The sacrifice is for Me. And
the sacrifice is to Me. Christ offered up Himself to
what? To the Lord. He offered up Himself to the
Lord, to the Father, on behalf of His people. And that's why
God says here to Abraham, take a young heifer, three years old,
for Me. This is for Me. It represents
My Son. And if God's going to establish
His covenant here with Abraham, He's going to do it by way, listen,
of a sacrifice. It's going to be established.
Abraham said, how am I going to know this? Give me some kind
of sign or some kind of evidence that I'm going to inherit this
land. God said, OK, here it is. I'm going to make a sacrifice.
You take me a heifer, three years old, you take me, this is for
me. And this is how I'm going to
establish this covenant. It's going to be through a sacrifice. The covenant of grace is established
with every one of God's children through the sacrifice of the
Lord Jesus Christ, and it's ratified by His blood. Well, there's a
lot to that. I tell you what, right there
is a lot to give you assurance. There's a whole lot right in
that to just give you assurance. Abraham wanted a sign, and God
gave him the sacrifice. He gave him those things that
pointed to his son. Do you see that God is satisfied
with the substitutionary life and death of His Son? Do you
see how He's satisfied with that? I tell you what, if you don't
see that, if I don't see that, I'll never know what assurance
is. I'll never know what real, I'm talking about real assurance
and real peace is until we see this, that God is satisfied. This is my beloved Son whom I
am Well pleased. Well pleased with my son. And now notice what happened
when Abraham offered the sacrifice that God told him to offer. Here
in verse 9, he offers up the heifer and the she-goat and the
ram and the turtledoves and the pigeon. And he took unto him
all these and he divided them in the midst and laid each piece
one against another. He did this orderly. See, there
was order to this. It isn't just chop them up and
lay them down. There was order to this. There
should always, there must always be order in our worship service. There must always be order. And
Abraham laid these pieces one against the other, but the birds
he didn't divide. And after he did this, when the
fowls came down upon the carcass, oh my soul, here comes the buzzards.
Here comes the buzzards. That's right, vultures. Here
comes the vultures. God gives the sacrifice in which
He is well pleased, in which He is satisfied. He gives the
sacrifice to Abraham for assurance. And then here comes the buzzards.
They come flying in here. This is all carved up. It's laid
in order. And then it says, the fowls.
These are flesh-eating, flesh-eating birds. They came in and they
came down on the carcass, trying to pick apart that sacrifice. Isn't that religion today? Isn't
that false prophets and false preachers today? Pick apart the
sacrifice. Try to pick apart the truths,
the great truths that are set forth in the Scriptures. The
great truths that are set forth in the Lord Jesus Christ. and
then try to pick them apart. The flesh eaters came down to
devour the sacrifice, tear it up. This is Satan. Oh, what a
picture of Satan and false religion. Any time Christ in His redemptive
glory, Christ in His work, Christ in Him crucified, any time a
priest, you can be sure, you can be sure, Sooner or later,
there are going to be some buzzards flying in and try to pick it
apart and try and destroy it, try and change it. You can just
count on it. I do know this. I thought about
this today. We have enough of those buzzards in us without
any outside help. There's enough evil thoughts
in our minds that go on every day. There's enough worldliness. Too much worldliness in us. Pride. Greed. All these fly down on
the sacrifice and destroy our joy, really. They destroy our
joy and the effects that it could have on us, on everyday life,
everyday assurance, everyday peace. Just what's in us. But the real message here, the
real buzzards are those who pick at the gospel of substitution
and satisfaction. They just pick at it. I've had people try and debate
with me over the gospel. You don't debate with buzzards.
You don't debate with flesh-eating birds. You do what Abraham did. He scared
them off. He ran them off. He didn't let
them have any of it. And those buzzards came down.
on the sacrifice that God had given to Abraham here that represented
Christ. Abraham, it says, he drove them
away. He drove them away. He let them
have no place, no part of them. Do not for one minute let anyone
move you from the sacrifice or tamper with the sacrifice of
the Lord Jesus Christ. His substitutionary work, His
substitutionary life, His substitutionary death. Don't let anyone, anyone
pick at it. Don't put up with it for a minute.
Not even for a minute. Drive them away. Do not entertain
buzzers that all they want to do is eat up the sacrifice. Destroy
it. All they want to do is destroy
the sacrifice. And in doing so, see, Satan's
subtle. Satan's subtle. He knows if He can just pick
at this, if He can just pick at it, He'll destroy your assurance. He'll destroy your assurance.
Because our assurance comes from this sacrifice of the Lord Jesus
Christ. I'm going to give you four words
here that describe the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. I read it to you over in 1 Peter,
is this precious. Precious. This sacrifice, this
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ is precious. There's no other
like it. It's the only blood of His kind.
It's precious. It's the blood of the Lamb of
God. This sacrifice is a sacrifice
of God. He said, Behold the Lamb of God
which takes away the sin of the world. This is God's Lamb. This
is God's sacrifice. His blood is precious. His blood
is precious to God and His blood is precious to everyone who has
tasted of Him, has tasted of His grace and His mercy. His
blood is precious. It's the only blood that can
wash away sin. No other blood can do that. Nothing else can
do that. It's precious. And then it's
particular. It was shed to save a particular
people. This sacrifice is for a particular people. It's for
a multitude of sinners that no man can number, whom God chose
before the world began. It's particular now. It's particular. It's for those whom God has purposed
to save. You would not leave the precious
blood of your son in the hands of devils, would you? Well, God's
not going to leave the precious blood of His Son in the hands
of sinful men. Lost, God-hating men. No, it's
particular. It's for certain people. And
they are going to be saved by it. God's going to save them.
They're going to be saved from their sins back. And then it's
successful. It's successful. His blood redeems. All the blood of the bulls and
the goats did not, did not redeem one person. Of thousands and
thousands, millions upon millions of people. The blood of the bulls
and goats did not redeem one person. The precious blood of Christ
has redeemed every one of God's elect. It has redeemed. His blood redeemed. It truly
washes away all sin. It truly satisfies God's justice
and success. And then last of all, it's sufficient. It's sufficient. We don't need
anything else. We do not need another sacrifice. We do not
need other blood. We do not need someone else to
shed blood, or their blood, or any blood. It's sufficient. It's sufficient. We need not
look anywhere else for cleansing or assurance except through the
blood of the Lamb. We look to Him. It's sufficient
to satisfy God's justice, and it's sufficient to satisfy every
believer We've been washed by it. It's sufficient. Run those buzzards off when they
start picking at this gospel. This gospel of the glory of God. Run them off like Abraham did.
He ran them off. And then to close, I want you
to look here in verses 12 through 16. After Abraham ran these ran
these buzzards off and said, And the sun was going down, and
a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and lo, and horror of great darkness
fell upon him. God's going to reveal to Abraham
that his seed that's going to inherit the land is going to
suffer. They're going to suffer. In this
world you shall have tribulation. It will never be easy for anyone
to follow Christ in this life. With much tribulation shall you
inherit the kingdom of God. And he reveals to Abraham 400
years before they ever go into that promised land. He said they're
going to be in there for 400 years. They're going to go in,
enslaved, bondage. They're going to suffer. They're
going to undergo a heavy tribulation. Faith is going to be tried. That's
why it's deep. Faith is going to be tried. If you've got faith,
if God's given you faith, I promise you one thing, it's going to
be tried. God listened in verse
16. But in the fourth generation,
they're going to come out. Did that happen? You go over in Exodus and you
read in the fourth generation, they came out just as God promised
Abraham, just as he promised. They came out and God promised
to deliver his children. We will be victorious when this
is over with. When this is over with, we will
be victorious in the end. And he says, when they come out,
they're going to come out with what? Great substance. Oh, when we come out of this,
when we come out of this, when the Lord calls our bodies out of the grave in
that great resurrection, we are going to come out with great
substance. The Queen of Sheba said the half
has never yet been told. But we are going to have. We're
going to come out of this with great substance. And then over here in verse 17,
look. And it came to pass, God gave the sacrifice as a sign
for assurance. And it came to pass when the
sun went down and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace. Smoking
means that when something is smoking, it's doing what? It's
being consumed. This verse right here says that
God is well pleased with the sacrifice. When the sun went down, it was
dark. Behold, a smoking furnace and a burning lamp, a light.
God is light. A burning lamp that passed between
those pieces. God was in that sacrifice. God
was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. God was. And then God makes, here in verse
18, the Lord makes a covenant with Abraham. And He makes a
covenant with Abraham by way of this sacrifice that represents
the Lord Jesus Christ. In the same day, the Lord made
a covenant with Abram, saying, unto thy seed have I given this
land from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river
Euphrates. Let me see if I can find a verse. I don't know if
I can find it now. I don't think I marked it down. Look over in chapter 13. In chapter 13, verse 15, the Lord
says, For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give
it. It says, I see forever. To thee
will I give it. Now go back to verse 18. Look what happens here in chapter
15. Listen to the change of language. In the same day the Lord made
a covenant. The same day, this sacrifice was offered. And the
Lord walked in the midst of this sacrifice. He accepted this,
well pleased with this sacrifice. And the same day, the Lord made
a covenant with Abraham saying, unto thy seed, listen, have I
given it? You see, over in 13, He said,
I shall give it. Now He says, I have given it. It's yours.
Abraham, it's yours. Through the Lord Jesus Christ,
all things are yours. What's our assurance? Christ. Christ. God's given us His Son.
Shall He not freely with Him give us all things? The Lord
Jesus Christ. God gave Abraham assurance through
the sacrifice that what He had promised, He would do. We have
assurance that through the Lord Jesus Christ, through His substitutionary
work, through His person, through His blood, through His sacrifice,
God will give us everything He's promised. We'll have it. If you would have assurance,
I close with this. If you would have assurance that
salvation is yours, look to the Lamb of God. Look to the Lord Jesus Christ,
who was sacrificed for us. Anytime you want assurance, You
see, assurance with us kind of comes and goes, doesn't it? Kind
of like the ocean, you know, the tide comes up and goes down.
That's kind of the way we are with this matter of assurance.
But when you lack assurance, when you're troubled about these
things, go to Christ. That's the only
place assurance of the promises is established, is through Him.
You'd have it, go to Him. Get a hold of this matter of
God being satisfied with the sacrifice. That's right, God's
satisfied with the sacrifice. Lay hold of that which God is
satisfied with, and I assure you, you'll have assurance.