We're going to be looking tonight
at Genesis chapter 25. In Genesis 25 is recorded the
last days of Abraham, who's called in the scriptures the father
of all them that believe. But before we get into our study
back here in Genesis 25, if you want to just put a bookmark there,
I want you to turn with me to 1 Peter chapter 1. I've been trying as we go through
these studies on Abraham to take you over into the New Testament
and show you not just by my word alone, but by the scriptures. that these things happened unto
them for our admonition. They happened unto them not only
for our example, but these things illustrated and set forth the
death of Christ and set forth faith and the things that we
preach in the Gospel. In 1 Peter 1, look here at verse
9. Receiving the end of your faith,
even the salvation of your soul. of which salvation the prophets
had inquired, and searched diligently who prophesied of the grace that
should come unto you, searching what or what manner of time the
Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify when it testified
beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should
follow." These old men, when they When God gave them these
revelations and they pinned these things down, it troubled their
soul. They wondered. They looked at
these things and wondered about what time or what is he talking
about here. The angels, same thing, which
things the angels desire to look into. They searched water, what
manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did
signify when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and
the glory that should follow." Now watch this. "'Unto whom it
was revealed that not unto themselves but unto us they did minister
the things which are now reported unto you by them that have preached
the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven.
which things the angels desire to look into. Wherefore, gird
up the loins of your mind, be sober, that is, pay attention,
and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you
at the revelation of Jesus Christ." God the Holy Spirit inspired
these men as they wrote, and not only inspired them to write
it, but revealed to their heart that it wasn't for them. But
there was an age to come, a gospel age. And when that gospel came,
these things would be brought into light. Those who sat in
darkness would receive great light. And Christ, who began
to tell us these things, take of this Old Testament and tell
us these things and open them like a... He said a good scribe
is one who takes from old things in the new, and He opens them
up that you might see. And I want to focus tonight,
back here in Genesis 25, on a single verse of Scripture. If you look
at Genesis chapter 25, verse 5, Abraham's nearing his last
days. He's had concubines and wives
and children, and he's had trials and troubles and journeys, and
now he's come down to the end of his days. And it says here
in Genesis 25, 5, And Abraham gave all that he had unto Isaac. Now to his other sons, it tells
us in the next verse, and concubines he gave gifts and sent them away. Separated him from his son. He
gave him things, but not like he did to Isaac. He considered
him as sons, but not like he did Isaac. He called Isaac, even
though he had children, he called Isaac his only begotten son.
And so did God in his work. He gave him gifts and sent him
away. That is, he separated him. He didn't treat him the same
as he did Isaac. To Isaac he gave the lion's share. Now, to understand a scripture
like this, I need to have some knowledge of what happened in
the beginning. You can't just come down to the
end of something and understand without having some knowledge
about what took place at the beginning. I need to have some
knowledge of what happened in the beginning. I have to have
at least a little bit about what took place in the middle and
know a little bit of something about his walk through this world.
You can't come down to the end of a man's life and just take
a single event in his life and then say, well, I know what he's
about. No, you don't near about know what he's about. You have
to view this thing in the scope of his whole life. And this is
the man of faith. This is the point I've been trying
to press home to you. I've just repetition, repetition,
repetition. And we're so dull of hearing,
that's what it takes. Repetition, repetition. I've
been hearing it all my life. I still don't hear it the way
I need to. Faith is illustrated not in a
single event in Abraham's life. It's illustrated by his whole
life. His whole life, from his calling
to when they laid him in the tomb. Faith. It's pictured all
through this man's life. We've got to know a little bit
about what happened in the beginning. And the reason I believe why
men and women are so confused when it comes to gospel truth
is that they have no real knowledge about what took place in the
beginning. They're running the race, but they weren't back at
the starting block. They're like that fella that
ran to David with the message, and when David got there, he
said, what's the news? And he said, well, I don't know.
And he said, well, you go stand over there. We'll wait on the
next guy. He'll have the news. He was fast,
but he didn't know anything. And you talk to men today about
the gospel, and they're quick to say things, but they don't
know anything. You start talking about the beginning of things,
and God's eternal purpose, and God's counsels, and God's predestination,
and God's election, and they just look at you like you're
from another planet. They don't know the beginning.
And they don't know what happened in the middle. They just started
from whatever they heard. Whatever they heard. I believe
that's why men and women are so confused. They don't know
what took place in the beginning and what took place in between. The average religionist has never
even considered salvation to be the eternal purpose of God.
When the things of salvation are viewed in an eternal light,
they take on a whole different character, don't they? Everything
that I thought about salvation, everything that I ever conceived
in my heart about salvation was in walking down that aisle to
a mourner's bench because that's all I knew. Everything I knew
about God, it revolved around that, up and down that aisle
because that's all I'd ever heard. That's all I'd ever heard. I heard men talk about accepting
Jesus and things like that and God loving all men and God in
a general fashion, God's judgment in a general fashion. I heard
those things, but I didn't have any sense about what that was
about. Judgment don't mean anything
if you don't know anything about the character of the judge. But
I tell you, you might have just been guilty of being in the wrong
place at the wrong time, but if you come up before old Judge
Roy Bing, you're going to get hung. It didn't make no difference. He's the hanging judge. You see
what I'm saying? We're talking about judgment
and men talking about leniency and all this type of thing because
they don't know anything at all about the character of God. And listen, I'm not saying that
a man needs to be a catechized Calvinist to be saved, but he
must know something. He's got to know something about
the true character of God and of Christ, who was sin of God,
because all that we know of God we know through the Son. We know
through the Son. And there is, according to the
Scriptures, another Jesus, another Gospel, and another Spirit. Paul
is very clear in Galatians 1 concerning the Gospel. He said, If we, an
angel from heaven, preach any other Gospel than that which
we have preached unto you already, Let that man be accursed. That
is, count him as an accursed man. Don't listen to him. Don't
listen to him. Treat him as a man cursed of
God. I'm not to reverence men because they wear a collar around
backwards, or they've got clergy on their license plate, or I
see them in a special gown down at the hospital. I'm not to reverence
these men because of that. I had one came up to the fence
at the house. I wasn't out there today, but
Kathy was. And he's trying to recruit a bunch of kids to come
down there to the church and do some things. And she said,
I don't think so. He said, well, you really need
to consider this now. He said, this is a church activity. And he was wanting that reverence
that's attached to the gospel and the things of God. I'm not
to reverence these kind of people. If I'd been there, I'd have sent
him on his way. And that's pretty much what she did. I'm not to reverence men because
of these things, but how do I recognize those chosen men of God? By the
gospel they preach. I don't want to know how many...
I don't want something out there on the sign that says 20 souls
were saved last week, or that I've got a guy coming in here
to preach prophecy. If you want to know my association
with God, you just need to come. I'm not going to give you a test.
I'm not going to push you up in the corner and cross-examine
you. Just come and sit down and listen. Listen to what I preach. If I'm not preaching His gospel,
disregard me and go out the door. But if I preach His gospel, then
you need to listen. You need to listen. They're known
by the gospel they preach. I want to give you five things
tonight that brought this man Abraham to give everything he
had to Isaac. Now, I want to remind you first
of all and remind myself of his beginning. Back in the beginning, back when
Abraham was called out, before that took place, you remember
in our study I talked to you about a man named Nimrod. He
was a mighty hunter before God. Nimrod, I believe, to be one
of the giants of the land, a giant man in stature, intimidation. These men conquered and held
back cities and built cities and conquered and ruled over
men. He was a mighty man, a mighty man of valor, a hunter, a man's
man. He was a big man, intimidating
man. And the concept of that day,
was that they could build a tower that God was approachable by
man. And if man would get together,
just get together, just quit feuding and fighting and fussing
over and dividing over this, that, and the next thing. Everybody
just come together. They could build a tower. And
by this tower, they could climb right up into heaven itself.
And so they all got together. And they started making bricks,
and they started building this big tower. And God sent them
confusion of tongues. God wouldn't have. You can't
reach heaven by building a brick tower. That wasn't His purpose
in doing this. It was to take this way, this
way of the flesh and this way of men, and put it in its proper
light and cause those men to understand it. It was just to
break it down, to show them that they could not be done. And so
He sent them confusion of tongues, and He sent them away. And they
divided. But there was a great city that
came up where that tower is built, the city of Babel. And that was
the first of Nimrod's, of his kingdom, you read back, was the
kingdom of Babylon. And then from there he reached
out and he took in many kingdoms. He was a great man, this man
Nimrod. And his religion and his ideas
and his power and his dominion, that Babylon stands forever as
a picture of false religion. So here's Nimrod's religion,
this religion of the, call him the evil king, whatever you want
to call him. To me, he's a picture of Satan, and Babylon's a picture
of religion. And here he is. And so the religion
is pretty much just taking root all over that whole country.
Well, that's where God found Abraham, right in the middle
of that mess. His daddy built idols. That's
what he did. He built idols. God called him
out. of his daddy's house. He called
him out of that idolatry, called him out of that religion, this
world's religion. Old Nimrod, the religion of this
world. Out of the confusion of idolatry
and self-righteous works religion, God called this man named Abraham. And in contrast to self-righteous
works religion, God would establish now true faith. And He's going
to do it in this man. He's going to do it in this man.
And salvation through a chosen substitute. And to this end,
God called Abraham out. It always begins, true faith
always begins with the calling of God. Men aren't chasing after
God. They're not seeking after God.
They're not looking for God. God finds you. He finds you. Where does He find you? In idolatry.
Where does He find you? He finds you in this world. How
does He do it? I don't know. I don't know. But
I know He does it. I know He does it. In all likelihood, this old man,
he was a giant of a man. But old Abraham, here he was,
now down in this house of idolatry. down in his father's house, inheriting
that idolatry, inheriting that traditional religion from his
father, and God called him out. It always begins with the calling
of God. Listen to this Scripture. God
has saved us and called us. It seems like that would be the
other way around, don't it? Looking at it from my point of view,
it is. But looking at it through God's eyes, it's not. God saved
us in His eternal counsel. He saved us in a covenant of
grace. He saved us by His own oath,
saved us in His purpose. God has saved us and called us
with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to
His own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus
before the world began. What is this calling? Well, it
is the knowledge that what I am and where I am and everybody
around me is nothing. That's what this calling is.
That's where it begins. That's where it begins. God called
this man out. And he began to talk to him about
blessings. He began to hear things about
blessings. And he started looking within
and looking in his father's house and listening to what God said.
And he said, I don't have anything. I don't have anything but this
servant that was born in mine. I don't have a seed. I don't
have an heir. Everything you're talking about
requires an heir. I don't have an heir. I don't
have an heir. That's the first thing a lost
man discovers. Everything God has purposed to
do, He's going to do it in an heir. A promised heir. He promised that heir from the
garden. He established that heir on every
blood sacrifice, every altar in the Old Testament. This heir,
I'm going to raise me up an heir. I read it to you in Hebrews chapter
1. He spoke to us through our fathers,
but now he's speaking through us through his son, whom he hath
appointed heir, by which he made the world. Everything,
everything that came to be in time came to be because of that
heir, that heir. And old Abraham said, I don't
have anything but a servant. And that's where we start. A
servant of God stands up to preach, and he begins to tell you these
things of God, and begins to show you these eternal counsels,
and election, and predestination, and power, and new birth, and
all these things. And the first thing comes in
your mind, how am I going to? He can't do it. That man speaking
to me can't do it, and I can't do it. There must be another
one involved somewhere. Christ. God shut him up to a promised
Redeemer. That's what that call is all
about. It must be another errand. So God
says to Abraham, at a set time, He said... I love that verse. When God does something, He does
it at a set time. When the fullness of time was
come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the
law. When? When the fullness of the
time was come. They would have taken stones
and stoned him. They would have thrown him off
the cliff. But his time was not yet. It wasn't yet. At this set time, God told Abraham,
I'll come and Sarah is going to have a son. And in Isaac shall
thy seed be called. In Isaac shall all the nations
in the world be blessed. All the families and all the
nations I looked up that word Isaac. I'm just interested to
know what it might mean. It means both to laugh with joy. You remember Sarah laughed in
the tent. And she kind of laughed to scorn
that day, but she laughed again. And the second time she laughed
was with joy. And that's what this name Isaac
means. It means to laugh with joy and to laugh with scorn,
both. They'll laugh to scorn Him as
He hangs on that cross, but they'll laugh with joy who receive Him. Faith perceives the necessity
of the promised Son. All the blessings are dependent
upon Him. His coming is the promise of
God, the very focal point of His promise. His coming is at
a set time, God's time, the right time, the very hinge upon which
time pivots. His coming requires a divine
presence. At this time, He said, I will
come. God will come. His coming requires
a natural mother, but one in such a circumstance that could
not produce Him of her own. It's true of Isaac. It's true
of Christ. And this chosen son must be offered
to God by faith, slain in faith before God. And this son must
be received by faith as one raised from the dead. And this one who
was the promised heir must die at the hands of the man of faith,
accounting that God was able to raise him from the dead, from
which Paul said he received him also in a figure. Faith sees
that. And this thing of faith began
in a calling, but it was revealed over a lifetime. Faith begins with a calling,
and this calling is according to the divine purpose, a purpose
to give, to bless, to manifest the glory of His goodness and
grace. This calling had nothing whatsoever to do with that old
evil king, with Abimelech, with any of those people down in Sodom.
This calling had to do with blessing. This calling had to do with being
a joint heir. A joint heir. This calling was
about grace. And it all culminated in the
purpose of a promised heir. And then, fourthly, this heir
must be established as the heir. You all remember that story where
Isaac and Ishmael came together and Ishmael kind of mocked Isaac.
Boy, Sarah got hot. She said, this ain't going to
happen. He's got to go. And Abraham said, well, he's
my son, too. And God said, you listen to her. She's right this
time. He's got to go. He's got to go. This heir must
be established as the heir, the covenant heir, God's appointed
heir. Cast out the bondwoman and her
son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son
of the free woman. That heir produced by man's cunning
and reasoning, that heir produced by man's good intentions and
man's wisdom, will always stand in opposition of the true heir.
He always will. I don't care. You can have a
church full of born-again Christians, so-called. You stand up here
and preach the gospel, and every one of them will be in opposition
to it. I guarantee it. The Lord Jesus Christ is set
apart in His birth, He's set apart in His life, He's set apart
in His death, and in His resurrection as the true heir of God, as was
Isaac. All those you go through and
read. I'm telling you, these Old Testament pictures are so
clear in their detail. If you know the Gospel, just
apply the Gospel to them as you read and look at how they just,
one thing right after the other. His coming was by divine purpose,
decreed from the beginning. His coming was by divine promise. In Isaac shall thy seed be called. His coming was a miraculous coming,
one that set Him apart from all others. His coming was the way
of blessings. No Isaac, no blessings. It's
just that simple. He cannot be aired together with
the other sons of the flesh. And I can't emphasize that point
enough. Christ alone is there. You read
through the book of Galatians. It's the only book in the New
Testament written by an angry apostle. Paul was angry when
he wrote the book of Galatians. He was mad. And he said, now
I'm telling you. You so much as be circumcised,
Christ will profit you nothing. This is the heir, and he's going
to be heir all to himself. He's the heir. We're not going
to mix this thing of being the heir. He's the heir. All the
rest are joint heirs with him. He's the only begotten. All the
others are dependent on him. He's the firstborn from the dead.
And all life is in Him, all life owing to Him. All right, and
then fifthly, this promised heir is to have a bride. And she must
be taken as he was out of the land of idolatry. She'll be taken
upon the testimony of a chosen servant. She'll hear from him
the intentions of a loving father and of the glories of his heir.
She'll hear of his wealth, his power, his glory. of His connection
with the living God, how the Son was promised of God. All the blessings in Him, sanctified
of the Father, set apart of God, of His birth, honor, wealth,
of God's intentions through it. And having the testimony of this
bond slave, she'll commit herself to Him. I don't know of anything
any clearer in the Old Testament as a picture to those who are
called out, called into a local assembly, who submit themselves
to their pastor, and in so doing, submit themselves to Christ.
Now, they don't submit themselves blindly. They hear what He says.
They listen to what He says. They listen to how He says it.
They listen to how often He says it and to whom He says it. But
having heard, they submit. That's what she did. She didn't
know this man. She'd never seen this man before
in her life. She submits herself. Commits
herself. Let's use that word. Now won't
you listen. Committed herself to a man she
didn't know, concerning a Lord she'd never seen, in a place
she's never been, To an end, she had never before considered.
And she packed it all up, put it on them camels and followed
Him all the way back to Isaac. He committed to her and her to
Him, both by the hand and presence of God the Holy Spirit. You know,
when Abraham sent Him down there, the most striking thing in that
whole thing to me was the servant had A lot of ifs and whatabouts
and things, just like I do. I'm full of them. But old Abraham
told him, he said, the angel of God is going to go before
you. This thing ain't all riding on you. The angel of God's presence,
that's the Holy Spirit going before you. He's going to do
the work. He's going to do it in you. He's
going to do it in you. I tell you this. When the preacher
of God meets the elect of God, God works on his heart and through
his message. I'm telling you, his message
will be dripping of affection when it comes into your heart.
It will be. You'll look at him. If he weeps,
you weep. That affection somehow is communicated
through that message. I don't know how it's done, but
I know this. It's done by the presence of
God, that Holy Spirit of God who goes before that message.
And he works in your heart and he works in mine. And somehow
he communicates those things through the spoken word. Don't
ask me to explain it. I can't. I just know it's so.
But hearing the testimony of this bond slave, she commits
herself to him. And he takes her back to Isaac.
He's faithful. He doesn't run off. He doesn't
take the gifts and the treasures and run off with the bride. He
takes the bride and he goes all the way back to Isaac. And when
she gets there, she knows so much about him. And he said,
there he is out in the field. Pow! She's off that camel and
running to him. Running to him. He committed
to her and her to him, and both by the hand and presence of God. Seeing there and his intended
in a blessed, sure, and eternal union, That's what faith sees. That's why I brought all that
up. Faith sees Christ in His Word and in His counsels. And he sees that eternal union,
and he sees that union by faith. And seeing that union, he rests. He rests. Seeing how God can
save to the uttermost, how God can be just and justify, how
God can can penetrate the bondage of this flesh and this religious
intimidation of this world and bring the bride to her husband,
bring the promise to its fulfillment. You see, he sees, faith sees
the means, he sees the power of God, he sees the hand of God,
he sees the message of God, he sees the bride, he sees Christ,
and he sees that blessed union and he rests. He rests. Faith commits. And this is what
I want you to see tonight. Faith commits as faith sees and
understands. Boy, what a commentary on our
faith. Sometimes I don't think I see very much. If I did, I'd
commit more. Faith commits as far as it sees
and understands. And it commits freely, willingly,
lovingly. Nowhere in here does it say when
the servant went that he lassoed the bride and drug her back.
He didn't carry a caveman's club and clubbed her over the head.
He had a testimony, and that testimony won her heart, and
freely, willingly, even to her own parents. Her parents were
begging her to stay ten more days, begging that servant to
stay ten more days. He said, let me tell you something.
He said, God's prospered my journey so far. We better quit while we're ahead.
Let's take the bride and go to Christ. Let's don't wait. Let's
don't wait. Oh, what a message there. But faith commits as far as faith
sees and understands, and it commits freely, willingly, and
lovingly. In the beginning, it commits
its understanding and its direction. As it goes, it commits its battles,
obstacles, and troubles. In the middle, it's strengthened
by covenant confirmation and blessing. And as it matures,
it sees the hand of God in all of the dealings of this life
and how they were for your good and His glory. That's what it
sees. And then at the end, the full
assurance of faith, He gives all that He has. That's what
faith does. It gives it all. Now there's a beautiful picture
in this of the redemptive work of Christ and of how God gave
to the air all things. You understand that? I just took
it for granted that you understood that. God has given to the air
all things and therefore faith commits all things to Him. Now
isn't that exactly what Paul talks about over there in Ephesians
chapter 1 when he gets down there and he tells you whom God hath
first trusted. God committed all things into
his hands. Now, if God has committed all
things in his hands, shouldn't you? What are you going to hold
back? If God put all his eggs in one
basket, you going to keep some in your pocket? You think they're
better off in your pocket than they already is? No. Once you see what's been
committed to the heir, you commit all things to him. And that's
what this That's what's happening here at the end of Abraham's
life. He sees Isaac as a picture of Christ. And he commits all
things to him. All things to him. He had great wealth accumulated.
What does the man of faith have to give? He got a lot. Abraham was a rich
man. Rich in gold and silver and cattle.
What did he have to give? He had a lot. He had great wealth
accumulated by the purpose and grace of God. And he'd commit
that wealth where it could be used for the glory of God and
the establishing of his kingdom. He gave it to Isaac. He understood
the will of God concerning this son and committed it to him.
Secondly, he committed the future of his posterity to the promised
heir. Abraham didn't have a seed in
the beginning, but God gave him one. And he said, let me tell
you something, Abraham. He took Abraham out there in
the evening, and he pointed up to the heavens. And he said,
can you number the stars? Your seed is going to outnumber
the stars. The sands of the seashore, they're
going to be more in number than the sands of the seashore. Who's he going to commit his
posterity to? He ain't looking to Ishmael.
He goes to Isaac. Thirdly, he committed his life's
work into the hands of his only begotten Son. All that he hoped
to accomplish, all that God had promised, all that he'd struggled
to obtain. Now I'll tell you this, I know
a lot of people to profess a hope in Christ over the years, a lot
of them. But I'll tell you, I know very
few who have committed all, all. All. Abraham committed all. What a faith this man had. Everything. Future, jobs, houses, income,
retirement, children's welfare, health, all that you hoped to
obtain laid all on Christ. All on Him. And then fourthly,
this man Abraham was ready to die. It's appointed unto man
once to die and after this the judgment. He must die and be
laid in the earth and go to his long home. And Abraham committed
himself in all of his hopes concerning death and judgment and justification
of life into the hands of this promised heir. Everything rested
on this promised heir. And by now, faith doesn't just
perceive Isaac, it perceives the seed of Isaac. Abraham rejoiced. He said, to see my day. And he
saw it and was glad. And I tell you this, Abraham
committed his heart. You know, once a heart's been
broken, a heart's not easily committed.
When a heart's been broken, when a heart's been smashed to smithereens,
it's not easy, not easy again to be committed. Abraham committed
his heart to Christ. his heart. I'll tell you who
a man will commit his heart to. To the one he's persuaded that
won't break it. He'll never be ashamed. Ain't
that what the Lord told him? That man who risks in Christ,
he's not going to be ashamed. Not going to be ashamed. What I've labored to show you
tonight might just seem like a lot of repetition. But what
I'd hope to show you tonight is that men die like they live.
Abraham lived a life of faith. And when it come time to die,
he could die in faith. These all died in faith. Not having received the promises,
but seeing them afar off, hoped in them, laid hold on them. Gives himself to what he knows
and sees and understands. And whether it be this world
religion or the promised heir of God, faith is a principle
of the heart, and it reigns in grace over all that we are. It
bows, it hears, it sees, it obeys, it commits, it follows, it perseveres. Actually, he says this, greater
is he that's in you than he that's in the world. What's he talking
about? He's talking about that hope of that heir, that heir
of righteousness. And then in verse 8, Genesis
25, and I'll wind it up. He said, Then Abraham gave up
the ghost and died in a good old age. An old man, full of
years, and I love this, was gathered to his people. Now let me tell you something.
Souls are going to be sorted out. They're going to be a sorting
out of souls. The people that we're going to
be gathered with, what he's talking about here, was not his father
who died back there and his ungodly relatives who died back there
in that land of idolatry. We used to sing that song in
religion. Will the circle be unbroken?
It'll be broken. There's a sorting of souls in
this place. What Abraham's gathered to are those who love God. He's
gathered unto the people of God. And if we're going to be gathered
unto the people of God, don't you think we ought to get along
a little better down here? If we're going to spend eternity...
I mean, I try to vision when I pray for you at the house,
and I pray for these other churches and people that I know across
the country, I try to vision their faces before me when I
pray for them. I'm going to spend eternity with
them. I want a heart to love them,
to care for them. I want to care about everything
that happens to them. A lot of times folks won't even
call me and let me know when they're sick. I care about you.
I want to know. You're not bothering me. Pick
that phone up and dial my number and tell me. I want to know.
We're going to spend eternity together. I care for you. I care
for your children. I care for these people around
here that I live beside and minister to in this area. And I beg you
tonight, if you've got anything, anything that's laid a division
between yourself and somebody else, get it straightened out.
Get rid of it. Get rid of it for Christ's sake.
I tell you, we're going to be together for eternity. It looks
to me like all of this, all of this is based on the grace of
God. Then what is it that can stand
between us? Huh? Nothing. Nothing. So whether real or imagined,
if you've got a division, get rid of it. Scripture said don't
let the sun go down on your rabbit. Don't even let the day finish.
And I'll tell you why it said it. Because the longer it stands,
the bigger it gets. And what's a tiny little division
grows into a huge wall after a while.