You know the story of it, I'm
sure, that the Lord told Abraham, called him, and Abraham said
in verse one, behold, here am I. And God said, take now thy
son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into
the land of Moriah and offer him there for a burnt offering
upon one of the mountains, which I will tell. the of. And here in this chapter God
shows us for the first time really in this kind of detail and clarity
with such a striking picture the necessity of a sacrifice
and particularly a human sacrifice for our sins. The lambs had been
sacrificed before. I'm sure Abel's wasn't the only
one. We read of Abel sacrificing a lamb in order that he might
worship God and approach God and be accepted of God. And I'm
sure Abel's wasn't the only lamb that had been sacrificed. And
that's, that's one aspect of the picture, a lamb, an innocent
victim, an innocent substitute and Christ being called the lamb
of God. But here in this chapter, additional light is shed because
it was a man who brought sin into this world. And it is mankind
who are sinful before God. And that being so, a man must
pay for sin. Either all of us individually
pay for our sins forever, because we can never fully quench the
wrath of God against us. His holiness that we've sinned
against being infinite. The penalty is infinite. We can
never pay it fully, so we must suffer forever. Or a man must
suffer in our place. And we see that for the first
time here on Mount Moriah. A human sacrifice is required.
Man sinned, man must die. The blood of bulls and goats,
Paul said in Hebrews, could never take away sin. And that's why.
Nor could the blood of an ordinary man. take away sin. But the man,
Christ Jesus, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever,
sat down. All of these multiple sacrifices,
picture his one sacrifice for sins forever. Eternal blood was
shed there. And when he offered it, he perfected
forever them that are sanctified. Hebrews 10, 4, 12, and 14. And
Genesis 22 records Abraham's greatest trial. We
talked about this last week. In a life of one trial after
another, I'm sure Abraham probably didn't have that much trouble
until he met God. You reckon? When he lived there
in Ur of the Chaldees, I'm sure, you know, he was like everybody
else, just kind of floating along through life. Had a few ups and
downs, but when he met God, his trouble started. But also, his
joy, his peace. But in a life of one trial after
another, called to leave his home and family, we just kind
of say that like it's just a detail. Now you think about doing that. What if the Lord said, get up,
get out of your house. I got some place for you to go.
He buried his father not long after that in Haran. He endured that strife. between
his house and the house of Lot and didn't want it to be a problem
between himself and Lot, so he had to say, Lot, you just go,
you choose out the land that you desire and I'll take what's
left. And that had to be hard too. He loved Lot, that's evident
in the rest of the account, isn't it? This is the man who had to
go to war with those heathen kings in order to save Lot and
was willing to do it. And this is the man who waited
25 years for God to give him the son that he promised him.
This is the man who had seen his brother's family burned up
under the wrath of God and Sodom. This is the man who had been
required to cast his own son out of his house. He loved Ishmael,
didn't he? He said, would to God that Ishmael
would live before they. He's got to go. He's got to go. And after these things, it came
to pass, it says in the text there, after all these other
trials and hardships, and you imagine what he went through
when he got to the place that God promised him. There was famine
there. There was nothing to eat. There
was trouble, hardship, all through in the war that he fought and
all of these things. He just didn't have a whole lot
of peace, did he? Not outwardly, not physically. He had already
endured all these things. And maybe Abraham's thinking
now, the promised son is here. The storm is over. Now the worst
surely is behind me. He's a hundred years old now
and he'll live in peace. Ishmael's gone. Hagar is gone. Lot is gone, who caused a lot
of his trouble. Lot was righteous in God's sight,
but Lot wasn't righteous in himself. He caused a lot of trouble and
made some poor decisions. Sarah and Abraham and Isaac,
we can settle down now. Everything's going to be all
right. It's going to be smooth sailing from here on out. But
his greatest trial was yet to come. And now here it's upon
him. And think about this experience
and what Abraham and us, you and I, I pray, learn from this
experience in the life of Abraham. First and foremost, by this trial,
God showed Abraham the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord said, Abraham
saw my day. And this is how he saw it. And
what happened on Calvary? He revealed to him what happened
on the cross. The same way he showed Hosea
something of his love, as we mentioned last week, how did
God teach Hosea of his love for his people? He told him to go
love that woman that was a harlot. And though she despised Hosea
and treated him poorly and took for granted his love and misunderstood
him and broke his heart, yet he loved her. God said, you go
yet love her and find out what it means when I say I love you.
And this is kind of what happened here with Abraham, isn't it?
God showed him what happened on Calvary. How are you going
to enter into the magnitude of what it meant for God to give
his only begotten son for sinners. You're going to have to experience
it somehow, aren't you? It's going to have to be more
to you than just a doctrine. It is a blessed, wonderful, truth-teaching
doctrine. As long as it's just on paper
for you, something that you agree with, you can't enter into it,
can you? You've got to experience it, and that's what God caused
Abraham to do here. What all is in that little word,
so? In John 3, 16, the most well-known
and most completely misunderstood verse in God's Word, for God
so loved. If you can define that word,
so, for me, then you've experienced God's love for sinners in giving
His only Son on the cross. for our sins. Can you tell me what that word
so means? Take thy son, thine only son. How many times in this book has
the Lord Jesus referred to as the only begotten son of God?
The well beloved son. The son of his bosom, the son
of his love. Take thine only son, Isaac. His name meant laughter and delight.
God said, this is my son, and I'm well pleased with him. He's my delight. Take him and
offer him for a burnt offering. How are you going to enter into
that? Offering for a burnt offering
unto me. And in this trial, Faith is exercised. Religion is always
talking about exercise your faith. You can't exercise anything,
but God, if he gave you faith, he'll exercise it. He'll try
it. He'll prove it. He'll cause it
to be lived and not just talked about. And that's what happened
here. We say we love the Lord Jesus
Christ more than these. Peter, love us thou me more than
these, more than anything, more than father, mother. More than
your dearest possession in this world? More than that which above
all else is valuable to you? Lovest thou me more than these?
We say, yeah, Lord, I love you, like that. We're going to find
out, aren't we? We're going to find out. You're
not just going to get away with just saying it, are you? What
did he say to his disciples? If you love me, keep. If you
love me, do. Peter, do you love me? Feed.
Show me. live it. And he causes that to
happen, doesn't he? He said to Abraham here in this
chapter, now I know that you love me. He knew it before, didn't
he? He saw it in his heart, but now
he saw it in his life, in his actions. And the Lord gives that
love and he causes that love to be displayed, lived. And we learn this way. This is
the way we learn, by trials like this, that God is to be obeyed
implicitly, without questioning. Have we come to that place yet?
God's not unclear when he tells us things, is he? If he's got
something to say to you, he makes sure you hear it. There wasn't
anything unclear about what God required of Abraham here, was
there? Not anything unclear about that.
It wasn't in the least bit ambiguous. Take your son, your only son,
which one? You ain't got but one, and his
name is Isaac. That's it. Take him, the one that you love,
the one that's the apple of your eye and the blessing of your
heart. Take him and offer him for me
as a burnt offering. If he had just said offering,
you know that, well, there's We could talk about maybe he
doesn't mean kill him, he just means dedicate him. He's got
to be a bird offering unto me. That's what I'm commanding you. And it's by trials like this
that we learn submission, obedience, faith, trust. Why is this necessary? You reckon that question went
through his mind? Why does God require this of me? How will
the promised seed come if the heir dies? What will people think
of me once I've murdered my son in cold blood? What's everybody
going to think of me? What will I tell Sarah when I
get home? None of that matters. None of that matters. The reasons
for the command may not have been clear, but the command itself
was clear as a bell. Clear as a bell. And may God
give you and I grace to obey Him implicitly. What
He requires of us as stewards, the faithfulness that He requires,
we don't have to wonder what He commands do we? We know what our business is
in this world. Now let's get after it. Well,
what about this and what about that? None of that matters. Go
and preach. We must not consult with flesh
and blood. Paul said, immediately, immediately,
I conferred not with flesh and blood. But I got up and I got
about the business of doing what he said to do. May he give us
grace to do that. Like Mary said at the wedding
feast, whatever he says to do, do it. Whatever he tells you,
do it. That'll take his grace, won't
it? Now this whole chapter Chapter 22 of Genesis, it's a picture
of God's great sacrifice of His dear Son, the Lord Jesus Christ,
in the place of sinners. His substitutionary, sin-atoning
death for sinners. That's what this is, and no doubt
it's an example of great faith, the kind that God gives, His
elect, tenacious, undying faith. When Job lost everything else,
He didn't lose what God gave him, the real gift that God gave
him. God had given him all that other
stuff, but the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.
The spiritual gifts, the true things of value that he gives,
he don't take away. And you can't lose them. You
can't forfeit them. If you could, you would, but you can't do it
because they're gifts of his grace. And we have the very intercession
of Christ supporting our faith, that it fail not. You remember
what he said to Peter? Satan hath desired thee that
he might sift thee as wheat, but I've prayed for you. What did you pray, Lord? That
your faith fail not. He intercedes for all of his
sheep that way, and I guarantee you everything else that fails,
if he's given you faith, your faith won't fail. It won't fail. But this, as all scripture, ultimately
is a revelation, not of faith, but of the great object of faith.
That's what this is. It's the story of substitutionary
redemption. by Christ Jesus our Lord, and
it not only teaches a doctrine, which is again a glorious doctrine
that we believe and love and rejoice in, but it shows God's
great provision of grace for his people in Christ. In other
words, we not only see how God saves sinners, but that he does
do so and has done so by the sacrifice of himself. And Abraham
was made to enter into that, and God, one way or another,
works in us and causes us to not only believe these things
in our head, but to experience them in our heart. And this is
not only Abraham's greatest trial, but it's the greatest revelation
of the gospel that God made to Abraham. And as we mentioned
before, I have no doubt that our Lord was referring to this
event when he said, your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day.
He saw it and was glad. He was glad, John 8, 56. There's
good reason to believe that Mount Moriah and Mount Calvary are
the same place. I know this. I know that what
was pictured there on Mount Moriah took place on Mount Calvary,
and it was the actual substitutionary death of the Son of God in the
place of sinners. The Lord Jesus came down here.
It was purposed in eternity. It was written. It's doctrine
that can't be refuted reasonably and intelligently. It's established
in the Word of God, but that didn't rule out the fact that
the Son of God had to actually come where I was and do something
for me that I couldn't do for myself. He came down here and
did something for his father, honored his law and kept his
law and paid for my sin, honored God in spite of my wickedness
and evil, the Lord Jesus Christ honored the law of God. And he came down here to save
me. This is a faithful say, and it's
worthy of all acceptation. And that what that means is it's
weighty. This is a weighty saying. that Christ Jesus came into this
world to save sinners, including the biggest one, me, Paul said.
He came down here and gave himself a ransom for sinners. So this is a revelation of the
object of faith. And what's pictured here is what
happened on Calvary, whether they're the same actual place
on this earth or not. By this amazing experience, Abraham
saw what was going to happen on this mountain. So many years
later, or one like it. And more importantly, he saw
who would accomplish it. He saw my day and was glad. Now may God give us grace tonight
to see what Abraham saw, to see who Abraham saw. And as we read
these verses, we have to go beyond this experience of Abraham and
see what is pictured, who is pictured here. The picture of
God's whole purpose of grace and his work of redemption by
the sacrifice of his son. Everything revolves around him
and his cross. Everything. That's why Paul said,
God forbid that I should glory in anything else but him having
died on a cross for my sins. In verses three and four, let's
look at that. Abraham rose up early in the morning and saddled
his ass and took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son
and claved the wood for the burnt offering and rose up and went
unto the place of which God had told him. And then on the third
day, Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place afar off. He
got up early in the morning and started chopping wood. What can
we see in just that simple, simple truth? Abraham carefully prepared
everything for the sacrifice. He began to worship God before
they ever got up there. He was worshiping him in his
heart. He was attributing worthiness to God in that he already was
obeying him before they ever got to the top of the mountain.
And our great God, the God of all grace he's called, He prepared everything for the
sacrifice of his darling son. Everything that's happened in
time and everything that's happened with regard to his grace and
mercy toward us in eternity revolves around his sacrifice, revolves
around this substitution, this work of redemption. God, listen
to Acts 2.23, turn there with me if you'd like to. Acts 2.23, Abraham getting up early in the
morning and chopping that wood. We already see a gospel picture
in that. Acts 2, Him being delivered by
the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have taken and by
wicked hands have crucified and slain. He was delivered by the
Jews. No. He was killed by the Romans. No. He was delivered by the determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God. And because he was, you
took him and slew him. God, And everything, how did
God prepare for everything that's happened? He's been telling sinners
since the beginning what was gonna happen, and everything
that's happened before has led up to this fact, to this event,
this truth, this offering of Christ for His people. Everything
is in preparation for this. And then let's notice this, Abraham
and Isaac, They went up to the mountain together alone. There's
significance even in that. He told the servants, you stay
here. We have no part in it. The servants
don't have any part in it. This is business between the
father and the son. We stop right there. We benefit
from it. We rejoice in it. We worship
him for it. We'll praise him forever for
it by his grace. But we have no part in it. We're
not going up there with him. He went alone. Look at verse
five. When Abraham said unto his young men, abide ye here
with the ass and I and the lad will go yonder and worship and
come again to you. And Abraham took the wood of
the burnt offering and laid it upon Isaac his son. And he took
the fire in his hand and a knife. And they went both of them together.
And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, my father?
And he said, here am I, my son. And he said, behold, the fire
and the wood. But where is the lamb for a burnt
offering? They went up alone to worship, to worship, to honor
God. That's what happened on Calvary.
God was honored. His law, his mercy, his love,
everything, all of his attributes are exalted there and honored.
And redemption was the work of God alone. It was a transaction
that took place between God the Father and God the Son. 2 Corinthians 5.19 says, God
was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself. He did that. He reconciled you to himself
by the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. When the Lord Jesus
observed that last Passover with his disciples, there were 12
men with him. When he went to the garden of Gethsemane, there
were only 11, because Judas was off doing his business, wasn't
he? The Lord Jesus said, what you do, do quickly. And he went
and dated 11, went with him to Gethsemane. But when he went
to pray in the garden, there were only three. And often, those
three were with him in places where no one else went, Peter,
James, and John. But when our Lord Jesus Christ
went to Calvary, there was just him alone. Him alone. On the Mount of Transfiguration,
they saw him talking with Elijah and Moses. And Peter said, let's
build three altars. No, there won't be any need for
that. We only need three. Because as the Lord's face shone,
as his glory shone forth, it says that they looked and they
saw none save Jesus only. When Elijah and Moses were there,
they talked with him concerning the death that he should accomplish.
And that being discussed, The Lord alone was exalted. The Lord
alone was revealed to them as the one who accomplished that
death. And he did it by himself. He by himself purged our sins. And you notice in that passage
that we just read, Isaac laid the wood or Abraham laid the
wood upon Isaac's back and our Lord Jesus Christ bore his cross. After a while, you recall that
they took the cross and laid it on another. But our Lord bore
that cross. The wood wasn't the burden. Anyway,
he bore the wooden cross part of the way, but he bore the true
burden all the way. And the instruments of death
here are in whose hands. The father, the father. This world talks about who was
it, you know, and they argue about who was it that killed.
Isaiah said it pleased the Lord to bruise him. It pleased his
own father to put him to death. And then Isaac asked that question
in verse seven. My father and Abraham said, here am I, my son.
And he said, behold, the fire Abraham had some kind of a torch,
I imagine. And the wood, he'd gotten up
early and chopped the wood. But where's the lamb? Where's
the lamb? Isaac knew the gospel, didn't
he? He knew that God couldn't be worshiped without a sin offering. Abraham had said, me and the
lad are gonna go up and worship. And Isaac's saying, we can't
do that, we don't have a lamb. I wish everybody knew that, don't
you? You can't worship God without a lamb. I wish I knew that like I ought
to know. And then the answer in verse
eight, Abraham said, my son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering. And so
they went both of them together. What a picture of the Lord Jesus
Christ, the lamb of God, provided by God, provided for God. God
himself being provided as a lamb. Isn't that what's taught here?
All of these things are taught. It's a sacrifice for God. God
is the one who demanded this sacrifice to begin with, didn't
he? He said, Abraham, offer unto me. I require a sacrifice. Offer it. And so it's for God. He will provide for himself. I am. He's the one that requires
a burnt offering in the first place. And then it's a sacrifice
from God. He'll provide it. He'll provide
it. I'll tell you this, whatever
God requires from you, he'll have to provide. Isn't that right? You don't have anything for God,
but whatever he requires of you, he provides. And then the sacrifice
is himself God. He provides himself as a lamb. And John said, I saw him and
I saw one on the throne as and he was one as of a lamb without
blemish and without spot. He provides himself that John
also said he washed us from our sins in his own blood. He is
the sacrifice. He is the provision. He is the
lamb. He gave himself a ransom for
many. And they came in verse nine.
It says they came to the place. Sooner or later we're going to
come to the place, aren't we? God has purposed all things from
eternity now, and they can't be altered. His decrees are fixed,
and they shall come to pass, and they must come to pass. You're
gonna come to the place sooner or later, aren't you? God purposed
from eternity to save me, yeah, and you're gonna come to the
place one day where he's gonna save you. God purpose from all
eternity. The Lord Jesus is the lamb slain
from the foundation of the world. Yep. And one day he came to the
place called the place of a skull. And he offered himself for me
there in this world, in time, he offered himself for me there. And they came to the place which
God had told him of. And Abraham built an altar there.
and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac, his son, and laid
him up on the altar, up on the wood. And Abraham stretched
forth his hand and took the knife to slay his son. And Paul said in the New Testament
that he actually, in a figure, received him from the dead when
God stayed his hand because Isaac wasn't dead anywhere else, but
he was dead in the heart of Abraham. He was offered there. He was
a goner there because God required it. He built the altar. Abraham built the altar. He laid
the wood on it. He bound his son on that altar.
And Isaac apparently, and I've heard this preached many times,
it's apparent that Isaac willingly submitted. to this. Isaac was
a teenage boy, almost certainly, and Abraham was an old man. He'd
have had a hard time catching me, I'll tell you that, if he
was trying to tie me up and stab me with a knife. That's my daddy. He knows what
he's doing, doesn't he? He knows what he's doing. And Abraham stretched forth his
hand. And then in verse 11, the angel
of the Lord called unto him, out of heaven. I like those three words, don't
you? Out of heaven. If sinners are going to be saved, something's
going to have to happen out of heaven. The son of God is going
to have to come down out of heaven. The Lord Jesus said to Nicodemus,
you got to be born from above. That's what that word means.
Again, born again. It means born from above. You're
going to have to be born out of heaven. The son of God is
going to have to come down out of heaven. The decree is going
to have to go forth out of heaven. Spare him. I found a ransom. The angel of
the Lord called unto him out of heaven and said, Abraham,
Abraham. I'm not sure all the reasons
why he said his name twice, but I like it. Don't you? Abraham,
Abraham. And he said, here am I. That's
what he said in the beginning, wasn't it? When God said, Abraham,
here am I. Abraham, Abraham, here am I. And he said, lay not thine hand
upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him. Well, I like that too, don't
you? Not only are we not gonna have to die for our sins because
of our substitute, But we're not going to suffer anything
of God's wrath. Not one ounce, not one thing,
not one hair of our head will be harmed. He bore all of our
punishment, all of it. Don't do anything to Him, because
all of it's going to be done to somebody else. For now I know that thou fearest
God, seeing that thou hast not withheld thy son. thy only son from me. He that spared not his own son,
how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? God
hath not withheld even his only son from me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes
and looked, And behold, behind him, he just saw one thing, a ram. He didn't see the bush. He didn't see Isaac anymore.
He looked, he turned from him. He looked. And that look, that's faith,
isn't it? When they raised up that serpent of brass in the
wilderness, Moses raised it up by God's instruction and God
It's that everyone that looks will live. All through the scripture,
that's a picture of faith, looking to Christ, looking to the substitute,
looking to God's lamb, looking to God's salvation. Look unto
me and live. Look unto me and be ye saved. All the ends of the earth, God
said, look. And Abraham looked by faith. And when he looked, he saw a
ram, that's Christ, the innocent victim, the substitute for sinners. There's just one object in view.
When faith looks, there's just one sight, one thing to see,
one person. the Lord Jesus Christ. And then
it says he offered that ram in the stead of that substitution right there.
You want a definition of substitution? In the stead of. The Lord Jesus
Christ suffered the wrath of God, whatever that is. I don't
even know what that is. Do you? I don't even know what
that is. And I never will. I never will. Not by experience. But he suffered
the wrath of God in my stead. In my stead. That's substitution.
He offered him up in the stead of his son. And Abraham then
named that place. You can call it Mount Moriah,
but this place right here, he said, I'm gonna name it, and
this is what it's gonna be called from now on. It says in the scripture
that it's still called that to this day, but that place is called
that. He called it Jehovah-Jireh, verse
14. And Abraham called the name of
that place Jehovah-Jireh, as it is said to this day in the
Mount of the Lord, it shall be seen. Jehovah-Jireh means the
Lord, will provide. It means literally the Lord will
see to it. That's good. That's good language. The Lord will see to it. In order
to save you, God must have perfect obedience from you. Perfect. How can that be? I've already
messed that up. The Lord will see to it. He'll see to it. What would you have named this
place? If God had put you through what he just put Abraham, what
would you have named it? That's a pretty good name, isn't it?
The Lord will see to it. If God's gonna save you, he must
have a satisfactory sin offering from you. I got nothing to give. One of the prophets said, shall
I offer my only son unto you, Lord? The fruit, the offspring of my
bowels for the sins of my soul, would that be enough? No, that
won't do it. I don't have anything to offer.
That's all right, the Lord will see to it. He has seen to it. Abraham here
prophesied that he would, and he has, in that he died for me
on Calvary, on Moriah, whether it was the actual Moriah or not.
Spiritually speaking, the father and the son went up Mount Moriah
and an innocent victim was sacrificed in my place. The father slew
his son in my place, in my stead, instead of me. God will provide
himself a lamb. That's what happened on Calvary.
Why did he need a lamb to save me? That's why. In the stead
of me. That's why a lamb is required
because God has committed himself. He said, I will have mercy. I
will save my people. I will, I will, I will. That's his, that's the new covenant.
I will. And God's committed him to, he's going to save you. Then
he's going to have to provide the lamb. because you have nothing
to give. And when this whole work was
done, let's close with this. Look at verses 15 through 18. And the angel of the Lord called
unto Abraham out of heaven the second time and said, by myself
have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this
thing and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son. And he said this, verse 17, that
in blessing, I will bless you. We've heard that before, haven't
we? But here on Mount Moriah, God revealed to Abraham something
that he hadn't before. In more clarity than he had before. That's the right way to say it. With more clarity than he had
before. That this is how God's gonna bless you. This is how
God blesses anybody, by the sacrifice of his son. We have all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places. How? Where? In Christ. Because
of what he did on Calvary. Because of his sacrifice in the
stead of us, God blesses us. All of his promises, all of the
blessings that they imply, that they inform us of, are yes and
amen only in Christ. Christ crucified. This is how
God's blessing comes to us. He spared not His own Son, and
with Him, in Him, when He gave us His Son, He gave us all things,
freely. He freely gives us all things
in Christ. But notice what He said here,
in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply
thee. I'm gonna multiply your seed.
How's He gonna do it? In Isaac. Isaac, the son, the promised
son in Christ. Isaac pictures Christ there.
Isaac is exalted in this whole passage here, 16 through 18,
in that he will have a great multiplied seed, a great people,
a great family. And that prophecy is still being
fulfilled and his family is still being revealed in this world.
And then secondly, look at the last part. I will multiply thy
seed as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is upon
the seashore, and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies.
He's going to be a great victorious king. He's gonna rule over his
enemies. He'll triumph over his enemies
and he'll reign in spite of them. Psalm 2, God has set his king
upon his holy hill. And though all the kings of the
earth rage against him and defy him, God has established his
throne forever. He'll possess the gate of his
enemies. And then look at the rest of it. And in thy seed shall
all the nations of the earth be blessed. That's Isaac, and
spiritually speaking, our Isaac. the Lord Jesus Christ in him.
He is the source of all blessedness from God. People talk about the blessings
of the Lord and some people, even if you ask them how they're
doing, they'll say, I'm blessed. I'll tell you this, if you are,
it's in him. because of him, through him,
because of what he did, in Christ, in thy seed, not seeds, in thy
seed, shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. And how
blessed we are in him. All spiritual blessings. We got a lot of earthly blessings
too, but in comparison, they're not worth much talking about,
are they? all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ
Jesus, the promised seed. What a gospel. What a picture
here of that glorious gospel of his grace in Christ Jesus.
In the stead of sinners, he was sacrificed. Let's bow in prayer.