Beginning at verse 1, And the
Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did unto Sarah
as he had spoken. For Sarah conceived and bare
Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God
had spoken to him. And Abraham called the name of
his son that was born unto him, whom Sarah bore to him, Isaac. And Abraham circumcised his son
Isaac, being eight days old, as God had commanded him. And
Abraham was not a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born
unto him. And Sarah said, God hath made
me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me, And
she said, Who would have said unto Abraham that Sarah should
have given children suck? For I have borne him a son in
his old age." This is probably one of the most precious passages
that we have come to in the Old Testament Scripture, the birth
of Isaac. I would imagine This would be
my opinion, but I imagine that most people would agree with
me that knows anything about the importance of this man's
birth, that this is probably the most important birth of any
child in the Old Testament. And I'd say that for two reasons.
The Lord had already told Abraham, I will make of thee a great nation. A nation was going to come out
of this young child that was just born in this chapter. God
was going to have a separate nation. He was going to put His
name upon that nation. He was going to give them laws.
He was going to bless the world through this nation. He was going
to teach the world and bring the message of salvation through
Isaac's seed. When the Lord was speaking to
the Samaritan woman, remember what he told her about salvation?
Salvation is of the Jews. If there's no Isaac, there's
no Jews. If there's no Jews, there's no
nation. If there's no nation, there's
no laws of God. There's no ceremonies. There's
no prophets. And then there's no salvation
to the Gentiles. So his birth is very, very important. But secondly, and I think probably
more so, is that Christ himself, according to the flesh, was to
come out of the seed of Isaac. In Isaac shall thy seed be called. In other words, the Messiah is
coming from thy seed. You and I studied a few months
ago, and you may remember some of you, that we looked through
the Old Testament at what is referred to as the seed royal,
the royal seed. And we traced that seed from
Abraham through Isaac and Jacob and David and the tribe of Judah
all the way up to the birth of Christ. Christ was incarnated. The Son of God took to Him flesh.
And you can trace His birth back to Isaac. If there's no Isaac,
there's no Christ. If there's no Christ, there's
no salvation. That's how important this man's birth was. The New
Testament begins like this in Matthew chapter 1, verse 1. The
book of the generations of Jesus Christ. The son of David, the
son of Abraham. Abraham begat Isaac. And you
can follow Isaac right up to the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. Look over here with me in Psalms.
You'll need your Bibles. Keep your Bibles handy this morning.
Look in Psalms. Hold Genesis 21 and look at Psalms. The importance of the birth of
this man. The Son of God was to come out
of this man. Psalm 132. Abraham begat Isaac. Isaac begat
Jacob. Jacob begat the twelve tribes. They begat David, and David begat
Solomon, and out of that came the Lord Jesus Christ. Look here
what the Lord said to David concerning Christ. Psalm 132 and verse 11. The Lord hath sworn in truth
unto David, he will not turn from it, of the fruit of thy
body, will I sit upon thy throne." Here is God speaking. Here is
Jehovah speaking. And he says to David, I swear
to you that I will sit upon your throne. Not spiritually, but
in a body. God was going to take a body.
He was going to be born of a virgin. And you trace that lineage back
and it goes back to David. You trace it from David and it
goes back to a man called Isaac. God said, I've sworn. Look here
in Luke chapter 1. Luke chapter 1. This is the angel
foretelling Mary of the incarnation of the Son of God, the Lord Jesus
Christ. And look what he says to her.
Luke chapter 1 and verse 26. Luke 1, 26. The Lord has sworn
to David of the fruit of thy body I'll set upon your throne.
And here the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary. He was sent from God,
and in verse 27, to a virgin, a spouse to a man whose name
was Joseph, of the house of David, of the house of David. Do you
know whose house David was of? He's the house of Isaac. But
go back to Isaac. And the angel came unto her and
said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women. And when she saw him, she was
troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation
this should be. And the angel said unto her,
Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favour with God. And, behold,
thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt
call his name Jesus, and he shall be great. And he shall be called
the Son of the Highest, and the Lord God shall give unto him
the throne of his father David. That's what he swore to David,
wasn't it? But before he ever swore to David, remember what
he told Abraham? In thy seed, in thy seed, the
Messiah is going to come from Isaac. And then he revealed to
David, he's going to sit on your throne. And now the angel Gabriel
comes to Mary and said, this is the Messiah. This is Isaac's
seed. And what's he going to do? He's
going to sit on David's throne. And verse 33, here's what he's
going to do on that throne. He shall reign over the house
of Jacob, how long? Forever, and of his kingdom there
shall be no end. That's the Christ. He's coming
from Isaac. Look over here right on in that
chapter in verse 68. Look at this. Here's what Zechariah
said concerning all of this. Look what he said in verse 68. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,
for He has visited and redeemed His people, and He has raised
up them in a horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant
David. as he spake by the mouth of his
holy prophets, which have been since the world began, that we
should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who
hate us, to perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and
to remember his holy covenant, the oath which he swore to our
father Abraham. What did he swear to our father
Abraham? In Isaac shall thy seat be called. I'll bless all nations. I'll bless all nations through
your seed. Who is this seed? Christ is His
seed. I'm going to bless all nations.
And you know what that was? You know what we call that? When
God appeared to Abraham, He said, this is the covenant that I'm
going to establish with you. In thy seed, all nations are
going to be blessed. You know what we call that? We
call that covenant blessings. We call that covenant promises.
We call it covenant mercies. You know why we call it that?
Because that's what He calls it. See what He says in verse
72? To perform the mercy promised
to our fathers, the oath which He swore to Abraham, that He
would grant unto us that we be delivered out of the hands of
our enemies, might serve him without fear in holiness and
righteousness before him all the days of our lives. The birth
of Isaac, what was it? It was a mercy. It was a mercy
promised to Abraham and to his wife Sarah. What is the birth
of the Son of God? It's a mercy. It's a covenant
mercy promised to you and to me and to everybody that will
ever be saved by the Son of God. Mercy. Mercy promised. Mercy promised. This is why David
called it the sure mercies of David. In thy seed shall all
the nations be blessed. And here he is in Luke 1. Isaac
seed. The Son of God. And we're going
to be blessed in Him. God has blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. But you know
something? If there's no Isaac, there's
no Christ. See how important this birth
is? If there's no Christ, there's no salvation. You and I cannot
be blessed. So this was a most important
birth, the birth of Isaac. Now turn back over here again
with me and let's look at this right quickly. What do we see
concerning these covenant promises, these covenant mercies? The oath
which he swore to Abraham. Well he said here in verse 1
of chapter 21, the Lord visited Sarah as he had said. He did unto Sarah as he had spoken. What's the first thing we see
about these covenant promises? They're sure. They're sure. God Himself fulfills these promises
just as He said. Let me remind you. Take your
Bibles and go back just a couple of pages to chapter 17. The Lord visited Sarah as He
had said. Now look in chapter 17. Look
in chapter 17 and verse 15. Look what he says. The Lord said
unto Abraham, As for Sarah thy wife, thou shalt not call her
name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be called. For I will bless
her, and give thee a son also of her. Yea, I will bless her,
and she shall be a mother of nations, kings of people shall
be of her. And then in verse 18, Abraham
said, O that Ishmael might live before thee. In verse 19, And
God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed, and thou
shalt call his name Isaac. For I will establish my covenant
with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him. That's what God had said concerning
Sarah. She shall have a son. So what
do we find over here in our text? God visited Sarah just like He
said. He did to Sarah just like He
had spoken. That's the thing about these
covenant promises, brothers and sisters. God never lets a one
of them fall to the ground. He keeps His promises. You and
I saw that in one of our lessons a while back. And I'll tell you
something else about these covenant promises. When God blesses them,
when He fulfills them, they're always positive response. It's never negative. Never something
bad happens when the Lord fulfills His covenant promises. It was
said here that Sarah conceived and bare a son, just like the
Lord said. You know something about covenant
promises? They're always good things. They're always good promises. They're never evil things. They're
the blessings of the Lord. Now, there's two covenants in
the Scriptures. That's the covenant of works,
and those promises are conditional. If you do this, you'll live.
But if you don't do this, you're cursed. That's the covenant of
works. And then there's covenant of
promise, the covenant of grace. And when you see those promises,
it never is a curse with, never is anything bad with. It's always
good. It's the blessings of God. That's
why the prophet said, the blessings of the Lord maketh rich, and
he addeth no burden with him. It's always good. Sarah conceived
and had a son. These promises are not empty
promises, and they're not dependent upon chance. They're not dependent
upon the will of men. They're not dependent upon the
power of the flesh. But what are they dependent upon?
What are these covenant promises dependent upon? I will. I will. Everywhere we see this
concerning the covenant, it's always, I will. I will. Look back again. Look in chapter
18. Look here in chapter 18. This is one of the most amazing
things about the covenant of grace. When God makes promises,
it's always, I will. And then, in response, it's always,
you shall. I will, and you shall. We see
that all through the Scripture, don't we? Look here in Genesis
chapter 18, in verse 10. They asked where Sarah was, and
they said she's in the tent. And the Lord said, in verse 10,
I will certainly return I will return unto thee according to
the time of life, and lo, Sarah thy wife shall have a son." I
will return and she shall have a son. Look in verse 14. Is anything
too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time, I will
return unto thee according to the time of life, and Sarah shall
have a son. I will. And she shall. Look over here at another place.
Look over here at Deuteronomy chapter 30. Here's a wonderful
passage. Deuteronomy chapter 30 and look
in verse 6. Deuteronomy chapter 30 and verse
6. Right here, the amazing thing about these books that we call the
books of the law, Leviticus and Deuteronomy and Numbers and so
on. Moses sets forth this covenant
of works. You see it all through these
books, the covenant of works. This do, and thou shalt live.
But sometimes, right in the midst of this covenant of works, He
reveals this covenant of grace. And it's such a blessed thing.
And that's what he does right here in chapter 30 of Deuteronomy.
Look what he says here. In verse 6, look at this. And
the Lord thy God, the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart
and the heart of thy seed to love the Lord thy God with all
thine heart and with all thy soul that thou mayest live. And the Lord thy God will put
all these curses upon thine enemies, and on them that hate thee, which
persecuteth thee. And thou shalt return, and obey
the voice of the Lord, and do all his commandments which I
command thee this day." See what he says in verse 6? I will circumcise
your heart. I'm going to bring you to repentance. I'm going to give you a new heart
and a new spirit. I will do that and then thou
shalt return. See that? And obey the Lord.
When is somebody going to obey the Lord? When God circumcised
their hearts. That's when they're going to
do it. When's a man going to come to Christ? When God draws
him. When's a man going to know Christ? When God reveals Christ
to him. And when God does it, Then you
shall know, you shall believe, you shall repent. Listen to these
passages I've jotted down here, and you and I have looked at
these before, but this is the way the covenant of grace runs.
This is why we say it doesn't depend upon chance. The covenant
of grace is not by chance, it's by grace. And it doesn't depend
upon the power of the flesh or the wisdom of man, but it depends
upon what God does for a person. And then our response is always
because of what He does for us. Listen to this. Ezekiel 36. I will sprinkle clean water upon
you, and you shall be clean. From all your filthiness and
all your idols will I cleanse you, I will, and you shall be
clean. Ain't that a wonderful passage?
That's the way the covenant of grace runs. Here's a man and
he's dead in his sins, he's serving his sins, he loves his sins,
and God said I'm going to come to you and I'm going to cleanse
you, and when I do you'll be clean. In other words, He said,
from all your iniquities, I will cleanse you. And when the Lord
Jesus Christ cleanses a person, they're clean. From all your
idols, all your uncleanness, He's forgiven you all trespasses. And listen to what He said here.
A new heart and a new spirit, I will give you. And I'll put
a new spirit within you, and then what are you going to do?
Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to give you in your
heart and in your spirit and here's what you're going to do.
You're going to keep my judgment and you're going to do them.
And listen to this. I will save you from all your
uncleanness. I will do that and then what's
the response? Then you shall remember all your
evil ways that were not good and you go up for yourself. I'll
never abhor myself. No, you won't until God takes
His hand to do something for you. But He will. And when God says, I will, I
don't know what else He might say. He might say, I might do
this and I might do that. I don't remember reading that
anywhere. But when He says, I will, I will, there's going to be a
response to that because that's covenant blessing. That's covenant
blessing. And listen to this. I will yet,
for all this, be inquired of by the house of Israel to do
it for them. I'm not only going to do it,
they're going to seek me to do it for them. Ain't it a marvelous
thing when a person begins to cry for a new heart? And begin
to cry, Lord wash me with His ship and I shall be clean. Purge
me and I shall be whiter than snow. I will, for all this, be
sought of. And then they shall know that
I am the Lord. I will and they shall. And one
more, listen to this. I will be their God. And what's
the consequences? They shall be my people. I will
make an everlasting covenant with them. I will not turn away
from them, but I will do them good. I'll put my fear in their
hearts. And what's the consequences?
They shall not depart from me. See how firm these promises are?
But it's dependent upon Him who says, I will. I will. When the Lord comes to us, He
says, you will not. Ain't that what He says to us?
You will not come to me that you might not want. So I will
do this to you. I will do this for you. And then
you'll come. Then you'll come. It's sure,
isn't it? That's what we're saying. It's
sure because it's based upon not what we'll do for Him, but
what He does for us. That's where it begins at. David
said, The Lord hath made with me an everlasting covenant, and
it's ordered in everything, and it's sure. Why is it sure? Because it's covenant blessing.
It's covenant promises. Two more things about these covenant
promises. Look back over here again in
Genesis chapter 21. Here's why we say they're effectual. The Lord said, I will and you
shall, but here's what makes it so. In verse 1, the Lord visited
Sarah, as He had said. He did unto Sarah as He had spoken. The Lord's promises, His covenant
promises, are effectual for this reason. He always visits to fulfill
those promises. He never makes a promise then
stands by and just hoping and praying that those promises will
be fulfilled. When He makes a covenant promises,
He fulfills that promise. How did He fulfill this promise
to Sarah? He said, Abraham, Sarah thy wife will have a son. So
what does he do? Well, he visits her, and then
she has a son. How can you and I know that we
have a saving interest in the covenant of grace? Because the
Lord has visited us, and He's fulfilled those promises in our
hearts. I will sprinkle clean water upon
you, and you shall be clean. Now listen, brothers and sisters,
You can't do that without a visitation. I will give them a new heart
and a new spirit. You can't do that without a visitation,
can you? I'll put my spirit within you. What does that mean? That
means He's visited you. That's how you and I know that
we have confidence that we have a saving interest in this covenant
of grace. It's not just that we look at
the promise and say, there it is. No, He's visited us. And He's fulfilled the promise
in our heart. See if you can relate to some
of these things. I will feed them in a good pasture. That's a covenant promise. Has
He fed you? Has He fed you? I will lead them beside still
waters. Has He gave you rest for your
souls? Is He a calm to your soul? Has He visited you in the time
of troubled waters and put calm in your conscience? I will restore
their soul. I will revive their spirits. I will uphold them with My right
hand. I will work in them to will and
to do of My good pleasure. That's covenant promising. And
the way we know we have an interest in Him, He visits us. He visits us. The Lord doesn't fulfill such
promises without a visitation of His presence. And these promises
assures us that He will indeed visit us. And when you begin
to see this, don't it encourage you to pray to that end? When
He says, I'll visit you and I'll fulfill my promise, don't that
cause you to pray to that end? You find a precious promise,
and oh, it does become precious to you. And you begin to pray
to that end. And it's not long until he comes
and fulfills that promise within you. Joseph had this to say right
before he died. Joseph was the grandson of Isaac,
and they were in captivity down in Egypt. And Joseph said unto
his brother, I die, And God will surely visit you to bring you
out of this land unto a land that he swore to Abraham, to
Isaac and Jacob. See how he found that promise?
He went all the way back here to Abraham and his grandfather
Isaac and said, God made an oath to Isaac that he was going to
give this land and I want you to dig my bones up and take them
with you into the promised land. That's how he encouraged him.
That's how he made hope. And the Lord appeared to Moses,
and he said, I've heard your fathers and their groans, and
I've visited them, and I've seen their afflictions in the land
of Egypt, and I've come down to visit them in the land of
captivity. In the book of Acts chapter 15
and verse 14, Simon Peter said, the Lord has chosen me to preach
to the Gentiles, that God at the first did visit them to take
out of them a people for His name. What am I saying? I'm saying
when God promised Sarah and Abraham a son, it wasn't enough just
to promise. He had to visit to fulfill that
promise. And how does the Lord visit today?
Well, He visits us through His Word. While you're reading His
Word, while you're hearing the preaching of His Word, He visits
through a song, He visits through His providence, our prayer, He
visits our hearts, and He draws us, and He converts us, and He
teaches us, and He comforts us. And as He does that, we have
this confidence within our hearts. I'm a partaker of this covenant
of grace. I have an interest in this. How
do you know? Because He's visited me. He's
visited my heart. And then we say with David, O
Lord, remember me with the favor of which thou bar'st unto thy
people. O, visit me with thy salvation. Visit me with thy salvation.
I'll tell you the most dangerous thing. If God visits a man or
a woman to punish them for their sin, that's a fearful thing.
But it's a blessed thing when the Lord visits a man or woman
and says to their soul, I'm your salvation. I'm your salvation. And that's what these covenant
promises are all about. The Lord made a covenant to Abraham
and Sarah and says, Sarah, thy wife shall have a son. And now
he visits her to do what he's promised. Another thing about
these promises, not only does he visit to fulfill these covenant
promises, but notice something else here in verse 2 about it.
It's according to his set time. Did you notice that? For Sarah
conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age at the set time. Not to Abraham's time. and Sarah's
time. If Abraham or Sarah had had Isaac
when they wanted him, it would have been 25 years before now.
But it wasn't by their time. It was His time. His set time. In the fullness of time, God
sent forth His Son. When was Christ born? In the
fullness of time. God's time. You realize if the
Lord Jesus had been born in David's time, he would not have been
crucified. Ain't that strange? He'd have
been born in David's time. He'd never been rejected. David
loved him. David knew him. Christ would
have been on the throne in Jerusalem. He'd have never been despised
and crucified. If the Lord Jesus had been born a hundred years
after he was, there'd have been no Jerusalem. There'd have been
no temple to preach out of. But he was born at God's time,
in the fullness of time. God's time is the best time,
ain't it? And it's always the only time His covenant promises
are fulfilled. Blessed is the man that waits
for the Lord's time. The Lord's time. Here's what
the Lord said to Habakkuk. He said, write the vision. Write
it down. and make it plain upon tablets,
that they which readeth it may run. For the vision is yet for
an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and shall
not lie. Though it tarry, wait for it,
because it will surely come, it will not tarry." What's he
talking about? The vision. It shall come. It has an unappointed time. He's
talking about everything concerning God's covenant of grace, the
coming of Jesus Christ. It happened right at God's time,
the fullness of time. The hour that the Lord Jesus
should die, how often He said, My hour has not yet come. And
then when He went to the cross, He said, My hour has come that
I should be received up into heaven. The resurrection of Christ,
the ascension of Christ, the coming again of the Lord Jesus
Christ, it's a set time. God has set the time. No man
knows the day or the hour, but my Father only. How does He know?
He set the time. He's appointed a day in which
He'll judge the world by that man. God set time. And you know something else,
brothers and sisters? Everything about this covenant of grace,
those who will be saved by it, Their day of salvation is already
set. When will the elect of God be
saved? When it pleases God. When it
pleased God who separated me from my mother's womb. That's
why we preachers can wait, you see. We can just preach, and
we can wait. And if there's any of God's elect
here, we don't have to force the issue. We just preach to
them, and when it comes God's time. He says, today is your
time of love. I've passed by you and I see
you polluted in your blood, but it's the time of love. And He
spreads His skirts over you and covers your nakedness. But it's
His time. When you go through trials, dear
children of God, who is it that determines the time you enter
that trial? It's Him. My times, David said, are in
your hands. the severity of that trial, and
when you're going to come out of that trial. It's all. The day of your death, the day
of judgment, all of these things are appointed. It's the time.
It's the time. The set time. That's what we
find about these covenant blessings. They're all according to set
time. Aren't you glad it's that way?
Aren't you glad that the Lord didn't say, well, I'm waiting
just to see if they're going to finally come to repentance?
I'm waiting to finally see if they're going to believe me.
If it had been left up to you, you know what you'd have done?
You'd have procrastinated and do your sinned away, your dead
grace. That's what you'd have done. But the Lord didn't leave
that to you, did he? He left nothing else to you either
pertaining to your salvation. Just your response to what He's
promised you. Aren't you glad the day of death's
not left up to you? Or left up to the devil? No, mortals are immortal here,
the old songwriter said. Mortals are immortal here until
their work is done. And death will never come upon
a dear saint but at the time of God's appointment. They tried
to kill Christ but they couldn't because His hour hadn't come.
They hounded poor Paul to death, but they never killed him until
his time had come. They tried to kill poor Martin
Luther, but he died an old man of natural causes. Why? Our times are in His hands. And that makes us happy, doesn't
it? It makes us glad. When did the
Lord return to Sarah and give her a son? At the set time of
which He had spoken. at the set time. Something else about this is
this, and notice this. As far as you and I are concerned,
here's something else about these promises. They're very difficult,
and this seems like it's so contradictory, but they're very difficult to
obtain experientially. You say, Bruce, you just got
through saying the promises were sure. They are. They are. And they shall be fulfilled.
If God has promised it, He'll fulfill it. But on our part,
experientially, these promises are very difficult to obtain. And they're designed to try our
patience and to draw faith from our hearts. You say, Bruce, where
did you get that? In verse 2. When did Sarah have
this son? When was Isaac born to Abraham?
In his old age. In his old age. When Sarah was
past bearing children and her womb was dead. In chapter 12,
the Lord called Abraham and here's what he said to Abraham, I will
make of thee a great nation. But nothing happened. Nothing
happened. Years went by, and in chapter
13, the Lord said to Abraham, I will give you and to your seed
this land. Abraham didn't even have a son.
Years went by, and in chapter 15, the Lord said, I will give
thee. Abraham said, Lord, what will
you give me, seeing I go childless? I don't even have a son. And
the Lord said, Abraham, look towards heaven, and you count
the stars if you can. That's how many children you're
going to have. But he never even had a son. In chapter 16, Sarah
becomes impatient. She gives Abraham Agar and he
has a son. But the Lord appeared to Abraham
and said, that's not going to be your seed. In Isaac shall
your seed be called. In chapter 17, 13 years later,
as for Sarah thy wife, Don't call her name Sarai, but
Sarah shall her name be called. Why? For I will make a great
nation of her. What are you talking about, Lord? I'm going to give you a son of
her. But still nothing. Nothing. Then comes the destruction of
Solomon Gamara in chapter 19. Abraham and Sarah go down to
Gilead, and there they are sorely tried. And twenty-five years
after the Lord said to Abraham, I'm going to make a great nation
of you, and I'm going to bless you. Twenty-five long years of
waiting patiently. Now we come to chapter 21. And
the Lord did as He spoke. He did to Sarah as He had said.
You know how we obtain these promises? Waiting and waiting and waiting. Listen to what Hebrews 6 said. Be not slothful, but followers
of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises. When God made promise to Abraham
because he could swear by no greater, he swore by himself
saying, Abraham, I'm going to bless you. I'm going to bless
you. But not tomorrow. Not ten years
from now. Not twenty years from now. But
I'm going to bless you. So after Abraham had patiently
endured, then he obtained the promise. Patience. Waiting on the Lord. Don't you
spend a lot of time just waiting? Just waiting on the Lord. You
pray and you take hold of a promise, but it's not fulfilled. And what
do you do? You just wait. You just wait.
Wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and he shall strengthen
thy heart. These covenant promises are designed
to bring us to the end of our own wisdom and our own strength
and to draw faith from our hearts and the belief in our Lord's
ability and our Lord's faithfulness to do what he had said he would
do. When did Abraham inherit the
promises? When he was brought to the point where he no longer
trusted in his flesh to produce a son. When did Sarah have this
son? When she fully realized that
my womb is dead and I cannot have a son. That's where the
Lord brings us to. He brings. That's what we call
losing your life. Losing your life. I can't save
myself. I can't do it. Well, believe
in Him then that does it. Believe in Him that does the
work. That's where He brings us. Through faith, Sarah herself
received strength to conceive seed and was delivered of a child
because she judged him faithful who had promised." These covenant
promises and these covenant mercies, they're obtained through faith
and patience. And that's why you see very few
people patiently waiting and believing. And these promises,
If this covenant of grace doesn't mean everything to you, you won't
wait. You'll give up. You'll give up. If these promises aren't the
most important thing in your heart, then you'll finally give
up. You know what you'll say? This
ain't worth it. This ain't worth it. You know why Sarah waited?
She wanted a son more than she wanted her next breath. That's
why she waited. You know why she believed the
Lord for it? She knew He was the only one that could give
it to her. Therefore she waited and believed Him. How important
is this to you? All the Father gives to me shall
come to me and Him that comes to me I will in no wise cast
Him out. How important is that to you
when you go to Christ and to God by Him? You ever go to Him
as a believer and you take this promise and you say He won't
cast me out? He won't cast me out. How important
is that to you? Does that pull any weight in
your heart? You keep going. Why do you keep
going? Sometimes it feels like He has cast you out. He won't
receive you, but you keep going. Why? Because you know the importance
of that promise. If He casts you out, you're gone.
So what do you do? You lay hold of this promise.
He'll never cast me out. He'll never cast me out. Take
my yoke upon you and learn of me and you shall find rest for
your soul." What does that mean to you? That's a covenant promise. Learn of me. Learn who I am. The Lord of glory. Learn what
I've done. I've paid the penalty for sin. I've satisfied justice. I'm on God's right hand to save
to the uttermost those who come to God by me. Learn of me. Learning my goodness and my mercy
and my kindness, my faithfulness, my merit, my power. Learning
me. And you'll find rest for your
soul. What does that promise mean to you? Does that drive
you to prayer? Does that drive you to His Word
to learn of Him? It does. It does. Because that
pulls some weight. You value this promise, don't
you? I go to prepare a place for you.
And if I go prepare a place for you, I'll come again and receive
you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also." What
does that mean to you? As you face life and death, where
I am, that's a promise. Where I am, there you'll be also. That promise pulling weight in
you, or you just throw it away and say, I didn't mean much anyway.
I'm the weight. I can't live by faith. I've finished
with it. I've got to see something. I've
got to feel something. I can't live by faith in Him. So you
just throw it away and take off and you're gone. But boy, not
those who value these promises. They're difficult to obtain,
aren't they? Because you wait and you believe Him for them.
And you wait and you believe Him and you wait until the promise
is fulfilled. He that overcometh will I grant
to sit with me in my throne. What a promise! He that overcometh
shall be clothed in white raiment. He that overcometh shall walk
with me in white. He that overcometh I will not
blot out his name. I'll confess his name to my Father
and before his angels. Those are covenant promises.
What do they mean to us? I tell you what, if we're one
of His, they mean everything to us. And we don't walk away
from them. We may spend our life waiting,
but that's what we'll do, just as Abraham and Sarah did. These
promises mean something to me. Sarah said, He's promised me
a son. Twenty-five years ago, Abraham
said, He promised me, and I'm still waiting, and I'm still
believing. And when this promise was finally
fulfilled, when the Lord finally fulfilled the promise, and here's
what He does say. If He comes so quickly, and did
everything that he's promised to do, we wouldn't value the
promise near as much as we do. But when he makes us to wait
and be patient, and he keeps us believing and looking and
waiting, it's just like a soldier keeping watch all night through
the darkening, watching for the enemy, boy, when the day comes. You loved it when the days came
over there overseas, didn't you, Clarence? When the sun came up
and the light shined, the darkness was dispelled. But when we wait
on the Lord, and He makes us to wait, oh, when He does fulfill
a promise, oh, it's a blessed thing, isn't it? When I begin
to seek the Lord, and this may not be your experience, but when
I begin to seek the Lord, I come to the place where I thought,
surely, He's not going to save me. He's just not going to save
me. I come to a place where I realize
I couldn't save myself. I've been trying to do that for
15 years. But when I came to that place,
I thought, surely He's not going to save me. But that's when He
saved me. And you know what? When Sarah
reached the place where she said, my womb is dead, it's going to
take a miracle. Abraham said, I'm an old man.
I can't have a son. It's going to take a miracle.
And that's when the Lord did what he said. That's when he
fulfilled his promise. And what happened? Look here
in verse 6. And Sarah said, God hath made me to laugh, so all that hear will laugh with
me. Who would have said unto Abraham,
I bear him a son? What did she do? She laughed. She laughed. She wouldn't have
laughed if she had had Isaac 25 years. That would have been
so natural. But the Lord brought these two
people to the place where they knew if they were going to have
a son, it was going to take a miracle. And then, when they obtained
that miracle, she laughed. She laughed. David said, when the Lord turned
again the captivity of Zion, We were like them that dream.
Then was our mouth filled with laughter and our tongue with
singing. They laughed. They were in captivity. The Lord delivered them and they
laughed. Laughed all the way home. The
ransom of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with songs of
everlasting joy upon their heads. And they shall obtain joy and
gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. Everlasting
joy upon their heads. I've had a little joy. I've experienced
a little joy in my heart. But what will it be to have everlasting
joy upon our heads? That's what happens when he fulfills
his covenant promises. William Calper. wrote many, many
songs that you and I love to sing. The dying thief rejoiced
to see the fountain in his day, and there may I, though vile
as he, wash all my sins away. William Capper was a man that
went through most of his adult life in agony in his mind. Tried to commit suicide more
than once. lived his adult life thinking the Lord was going to
reject him, the Lord was going to cast him away. Got into awful,
awful depression. John Newton tucked him under
his wing and tried to help him. And he lived with the thought
that, I really am afraid the Lord is going to cast me away
at last. But on his deathbed a few days before he died, they
said he lifted up his arms towards heaven and his expression on
his face, his countenance was so bright. And they said he lived
the last few days saying, oh, I'm accepted. Oh, I'm accepted. Oh, I'm accepted. Wouldn't that make you laugh?
I mean, if the reality of that, when Sarah looked down and seen
that little baby that had come out of her dead womb, and when
you see a miserable sinner as yourself accepted in the beloved,
Wouldn't that make you laugh? For him to let us know without
a doubt, I'm accepting in Christ. I'm completing Him. Heaven is
mine. Heaven is mine. I tell you heaven is going to
be full of people laughing. If there's anything else that
goes on in heaven, if there's nothing but this goes on in heaven,
I'm telling you what, it's going to be a place that's full of
people laughing. Joe and I was at the house the
other night and the kids were in the room and she said, listen
to that, listen to that. And all those kids in there were
just laughing. They were just laughing. They were having the
time of their life. They were laughing. Heaven is going to
be full of laughing people. And you know why? You're going to be a little bit
surprised that you're there. I know there's a lot of people
ready to just seem like they're going to fly off. I don't feel that
way to you. That's a day of awe to me. And
when I get there and realize what a poor, wretched sinner
I was in this life, I'm going to be a little bit surprised.
But I'm going to start laughing and I'm never going to quit laughing.
I made it. I made it. I have obtained covenant
promises. You shall be with me where I
am. And I'm here where He is. And
I'll tell you what, I'll start laughing, and I'll laugh everybody
in heaven. If you've heard what Sarah heard,
she said, you're going to laugh with me. Not just that we heard
that she had obtained a son, but she had obtained these promises,
the same ones that you obtained, covenant promises. And boy, she
was so amazed by this, she said, who would have said, Who could
have even said, Sarah's going to… Nobody thought even about
saying that. No, hope was gone. Abraham's too old. My womb's
too dead. Who would have even said I could
have a son? But here he is. Who would have
even said that a sinner like us could be just before God? Who could have ever said God
would be our Father? Could you have ever thought of
such a thing? That we could be accepted and made righteous in
somebody else by the doing and the dying of another? I never
thought about such a thing, let alone that I could obtain an
interest in it. Who would have told me? Who would have told
such a thing? Bruce Crabtree in heaven at last?
Who would have told such a thing? That's what God told me. That's
what He tells us. Covenant blessings, nothing like
them. There's nothing like them. Only two ways men seek to be
saved. That's by covenant of works,
which will curse them at last. And the sure way men will be
saved is by this covenant of grace, because it has sure promise,
and God Himself stands there to fulfill those promises. And
when we all get to heaven, when all the elect of God get to heaven,
It'll be according to God's purpose. He won't be surprised who's there.
All of those that He purposed to be there will be there. And
they'll get there because they came to Christ. And they believed
in Christ. And they loved Christ. They followed
Christ. Just like the promise said they
would. I'll circumcise your heart and you'll obey me then. You'll
obey me. God bless His Word.