Genesis chapter 17, and let's
begin reading in verse 1. And when Abram, Abraham, his
name had not been changed yet, the Lord changes his name from
Abram to Abraham in this chapter. Abram was ninety years old and
nine. The Lord appeared to Abram and
said unto him, I am the Almighty God. Walk before me, and be thou
perfect, and I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will
multiply thee exceedingly.' And Abram fell on his face, and God
talked with him, saying, As for me, behold, my covenant is with
thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations. Neither shall
thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be called
Abraham. For a father of many nations
have I made thee, and I will make thee exceeding fruitful,
and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee.
And I will establish my covenant between me and thee, and thy
seed after thee in their generations, for an everlasting covenant.
to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee. And I will
give unto thee and to thy seed after thee the land, for in thou
art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting
possession, and I will be their God." I mainly want to look this
morning at verse 1 here in this passage. This is the third time
that we're told in scriptures that the Lord appeared to Abraham. I have no idea, and no one knows
if God had appeared to him more than three times or not, perhaps
so. But the Holy Spirit records these
three times that the Lord had appeared to Abraham, and it's
for our learning. All these things are written,
not only for Abraham's sake, but that you and I may read these
things and learn from these things. The first time the Lord appeared
to Abraham, Stephen, there in the New Testament, Acts chapter
7, tells us about the first time that God appeared to Abraham.
You and I have read about it and studied about it in one of
the former studies. The God of glory appeared to
Abraham. and said, Get thee out of thy
kindred, from thy country, and from thy father's house, and
come into the land that I'll show you, and I'll bless you.
That's the first time that God appeared to this man Abraham. And God speaks to him just as
He speaks to all His elect people. And this is what this is meant
to teach you and I that just as God appeared to Abraham, He
appears to us not physically, not in a vision, but He comes
to our conscience. He comes to our thoughts, He
comes to our hearts, and here's what He says to us. He instructs
us, and He warns us, and He encourages us to come out of our sins. God doesn't first appear to us
to comfort us, He appears to us to instruct us to leave the
place where we are. Leave your sins and come to the
Lord Jesus Christ. Leave your sins and come to God
by Him. Now, if a man wants to know if
the God of glory has ever appeared to me as He has to Abraham, here's
the way you can know. He first comes to us and makes
us afraid. He first comes to us and instructs
us that where we are in our sins, He can have nothing to do with
us. We must come out of our sins to the Lord Jesus Christ. The
God of glory appeared to Abraham. And when the God of glory appeared
to him, we saw this, that Abraham came out. Abraham came out. Somebody must say, the Lord dealt
with me. But I didn't listen to it. Well,
perhaps that's so. But I know what the Scripture
says. All that the Father teaches, He comes to me. Abraham came
out because the God of glory appeared to him and said, Come
out. The second time we find the Lord appearing to Abraham
is found in the fifth chapter in Genesis. And He says this,
Fear not, Abraham. He appeared to Abraham in a vision
and said, Fear not, Abraham, I am yours. I am your shield,
I'm your protector, I'm your defense, I'm your guard, and
I'm your exceeding great reward. Fear not. Fear not. And isn't that the second way
that the Lord comes to us? When He comes to us and warns
us to flee from our sins, flee from the wrath to come, come
into the ark, come to the city of refuge, flee to Christ. And then the second thing that
He must say to us is, fear not. Fear not. That's what He says
to every awakened sinner. He comes to us and we have this
reality that we're in this perishing state. And what's the first thing
that He must say to us? If we're to ever have any comfort
and rest in our soul, He must say this to us. We must hear
His voice in some degree, Glenn. And here's what He must speak
to us. Fear not. Fear not. Some of you know something
about that, don't you? You lived in torment because
He had showed you that you were perishing sinner. And you heard
His voice in your soul, in your conscience. And it says, Fear
not. I have received thee. Fear not. I have accepted you in the Beloved. Fear not. I have blotted out
as a thick cloud all your transgressions. Fear not. I've given you not
the spirit of fear, but the spirit of love, and the spirit of grace,
and power, and of a sound mind. Fear not." I read a story not
long ago of this young hiker, a man in his early twenties,
and he got up in the Alps by himself, and he got in a blizzard,
and he died there. And they found his body, it had
this little note, scribble, laying in his hand, he had gripped it
in his hand. And this little note said, my greatest fear,
my greatest fear, will God forgive my sins? I tell you, if I thought this
morning that I had to leave this world and go into the next, and
had to face God in my sin, that would be my greatest torment. Fear not, I have forgiven all
your transgressions." Oh, what would it mean this morning? What
does it mean for us to leave this building and walk in this
world and someday to lay our heads down upon our dying pillow
knowing that God has forgiven our transgressions? Oh, that's
a degree of joy in it and comfort. And he must say that to us. And
then the third time that we have recorded that God appeared to
Abraham is found here in chapter 17 and verse 1, when He appeared
to Abraham here and said to him, walk before me and be thou perfect. Walk before me. And this is the
way that God deals with elect sinners. He calls them out of
a course of sin and ignorance and deadness, and He brings them
to repentance, He brings them to life, and He speaks peace
and rest to their hearts. Come unto Me, all ye that labor,
and I'll give you rest. And then He begins to instruct
them as to how to walk. And how does He instruct them
to walk? Before Me. You walk before Me. Before me
simply means that you walk in my presence. You walk before
by all seeing eye and before my protection. You walk as a
playful child would walk in the presence and before the eyes
of His loving and tender Father. You walk before me. Before me. What do you do when you're walking
up the road? Or you're out in the yard walking and your little
child or your little grandchild is playing before you. You've
got your eye on him, haven't you? He's playing in your presence
before you. Walk before me. There's another
Scripture in Deuteronomy 13, verse 4 that says this, You shall
walk after the Lord your God. You walk before Him and you're
to walk after Him. To walk after Him means that
you're His servant. You are following Him as an obedient
servant would follow his Master. Seek Him to take up the cross
and follow the Shepherd wherever He leads you. You are walking
after Him. You shall walk after the Lord
and fear Him and keep His commandments and obey His voice and you shall
serve Him and cleave to Him. Be followers of God as dear children. Walk after Him. There's nothing
like walking with the Lord. Because we walk before Him and
we'll walk after Him. Only you can walk with the Lord
that way. And in Genesis chapter 5 and
Genesis chapter 6 we're told this, Enoch walked with God. And Noah walked with the Lord. And when we see this word walking
with, that means simply that we walk in fellowship with Him.
He's our friend. Abraham was called a friend of
God. And you and I, if we walk with
the Lord, then we're called His friends. We have fellowship with
Him. You're not my servants, He said,
for the servant don't know what his master doeth. But I called
you friends. You're my friends. Walk with
me. Walk in communion with me. If we walk in the light as He
is in the light, we have fellowship one with another. And our fellowship
is with the Father. Walk with me. Walk with me. And in Colossians 2, verse 6,
we have something else about this walk. As you have received
Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him. In Him. There's union. We're members
of His body. We're in Christ Jesus the Lord.
We're said to be crucified with Him. We're said to be buried
with Him. We're risen with Him. And we're
even said to be seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. We're in Him. And therefore walk
in the Lord Jesus Christ. You're chosen in Him. You are
complete in Him. You are accepted in Him. You're perfect in Him. Walk in
Him. Now this word here sometimes
really throws us, doesn't it? Walk before me and be thou perfect. And you and I read that and sometimes
we can't even begin to enter into that, so what do we do?
We say, that's not my experience. I can't relate to this. So we
just pass it on by. But let me read this passage
unto you like this. I am the Almighty God. Walk before
me and be thou perfectly truthful. Be thou perfectly honest. Be thou perfectly sincere. Doesn't that make a lot of sense
to read it that way? Being perfect doesn't mean you'll
never sin. It doesn't mean that at all.
It cannot mean that. But it does mean this, when you
do sin, you're honest about it. When you do sin, you're truthful
about it. When you do sin, you're sincere
with God about it. You don't hide it. You don't
deny it. You don't cover it up. You acknowledge
it to Him. Why? Because you're walking before
Him in truth. You walk Him before Him in honesty,
and you walk Him before Him in sincerity. That good seed that
was sown on the good ground, we're told that it was sown in
an honest and good heart. An honest heart. Walk before Me and be perfectly
honest. Walk before Me and be perfectly
truthful with Me, and walk before Me and be perfectly sincere. Walk in the light as God is in
the light, where everything is transparent, where everything
is exposed and clear. God is light, and in Him is no
darkness at all. Walk before Me in this light
where all your motives and all your thoughts and all your words
and all your deeds are exposed. Declare nothing to hide, no pretense,
no hypocrisy, sincerity and truth and honesty. Walk before me in
the bright light, in the clear sunlight of my presence. Ye were sometimes darkness, and
ye lived in darkness, and ye were bound in darkness, but now
are ye light in the Lord. Walk ye as children of light. Ye are not in darkness, that
the day of the Lord should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the
children of light, ye children of the day. What is night? What does it represent in the
Scripture? Well, it represents lies. It represents dishonesty,
insincerity. So to walk with God is to walk
with Him perfectly honest and perfectly truthful and perfectly
sincere. Listen to these Scriptures. Paul
said, we're not as many which corrupt the Word of God. We don't
twist it and misinterpret it and misapply it. to meet our
sinful ends, but we read it and we study it and we teach it in
sincerity as in the sight of God, knowing we are walking before
His very presence. That's the way we read God's
Word, in sincerity, before God. Listen to this scripture. Our
rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience. that in simplicity
and godly sincerity we live our lives in this world before God. Not with the wisdom of man, but
by the grace of God. That's the way we live, before
God, in sincerity. Would it be possible, brothers
and sisters, to walk before God except we walk perfectly truthful
and perfectly honest? and perfectly sincere. Can we
walk before Him in a deliberate lie? Would that be possible to
walk with the God of truth in a lie? Can we deceive Him? Can we hide our motives and intentions
of our hearts from Him? If we say that we have fellowship
with Him and walk in darkness, we lie and we do not the truth. The only way to walk before the
Almighty God is to walk in the bright light of His all-seeing
eye and His all-knowing presence. Walk before me. Walk deliberately
before me. Walk consciously before me. Walk
continually before me. And be perfectly honest, perfectly
truthful. and perfectly sincere with me
and in my sight. Now, the next time you and I
make this statement, and I know what we mean when we say this,
I'm not perfect. But in the sense that you and
I are talking about this word perfect this morning, if we make
that statement, then we ought to make it with red face and
a confused heart. Because if we're not walking
before the Lord in perfect truthfulness, and perfect honesty and perfect
sincerity with Him, then we're not walking with Him. Walk before Me and be thou perfect. Now here we have these two things.
We have first the motive and we have the means of this walk. Here's the motive for us walking
before the Almighty God and being perfect. Here's the motive. I
am the Almighty God. Walk before Me. It's because
of who God is that gives us the motive of walking before Him. If He's a little pygmy God, if
He's not the Sovereign of heaven and earth, then pay Him no mind
and walk as you will. But if He is, as He testifies
of Himself, the Almighty God, then that's motive enough to
walk before Him. and seek to be perfect. This
is not the command of a creature. This is the command of the Creator,
the Almighty God. Not a God, but the God. Not a
weak God, but the Almighty God. In God's eternal being, in His
very essence, His attributes, in His perfection, He has no
weakness or deficiency. He's the Almighty. Not only does
He possess all power, He is all-powerful. And not only is He all-powerful,
but He exercises that power according to His own will and for His own
glory. I had a fellow to tell me one
time that God could be sovereign if He wanted to be. That's what
a guy told me. Another man told me God could
exercise His will if He wanted to. He's all-powerful and He
exercises that power according to His own sovereign will and
for His own glory. This is who God is. This is what
God is. I am. Whenever you find Him, He proclaims
this of Himself. He testifies of who He is and
what He is. I am the Almighty God. If you
go back to Abraham's day, he says, I am the Almighty God.
Back in eternity, I am. In eternity future, I am. I am. That's what he told Moses
to tell the children of Israel. I am, sent me. I am who? I am the Almighty God. I am. And He'll never relinquish that
title, that right, or that power. I am the Almighty God. Can you, by searching, find out
God? Can you find out the Almighty
to perfection? He's too high for us. He's higher
than the heavens. What can you do? Deeper than
hell, what can we know? The measure of His power is longer
than the earth and broader than the sea. And if He cut off, or
if He shut up, or if He gathers us together, who can hinder Him? I am the Almighty. I will work. And who can hinder Me? Walk before
Me and be Thou perfect. Job says so much about the Almighty. Here's another statement he made
about it. Touching the Almighty, he said, we can't find Him out. He's excellent in power and in
judgment and plenty of justice. He will not unjustly afflict.
Men, therefore, do fear Him. And He respecteth not any that
are wise of heart. He's the Almighty. And He exercises
that right. It's His prerogative. He's the
Almighty. The Lord Jesus said, don't fear
them which kill the body, and they have nothing else that they
can do. But I'll forewarn you whom you to fear. Fear Him, that
after He's killed, He hath power to cast them to hell. Yea, fear
Him. Fear Him. What are we before
this Almighty God? What are the nations before Him?
We're nothing and less than nothing. If I whip my glittering sword
and my hand take hold on judgment, I'll render vengeance to my enemies,
and I'll repay them to their face that hate me. And who can
hinder Him when He does it? I am the Almighty God. Out of
his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he smites the nations
and rules them with a rod of iron, and he treadeth the winepress
of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. Even so, Lord God
Almighty, true and righteous are thy judgments." He's God. He's God. He's the Almighty God. And that's the motive. That's
the motive for walking before Him and being perfectly truthful
and honest with Him. How can such a God require any
less, brothers and sisters? Could God Almighty require any
less than perfection? Less than perfectly truth and
honesty and sincerity of His creatures? He can require no
less. He can demand no less. He's the
Almighty. You don't have to compromise,
does it? When you're Almighty, you don't have to compromise.
You don't have to settle for second best when you're the Almighty.
And God doesn't. He doesn't. Here's the means. There's the motive and here's
the means. I am the Almighty. And this word,
one of the definitions of this word means the all-sufficient. Walk before me. I'm all sufficient. My grace is sufficient for you. Walk before Me. Be strong in
the Lord and in the power of His might and walk before Me. I will dwell in them and I will
walk in them. Ain't that amazing? He commands
us to walk before Him and then says, I will walk in you. Therefore,
you walk before Me. It's God which worketh in you
both to will and to do of His good pleasure. I will give them
a new heart and a new spirit and cause them to walk in My
statutes. He's the Almighty, the all-sufficient
God. Somebody says, I can't walk it.
Well, I couldn't walk it either until He saved me. And you can't either until He
saves you. But He's the Almighty. We're not talking about the energy
of fallen flesh. We're not talking about the power
of the natural will of man. We're talking about God giving
this command and then giving grace and power to do what He
commands. Our Lord Jesus knows us. He knows
how low our sins has brought us. He knows how they've weakened
us. He knows our frame. He remembers that we're dust.
And He says to us, without Me you can do nothing. You can't
do anything. And then He comes to us in our
guilt, and He washes us. He comes to us in our shameful
nakedness, and He clothes us with His garments of righteousness.
He comes to us and He gives us a new heart and a new spirit,
new motives, new desires, a new life. And He sends the Holy Spirit
and He sheds abroad the love of God in our hearts. And then
He says, now walk before Me. And what do we say in return? I can do all things through Christ
which strengthens. I've often told you, the devil
told me for 22 years of my life, all my conscious life until the
Lord saved me, you can't walk with the Lord. You don't even
have a desire. All you've got is a torment and
fear that if you don't walk with Him, you're going to be damned.
But you can't be a Christian. Well, he was right. He was right
until the Lord made me a Christian. Ain't that your experience? What
did He do for you? He saved you, didn't He? He saved
you. The Almighty looks upon us, and
we're fallen creatures, and He commands us to repent, and to
believe, and to obey, and love, and worship, and walk before
Him. He can command that, and He can
command no less. Somebody said one time, does
God command all men ever to repent? What else can He command? Does
He command men not to repent? If He's God Almighty and He's
holy, He can command nothing else. Repent! Flee your sins! Flee to Christ! He has a right to command that.
He must command that because we're His creatures and He's
our Creator. And God will not compromise those
demands. What must God do then? If He
commands us to flee our sins, and commands us to believe, and
commands us to walk before Him and be perfect, and He only commands,
and He leaves us there, what's going to happen to us? We're not going to obey. I'll
just tell you like it is. All that's going to do is condemn
us the more. He knows us. Without Me, you
can do nothing. Sin has so weakened us. The devil
has so deceived us. The wrath of God is so heavy
upon us. Darkness has bound our feet and
our hands. We can't get out of the kingdom
of darkness and come to Christ. Everywhere we're commanded to
come. We're encouraged to come. But why don't everybody come? Until God gives grace, you won't
come. Now that's a fact, ain't it? Walk before me. We may walk in our religion.
We may go to church. We may do a lot of religious
work. But we can't walk before God until He works in us and
gives us grace to do so. The same God who commands must
in turn give grace. And when you see a poor old sinner
leaving his life of sin and darkness and walking before God, you can
say, what in the world happened? And you know what you can say?
The all-sufficient God gave him grace to do so. Here's the means. Here's the means. I am God Almighty. Walk before me. What must God
do? He must save us. He must deliver
us. He must change us. He must make
us what we are not by nature. He must give us the grace and
strength to walk with Him. And this is exactly what He does
in the Lord Jesus Christ. I can't be a Christian. I'm sorry,
but that's the truth. You can't be. But if He makes
you one, you can. What does God do? The Almighty
God becomes our God. That's the whole crutch of it.
That's the whole crutch of it. He says there in verse 8, I will
be their God. And he says there in verse 7
to Abraham, I will establish My covenant between Me and thee,
and thy seed after thee, and their generations, for an everlasting
covenant, and here it is, to be a God unto thee, and to thy
seed after thee. There it is. I will be your God. That's the secret of it. Here
you and I are, dead in trespasses and sins, and the God of this
world, is our God. This little God. But He was our
God. And He dictated to us what we
did day after day. Whatever God permitted Him to
do to us, that's what He did. And we walked after the Prince
of the power of the hour. And then there was a time when
God appeared to us as it were. And He says, I've reserved for
you my covenant blessing. From this day forward, I'm going
to be your God. And that changed everything,
didn't it? That changed everything. I will
be your God. As you read in the scriptures
of this covenant of grace, this everlasting covenant here that
God made with Abraham, you often see this covenant promise. I
will be your God. I will be your God. And then
all the other blessings you consider in the light of this blessing,
I will be your God. And because I will be your God,
here's what I'm going to do for you. Let me read some passages
to you. And I have to quote them because
we don't have time to turn there. As you read through the Old Testament,
over in the New Testament, you see little bits and pieces of
this covenant that God made with Abraham. But the secret to finding
it, almost always it contains this little statement. I will
be your God. I'll be your God. Listen to Ezekiel chapter 36.
I will take you from among the heathen and gather you out of
all countries. And I'll sprinkle clean water
upon you and you'll be clean. And from all your filthiness
and your idols will I cleanse you and I'll give you a new heart
I'll give you a new spirit. I'll put My Spirit within you
and cause you to walk in My statues and do them and keep them and
you shall be My people. And I will be your God. And because
I'm your God, this is what I'm going to do for you. Ezekiel
chapter 11, I will give them one heart. And I will put a new
spirit within you, and I'll take the stony heart out of you, and
I'll give your heart of flesh, that they may walk in My statues
and keep them, and they shall be My people, and I will be their
God." In Jeremiah chapter 24, I will give them their heart
to know Me. See how little? Something is
added every time. Something is added. I'll give
them a new heart and a new spirit. I'll cleanse them. Now he says,
I'll give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord and they
shall be my people and I will be their God. And listen to this,
they shall return to me with all their hearts. Why? Because I'm going to be their
God. Jeremiah chapter 31, after those days saith the Lord, I'll
put my laws in their inward parts, I'll write my law in their heart,
and I will be their God, and they shall be my people, and
I will forgive all their iniquities, and I will remember their sins
no more, because I'm their God. Jeremiah 32, they shall be my
people, And I will be their God, and I will give them one heart
and one way that they may fear Me forever. And I will put My
fear in them, and they shall not depart from Me, because I'm
their God." Then we come to the New Testament. It's all through
the New Testament. Hebrews chapter 8, this is the
covenant that I will make with them after those days saith the
Lord. I'll put my law in their heart and write them in their
inward part, and I will be to them a God. What kind of a God? God Almighty. God Almighty. The God that saves me is not
God Almighty. And that's not the God of the
Bible. I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people. The Lord God Almighty. And then 2 Corinthians 6, what
agreement hath the temple of God without us? Ye are the temple
of the living God, as God hath said, I will dwell in them, I
will walk in them, I will be their God. and they shall be
My people. Wherefore, come out from among
them, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing, and I
will be a father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters,
saith the Lord God Almighty." That's not only what He says
to Abraham, that's what He says to us. I'll be a God to you. What kind of God? The Lord God
Almighty. And here's the ultimate of this
covenant of grace. Here's the conclusion. Here's
the apex of it. So familiar scripture, Revelation
chapter 21, John said, I saw a new Jerusalem coming down out
of God from heaven as a bride adorned for her husband. And
I heard a voice. saying unto me, Behold, the tabernacle
of God is with men." You know what the tabernacle of God is.
That's where God lives. That's where He dwells. And when
the Lord Jesus Christ comes to this world, the Scripture says,
the Word was made flesh and tabernacled among us. When you see the Lord
Jesus Christ, you've seen God. That's where God dwells. That's
who God is. He's in Jesus Christ. And John
said he's now dwelling with them. He came down here and he dwelled
with us for thirty-three and a half years. And he sent the
Holy Spirit back to dwell in us. But there's coming a day
when John said he's going to dwell with us again. And we're
going to look upon his face. We're going to say, this is our
God dwelling with him. And listen to what he says. Behold,
the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them,
and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with
them, and God Himself shall be their God." From Genesis to Revelations,
here's the way the covenant runs. I will be a God to you. I will
be your God. And therefore He said He'll wipe
all tears from their eyes. Well, I'll tell you what's going
to wipe all tears from my eyes when I can be with Him. Sorrow is gone. Death is gone. Crying is gone. The pain is gone.
All of these former things are passed away. And God is their
God, and they're with Him. I don't know of a greater blessing
Then for this almighty triune God and Savior to come to a poor,
fallen man or woman and say, I am thy God. And then perform all things for
us. And then say, because I'm your
God, I'm going to make you my people. Because I'm your God,
I'm going to put My grace and My Spirit in your heart that
you can walk before Me and you can follow Me and walk with Me. Oh, what a blessing! What a blessing!
I don't know of a greater blessing, brothers and sisters, that God
could bestow upon you than to speak to your heart and tell
you, I'm your God. I'm your God. And then you can
say, Lord, I'm Thine. and I am my beloved and my beloved
is mine.