We're going to be looking primarily
at these verses here in Genesis chapter 29 verses 21 through
27 that I read a little earlier to you. But I want to make some
comments before we get into this lesson. In the early days of
the church, before the coming of Christ into this world, The
Holy Ghost inspired what we now call the Old Testament Scriptures. He inspired men to write. They wrote, Peter said, as they
were moved by the Holy Ghost, inspired of God. God breathed
a testimony from these men. And the Old Testament Scriptures
are referred to in Ephesians chapter 2. where Paul tells us
to remember. He said, you remember where you
came from. You're Gentiles. This thing didn't begin with
Gentiles. It began with Jews. You remember
that. You remember that you were strangers.
You remember that you didn't have any promises. You didn't
have that promised seed. You didn't have Christ. You were
without God in this world. And he goes through and he tells
them to remember Remember where God called you from. And in the Old Testament Scriptures,
He referred to them as the foundation of the prophets, of the prophets. You might want to turn over there
with me. I want to take my time tonight and kind of get us up
to speed on this thing of why I'm bringing to you these pictures
and these types and these things of the Old Testament and why
they're so important. In Ephesians 2, verse 14, after
telling them to remember, after telling them that they were in
this world without God, without this promise, without all of
these things, no covenants of promise, no nothing, just Gentiles. Then he begins to tell them the
good news. And in verse 14, he said, For
he, that is Christ, is our peace, who hath made both one and hath
broken down the middle wall of partition between us, having
abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments
contained in ordinances, for to make in himself of twain one
new man, so making peace, that he might reconcile both unto
God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby.
And He came and preached peace to you." That is Christ. He appeared. And in His appearing, and in
His ministry, and in His commandments to the apostles and their ministry,
He came and preached peace to you, which were far off to you
Gentiles, and to them also that were nigh, talking about the
Jews. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit unto
the Father. based on this purpose of grace
in Christ, to redeem a spiritual people, both Jew and Gentile. You see where he is coming from
here? Old Barnard used to say, when you see a therefore, stop
and see what it is therefore. And that is what he is talking
about. He is telling us to go back now, based on everything
that I have said about Jew and Gentile. And this dispensation
of your calling, and how that He came and preached peace to
you that were afar off. He didn't just preach to the
Jews, He preached to the Gentiles. And He called you that were afar
off. Now, He said, you are no more strangers and foreigners,
but fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of
God, and are built, now watch this, upon the foundation of
the apostles and prophets. Jesus Christ himself being the
chief cornerstone. Now, in this statement, Paul
gives us a threefold basis for this revelation of faith that
we have. Why should we, who are Gentiles,
who as he said, were in this world without God, who had...
I can't go back to the Old Testament and look in there and see these
things. It's just not there. He speaks to the Jew. So what
basis do I have of this hope? I'm reaching back here and claiming
these promises that were given to Jews. I'm reaching back here
and claiming these promises of love and promises of keeping
and promises of the coming Redeemer and promises of eternal life
and revelation and blessings and all these things. I'm going
back here and claiming these. But I'm not a Jew. I'm not a
Jew. So I must have a basis for this. A basis. And he gives us a three-fold
basis for this revelation of faith. And the first thing he
says is the foundation of the apostles. It's through these
apostles. It's through this very scripture
I just read to you here in Ephesians chapter 2. And I can take you
to various other scriptures in the book of Acts and in the four
gospels and many places I can take you and show you. where
those apostles point back to those pictures, back to those
types, and refer to them and say, and bring them over here
and make their application into the New Testament. The second
part of this foundation is the prophets. The apostles had nothing
to preach apart from the, when they said it was according to
the scriptures, they're talking about the Old Testament. There
was no New Testament in these days. They were the New Testament.
So anytime when you're reading through the book of Acts and
it's talking about according to the Scriptures or in the four
Gospels and he said that the Scriptures might be fulfilled,
he's talking about the Old Testament Scriptures. These letters and
things that Paul and Peter and these men wrote, that is the
New Testament and the testimonies of the four Gospels. And then
he says Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone.
He is the chief revelation, the chief basis of this hope, both
Old Testament and new. If you miss Christ in the Old
Testament, you missed the Old Testament altogether. You just
missed it. And it's by the New Testament
revelation of Christ that the Old Testament scriptures are
understood and applied. And both Old and New Testament
scriptures are revealed in the person and work of Christ. And
I urge you, when you get time, read Acts chapter 10, where Cornelius
is called of God to go down and talk to Peter and preach to Peter.
And then Peter receives this dream of all that forbidden meat
for him to eat, talking about God's making this application
to the Gentiles and his preaching and so on. But at the end of
all this, here's what he says there in Acts chapter 10. Peter
stands up and he says to him, give all the prophets. All the
Old Testament prophets to Him, give all the prophets witness. Well, what did they have to say?
That through His name, whosoever believeth in Him shall receive
remission of sins. That's the message of the Old
Testament Scriptures. And then, having said these things,
and while He was yet speaking, it says, the Holy Ghost fell
on all them that heard the Word. And they of the circumcision
which believed, that is, believing Jews, were astonished. And as many as came with Peter,
because that on the Gentiles, on the Gentiles also was poured
out the gift of the Holy Ghost. Now, to the Jews who despised
and rejected Christ, Stephen said this, he said, You stiff-necked
and uncircumcised of heart and ears, you do always reject, resist
the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you.
And you put them to death, and you are they which have slain
them that showed before the coming. of the just one. Our hope is
not a baseless. This is what I want you to see.
It's not some baseless sentimental hope based on emotion and circumstance
and experience. That's not what faith is. Faith
has a basis. And the basis of it is the revelation
of Christ that it finds. And we build on that foundation.
It doesn't come all at once. It comes in bits and parts and
pieces, here little and there little, as how the Scripture
says. Comparing spiritual things with spiritual. And we take these
New Testament revelations and we go back here and we see the
pictures. We see the pictures. We're built upon the foundation
of the Word of God and an understanding of the testimony of God's messengers
of grace. And any and all religion that's
not based upon this book is nothing more than superstition and idolatry. That's all it is. Don't raise
it up and put it on a pedestal. You don't have to have... I don't
respect it whatsoever. I spit on it. Spit on it. It's nothing in the world but
superstition and idolatry. And that's the way I'm going
to describe it. Having seen their religious shrines and their statues
with their devotions, Paul tells the Athenians that they were
altogether too superstitious. That word means imaginary religion. That's what it means. A religion
based on conjecture and rumor and tradition, a religion based
on man's testimony alone. But the Word of God says faith
cometh by hearing by the Word of God. any man who stands and
preaches, and I believe in the necessity of preaching. You go
wherever you want to go, but I believe that this book teaches
the necessity of hearing the gospel preached. How can I hear
it? Well, you can hear it in books,
you can hear it in CDs, you can hear it in DVDs, you can hear
it from the pulpit, but you have to hear. You have to hear. You're
not going to take this book and sit down and figure it out. It
ain't going to happen. It just ain't going to happen.
That's my opinion. This man, if he's God's preacher,
he does not preach contrary to this book. Everything he says
has a basis, and that basis is this book. I've got no other
basis. I can't stand up here and tell
you, well, 95% of the people believe that, and that's why
I preach. I can't say that. 95% of it say I'm wrong. So a man of God has nothing to
teach or preach that he cannot find a basis for in the Word
of God. Now, having said that, I want
you to see this, that in the days before the coming of Christ
and the apostles, in the days before the great revelation of
God in Christ, His appearing, His work, His death on the cross,
His resurrection, His ascension into glory, John said, we are
witnesses of these things. We have seen these things. Our
hands have handled, our eyes have seen. We are witnesses of
these things. But God was pleased to lay a
foundation by His prophets that were partly declaration and they
were partly pictures and types. The New Testament gives life
and reason to the revelation of these Old Testament pictures.
You take the high priest of Israel, just for example. I'm trying
to move through this as fast as I can. In Hebrews chapter
8 and verse 3, he said, For every high priest is ordained to offer
gifts and sacrifices. Wherefore it is necessity that
Christ have some what to offer. Because that's what that Old
Testament priest stood for. That's what they were there for,
so he must have something to offer. That's what that picture
teaches us. For if we were on earth, he should not be a priest,
seeing that there are priests that offer gifts according to
the law. There's already priests, now listen, who serve unto the
example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished
of God when he was about to build the tabernacle. For see, saith
he, that thou make all things according to the pattern that
I showed you on the mountain. What I showed you on the mount
was a pattern. It's an important pattern because
it lays a foundation for how God will save sinners. There's
going to have to be a substitution. There's going to have to be a
priesthood. There's going to have to be a high priest to offer
these things unto God. He's got to be sanctified and
set apart from the people, chosen of God. All these things have
to be. They have to be. So you be careful
when you build that tabernacle. Don't you add one thing to it.
Don't you leave one thing out. You be careful. And you build
it exactly according to that pattern. In Hebrews chapter 9,
Paul is speaking again of those Old Testament pictures. Speaking
of that tabernacle, he said it was a figure for the time then
present. And it stood in meats and drinks
and various washings and carnal ordinances imposed on them until
the time of reformation. Hebrews 9.24 speaks of the Holy
of Holies as a figure of the truth. And then in verse 23,
as patterns of things in the heavens. And then in chapter
10 of Hebrews, the Apostle refers to the whole ceremonial law of
Israel as a shadow of good things to come. By clear declaration,
the truth was declared to men in the Old Testament. Then by
pattern and type, it was set forth in a picture and example. That's what these apostles teach
us. That's why I read these things to you tonight. I don't want
you to think that I go home and open my Bible and then just start
dreaming up pictures. I don't do that. I have a reason
and a basis for saying the things that I say to you. And I say
these things because the plain declaration of the New Testament
tells me what these pictures are all about. But it takes time
to see them. It takes time. You're not going
to open that Old Testament up and read through there and see
all these things. I've been looking at them for 30 some years. And
I just see a little bit. I'd be shocked out of my shoes
if somebody in here just read through the Old Testament and,
well, I know what this is, and just start detailing out a picture.
I'd be, wouldn't you? I'd be shocked. Now, let me go one more step.
These patterns and types were not limited to the ceremonial
law and the priesthood. But even their persons and their
lives and the lives of their children served as allegories
and types and pictures. Can I make good on that? Well,
the Bible teaches us that Ishmael and Isaac stood for two covenants.
I've read that to you almost every week for the last three
or four lessons that we've had. I've read to you and showed you
where he talks about Isaac and Ishmael. stood as the natural
Jew whose holy place was Jerusalem and was geographically joined
to Mount Sinai in Arabia. Those things stood for that covenant. They stood for that joining together
of law that could never produce the promised heir. And then Sarah, think about that,
stood as a symbol of God's true church, the free woman whose
holy place is the heavenly Jerusalem. and the spiritual kingdom and
her blessings were based on the promises of God, not on her own
abilities. And I said that to say this. I find in the wives of these
Old Testament patriarchs something that I've never considered before.
In the wives of these Old Testament patriarchs is a progressive revelation
of the church as God sets her forth in time. I've just never
seen it before. It clears the belt to me now.
In Sarah, I see the church receiving the promise of the blessed son.
Isn't that how it began? The woman's seed. Back before
Abraham was called, the woman's seed. Even when Abraham was called,
The promises were to Abraham and his seed. Isn't that what
it said? So I find there in Sarah, I find that the church is going
to be raised up based on one son. One son. In Rebekah, God
reveals His church as chosen of God in eternal election. He
takes us another step. This church is not by chance.
It's not based on blood. It's not based on who your father
was and what his relationship was to Abraham. That's not how
it's going to be. God's going to take and choose
a people before they do any good or any evil. It's going to be
an election of grace. And if works enters into it in
any way, shape, or form, then it's no longer of grace, it's
of works. It teaches us Romans chapter 11. And applies it. Applies it to Israel. Applies
it. Be no doubt as to those two women
and their sons and what they both represented plainly declared
in Romans chapter 9. In Isaac shall thy seed be called. And then upon the declaration
of God's election of Jacob. Jacob have I loved, Esau have
I hated. Before they were ever born, having
neither done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according
to election might stand, it was said unto her, the elder is going
to serve the younger. That's the way it's going to
be. Here's Paul's conclusion. He said, if that's the way it's
going to be, and it is, then it's not of him that willeth,
and it's not of him that runneth, it's of God that showeth mercy.
So then, by those two women, God teaches us that true Israel
will be raised up out of a single son. To Abraham and his seed
were the promises made. And true Israel will be chosen
of God according to an election of grace, not based on anything
that they might do. It says in Romans 11, verse 7,
"...an election obtained it, and the rest were blinded." Boy,
that's hard, ain't it? That's the way it is. Now tonight, I want you to see
this. Jacob, whose name God changes
to Israel. So when I'm talking about Israel
tonight, I'm talking about Jacob and what Jacob stood for. You
just think of Jacob as God's true Israel. That's what God
called him. That's what he set him aside
to represent. Your name is not going to be Jacob anymore. It's
going to be Israel, the prince. Israel the prince. And through
this man God produces the 12 tribes of Israel. Now I challenge you, you go through
the scriptures and from this point forward, from I believe
it's Genesis chapter 35 where he gives us a succession of these
tribes, these sons and who their mothers were and so on. From
that point, you go forward in the scripture all the way through
the book of Revelation. You'll always find these 12 tribes
associated with true Israel. When he wants to make known his
people, he calls them Israel. Israel. All the way through.
Israel. Israel. In that vision he gave to John,
I believe it's in Revelation chapter 7, he first shows him
the 144,000, 12,000 from each tribe, and takes these sons one
at a time, gives their name. There are 12,000 under that tribe,
12,000 under this tribe, 12,000 under... And then immediately
following, he shows you spiritual Israel, which was inclusive of
those 144,000. Talking about the same thing,
talking about spiritual Israel, these two won, just like I read
to you out of Ephesians chapter 2 at the beginning. He takes
these two and shows you true Israel, a number that no man
can number. Same people, same people. Jacob was a third generation
of the patriarchs of Israel, chosen son of Rebekah and Isaac. And according to the instruction
of his father and mother, And because of an act of God's providence
in Esau's hatred for him, Jacob goes back to the land of his
father's to take a bride for himself. Something interesting here. Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob all have brides from the same family, all descendants
of the same father. Doesn't that show us that God
came into this world to save sinners? That's what Abraham
was. That's what his father was, an
idolater, a pagan. And so he keeps sending them
back. He said, why would he want to send them back? I thought
to myself, well, what's so special about that house compared to
where he was at? These were sinners just the same.
He sent them back to these pagans, back to this house. Why did he?
Because of what it pictures. That's why. Because of what it
pictures. God will have his bride called out of paganism. They're
sinners. They're chief of sinners. Faithful
saying, worthy of all acceptation, Christ Jesus came into this world
to save sinners. What a beautiful picture, how
Christ comes and saves sinners out of this world. Takes a bride
out of paganism and idolatry, and then takes her back to that
promised kingdom of God. Jacob leaves Bethel, Bethel's
the house of God, and goes into this land of idolatry and darkness,
and there he meets up with Rachel, his beloved. And upon learning
who she is, he greets her with a kiss, tells her who he is. I'm Jacob. Your father is my
mother's brother. And they hug and they kiss, and
Rachel runs back and tells her father about him. But to make
a long story short, Jacob tells Laban while he's there, I'm here
to take a bride. I'm here to take a bride. And
Laban's agreeable to that. And she has to be purchased.
She has to be worked for. So he serves Laban for seven
years. Seven years. And this was the covenant. This
was the agreement. When the years were served, Jacob
went into the bride chamber. They've been brought unto him
his oldest daughter Leah, but in the darkness he didn't understand
who it was until the sun come up. Ain't that what you got out
of that? When the sun come up, he woke up with the ugly sister
and he was mad. This is not Rachel. The scriptures go to great length
to tell you about the beauty of Rachel. She was well favored. She was beautiful. All it says
about Leah was she's tender-eyed. So I'm going to call her the
ugly sister. And he woke up, and in his mind
and heart, he gave himself to his true love. And he woke up,
and it wasn't who he thought it was. It was the ugly sister.
And he was mad. Boy, he'd run up there to Laban,
and he said, you beguiled me. Why would you do this? Our agreement
was for Rachel. I worked seven years, just like
I told you I would. And now I wake up with her, and
I've given myself to her, and now she's my wife. She's my wife. He was upset. He was upset. So Laban pleads ignorance of
the law. He said, you don't understand
the law. You don't understand the tradition.
You see, by tradition, I can't give you Rachel first. I have
to give you Leah first. And then I'll give you Rachel.
But you got to serve seven more years. The firstborn must first
be John, and then the younger sister. And so Jacob served another
seven years for Rachel. Now, there was given unto Leah
a handmaid whose name was Zilpah, and to Rachel also a handmaid,
Bilhah. And in Genesis 35, verses 23
through 26, it says, All twelve of the sons of Jacob Or as they've
become known throughout the rest of history and throughout the
Old Testament, the children of Israel. And everywhere throughout
the Scriptures, including the book of Revelations, they're
identified as the children of God and of true Israel. Now Leah
had six sons. The ugly sister had six sons. Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah,
Issachar and Zebulun. Judah, the scepter shall not
depart from Judah till Shiloh come. That's the Messianic tribe. Levi, this is the priesthood. This is the tribe from which
the priests come. These are notable sons that's
coming out of the ugly sister. And then Her handmaid had two
children. She had Gad and Aser. And then
Rachel had only two children. She had Joseph and Benjamin.
Joseph became the one who was known for the preservation of
Israel. He went down into Egypt. He was
sold out. Down into Egypt. And then become
the preservation of all Israel. And then she died giving birth
to Benjamin. Now we might work on that another
time. I'm not going to get into that tonight. And then she had
a handmaid. Her name was Bilha that had two
sons also, Dan and Nephthala. And these made up the whole twelve
tribes of Israel. Now what I see in these two women,
these two wives, is the church in a progressive revelation.
Now let me see if I can make good on this. I see Rachel as
Israel, as old Israel. You see, this is where the Lord
first, this is where He first revealed His love was to Israel.
We don't, we don't, for a beginning, I can't begin in the New Testament,
I've got to go back here to Israel. And I go back here, and here's
the beginning. Here's where they meet. Here's
where God comes and reveals Himself to men. And He does so, and He
gathers these people together, and He gives us the first really
true assembled view of His church. And so I see this in Rachel.
This is who Israel first saw. He came there looking for his
bride, and he seen Rachel, and she was beautiful. Beautiful. She caught his eye right off
the bat. She was well favored. She was beautiful. And then this
faith, it labors hard. This faith labors hard for this
bride. It wants to be. We want that. Ain't that what you wanted when
you first got into religion? Didn't it appear beautiful to
you? Ain't that what you strived for? I want this. I want this
holiness. I want this keeping of the law. I want these covenant promises.
I want this. All of these things that Israel
seemed to enjoy in the Old Testament, ain't that what you wanted? And
you came, and you worked, and you worked. But you woke up with
the ugly sister. You woke up with the ugly sister. And that's what happened. In
the process of time, God revealed who His church really was. He
revealed that His church in the Gentiles, the purpose of God
is the purpose of grace, and the purpose of grace is to come
where sin abounded. And it abounded in the Gentiles.
This was always God's purpose, but it was His purpose in a mystery.
And Paul said, in these last days He's made known unto us
the mystery of the Gentiles. This Gentile church. And this
Gentile church was despised of Israel, was it not? They hated
her. They didn't want any part of
it. They put them to death. They denied them any part of
it. Why? Called of God. You're Gentile. You're Gentile dogs. They despised
her. Same way Israel did. Now I read
a lot of the old writers and the old writers said that When
it said that Leah was hated over in Genesis 29, I read to you
there a while ago, where it says, because Leah was hated, what
that meant was that she wasn't loved as much. That's not what
it says. What it says was, she was hated.
She was hated. He accused Laban of beguiling
him. He didn't want any part of Leah. He didn't want any part
of her. And because she was despised,
God opened her womb, and she begat more children than the
other three wives put together. She had six children, and her
handmaid had two. I see in Rachel old Israel. The
first revelation of God's love to a people gathered out of idolatry
and paganism, described in Ezekiel 16 as unwanted baby, one tossed
aside, unwashed, unloved, unwanted, forsaken, scattered in the desert
of humanity, ignored by all the passers-by, lying there in their
filth and their blood. And the Lord saw her and He said
it was a time of love and He washed her in pure water. and
clothed her in embroidered work and fine linen, and caused her
to mature into being desirable. She was desirable because of
His comeliness. Her beauty, her renown went out
into all the world. That's old Israel. Old Israel. And old Israel, when this time
came, when this time of the marriage, this time when the bridegroom
came, the coming of Christ, when He appeared, when He appeared,
old Israel looked at the Gentiles and looked at what was being
revealed and despised her. They despised her. That's that fullness of time
when Christ comes. Israel was not happy about it.
He felt beguiled. He felt deceived. He felt misused
and misunderstood. Israel hated Leah. Leah, their
ugly sister. She was despised. Rachel had only two sons in her
life, Joseph and Benjamin. And she died giving birth to
Benjamin. As not the church as she was
represented in Leah, I mean in Rachel, didn't that church die? Didn't old Israel die? at the
coming of Christ. Didn't they fall away? Didn't
that understanding and revelation and that beauty of self-righteousness
and ceremonial legalism and all that stuff, did it not die when
Christ appeared? It died. But Leah, hated of natural Israel,
despised inner paganism and sinnerhood, looked down the nose at by the
high council and the high priest and the Pharisee, Oh, how Israel
hated the Gentile church. And because she was so despised
and mocked, God opened her womb, and she supplied half, half of
the children of Israel. Now turn with me to Ruth chapter
4. I want you to take this story
and develop it. Go through here and read these
several chapters where it talks about Jacob and his two wives,
and all of these things, and see if what I'm telling you is
not so. But look here in Ruth chapter 4. Now, in the story
of Ruth, Boaz, her kinsman-redeemer, confronted another near kinsman
who had the right to redeem before him. And he said to him, if you
can redeem her, then do it now. Do it now, if you're going to
do it. He said, all right, I'm going to do it. And he said,
you better know this. When you redeem Naomi, you're
going to get Ruth, too, the Moabitess. You're going to get the Gentile
bride. He said, I don't want that. I don't want that. I'll
mar my own inheritance. He said, I can't do that. I can't
do that. He said, well, you get out of
the way. You get out of the way. I'll redeem her. And he did. And he redeemed both Naomi, the
Jew, and Ruth, the Moabitess, the wife of her son, the same
day. Redeemed them both. So Naomi
the Jew and Ruth the Moabite were redeemed by Boaz. Now listen to what the people
said about this redemption. Ruth chapter 4 verse 11. And all the people that were
in the gate and the elders said, we are witnesses. The Lord make
the woman that has come unto thine house like Rachel and Leah,
huh? Like Rachel and Leah, which two
did build the whole house of Israel. Isn't that pretty? That's
beautiful. That shows us that God had a
people. At one time, they were Jews within
the Jews. There was a true Israel within
the natural Israel. And they produced children. They
produced children the same as we produce children in the Church
of the Living God today, the same way. These two both had
handmaids. What's a handmaid but a minister?
It's a maid given to them to minister to that daughter. And
they both had handmaids. They both produced equally. They
produced children, didn't they? There was ministers of the true
gospel under that old Jewish dispensation. There were ministers
of the gospel under the new dispensation. They both produced children.
You see that? This is a beautiful picture here
of these two. So let this bride be, let this
Moabitess Gentile be like Leah and Rachel. Faith rests itself upon the testimony
of the prophets whose pictures are of Rachel and the love of
God revealed to her and upon the foundation of the apostles
which reveal to us the true Israel of God made up of both Rachel
and Leah's children. Even in Rachel, Paul said, there's
a remnant according to the election of grace. But in her hated sister,
see how the grace of God abounds. It just abounds. And these handmaids,
these ministers, ministers. Well, the whole of the matter
then is this. that the gospel's always been
the way of faith, but the revelation has increased over time. If you
just sat down in the book of Genesis and you didn't know another
scripture in the Bible, and you read what God said to them in
the garden, the woman seed, you wouldn't have a clue what in
the world he was talking about, would you? But he built upon
that promise. And He expanded that promise,
and He exampled that promise. And you go to Abel's offering,
you go to Enoch's walk, you go all down through the Old Testament,
and you see that revelation increase and increase and increase. And
it's in all these things. I just see it in a few things.
It's in everything. Everything that's back there.
Creation itself. Every little worm that wiggles
and bird that flies. It's a picture somehow of this
redemptive work of Christ and His church. And in eternity,
to me, that's what we're going to be doing. We're going to be
singing His praise as these things are made known to us. And we're
going to see them. And we're going to know as we
are known. We're going to see this glory and see this beauty
and all these living things. We're going to sing praise to
Him. But I tell you, I find hope in this. I find hope in the ugly
sister. I can identify with the ugly
sister, can't you? I can identify with Rachel and
her beauty and all those things. And then there's another whole
application to this thing that you could talk about, and that's
the experience of faith. When faith comes, you've got
the same thing. A man thinks he's going to have
this, and it's beautiful to him, and it's attractive to him, and
all these Thine glass windows and all these churches and cathedrals
and the whole setup is attractive to him and he goes to it and
he wants that and he gets down there and he finds out there's
nothing to it. There's nothing to it. But the real work of grace
is in the ugly sister. It's in Leah. Father, use these things. Teach
us the way of grace. My soul, how we run off after
these little things that appear beautiful to these eyes, and
we run after them. And we find, have pride in them,
swell all up because of them, get angry and upset. Teach us
to remember that we're redeemed by grace. And it's by mercy,
not by our will, not by our works and our wants, but the mercy
of the sovereign God, by grace. Use this message now for thy
name's honor and glory. We ask you for Christ's sake.
Amen.