in that sermon which cost him
his life, begins his declaration of the
kingdom of God, the building of God's kingdom, the call of
Abraham, the faith of Abraham, and all things pertaining to
that faith with these words. He said, ìThe God of glory appeared
unto Abraham.î Oh, may the God of glory appear to us this morning. The God of glory appeared to
Abraham. That was the beginning of life
for him. The God of glory appeared to
Abraham and called him. The God of glory appeared to
Abraham, made himself known to him, and as a result, the scripture
tells us, Abraham believed God. Of all the men mentioned in Bible
history, other than our Lord Jesus Christ himself, no man
is set before us as a more prominent example of faith than Abraham. Abraham is uniquely called the
friend of God, the father of all them that believe. He is
that man through whom all the nations of the earth are blessed
because he is that man through whom Jesus Christ has come into
the world, and that man by whom the Spirit of God's grace has
been poured out upon all flesh through Jesus Christ our Redeemer.
These things make Abraham a man whose life experiences in the
grace of God are worthy of much study and careful attention.
In fact, if you read carefully the book of Genesis, You'll notice
that from the end of the 11th chapter through the entire remaining
chapters of the book, the whole book of Genesis is taken up almost
exclusively with Abraham and his seed. That means that God
intends for us to understand something about this man Abraham
and his works in Abraham as they represent and teach us of his
works of grace toward us in Jesus Christ. Now, having said that,
a word of warning and caution is in order. When we study the
lives and experiences of men such as Abraham, or like Noah
before him, or like Enoch before him, or like Adam or Abel before
him, We must be careful that we do not set those men up as
idols before us, men that we almost venerate and revere to
the point of worship and emulation. It is not Abraham that we are
to adore, but rather the God of Abraham. Abraham's greatness
as a man must be traced to the greatness of his God and the
greatness of the grace of God in him. Abraham would say concerning
himself, I have no doubt whatsoever, exactly the same thing Paul did,
by the grace of God, I am what I am. Indeed, it is the delightful
confession of all who know God. Every believer delightfully turns
the attention of men away from himself. and upward toward God
and recognizes and confesses, not unto us, O Lord, not unto
us, but unto thy name give glory for thy mercy and for thy truth's
sake. We desire none and we take no
credit for anything good that's in us. No believer does. We recognize
that anything we possess Godward. Anything we have that reflects
the character and glory and goodness of God is the gift of God. Our faith is the gift and operation
of God Almighty. And if we are faithful, our faithfulness
is the result of His faithfulness toward us. Now, we recognize
that the life we live in this body of flesh, we live now by
the grace of God. The life of faith is not a life
of amazing willpower, or amazing fortitude, or amazing self-discipline. Oh, no. The life of faith is
a life of amazing grace and goodness from the amazing God of all grace,
our Lord God Almighty. This is what the Scripture says.
For by grace are you saved through faith. and that not of yourselves."
That word, that, refers back to everything that Paul has said
preceding it. The grace is not of yourselves. The salvation is not of yourselves. The faith is not of yourselves. It's the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. Now, let's look together at Genesis
chapter 12. And I want to show you five things
in our text, five things displayed in the life and experiences of
Abraham in this passage about faith. It is my prayer that God
the Holy Spirit will graciously grant to you who are yet without
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the faith of Abraham, and that
he will, for you and I who are born of God, encourage, strengthen,
and edify us in the faith of our father Abraham. Here's the
first thing. Faith is the gift and operation
of God Almighty in us. Faith begins with God, not with
man. Faith is not the result of man's
will, man's decision, or man's choice. The fact is, left to
ourselves, none of us ever would or could believe God. Yes, it is true. If you would
be saved, you must believe, but you can't. Yes, it is true. If you believe God, salvation
is yours, but you will not and you cannot believe God unless
God does something for you. Now, this is what I'm telling
you. You who are sitting here this morning without Christ,
if God just leaves you alone, you're going to hell. If God
doesn't step in your way, if God doesn't stop you, if God
just leaves you to your will, to your discretion, to your way,
you know what the result will be. You will eat the fruit of
your own way and perish in everlasting damnation. Oh, then I pray that
God will step in. By whatever means He deems wise
and good, may God put Himself between you and Him. and make
himself known to you by his almighty grace. If we believe, it is because
of God who worketh in us both to will and to do of his good
pleasure. We believe, the scripture says,
according to the working of his mighty power which he wrought
in Christ when he raised him from the dead. We believe by
the operation of God because God has given us faith to believe. Now this is exemplified in Abraham
plainly. Look in verse 1. Now the Lord
had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from
thy kindred, and from thy father's house into a land that I will
show thee. Now notice the way Moses puts
this. He does not say the Lord said. He says the Lord had said
to Abraham. We're not told exactly when the
Lord spoke to Abraham until we turn to Acts chapter 7 and read
Stephen's sermon concerning Abraham. In Acts chapter 7 in verse 2,
Stephen said to the Sanhedrin and those standing before him,
the God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham when he was
in Mesopotamia before he dwelt in Canaan. The words, the God
of glory, are used only one at a time in
all the Word of God. They're used in Psalm 29 and
verse 3, a Messianic psalm speaking of our Lord Jesus Christ. When
the scripture says here, the God of glory appeared unto Abraham,
it is talking about a revelation of God in Jesus Christ, the God-man,
our Savior, who is the King of glory, for he is the God of glory. You see, the only way God ever
makes himself known to man is in the God-man, our Mediator,
Christ Jesus. God does not make himself known
except in Jesus Christ the Lord. No man knows the God of glory
except the God of glory shows his face in Jesus Christ, our
Redeemer. The God of glory gives faith
to whom he will. Abram was living down in earth
Calvary. We don't know anything about
Terah, his father. We don't know much about Nahor,
his uncle. But Abram was living down in
Ur of the Chaldees in an idolatrous land. Four hundred years had
passed since the flood. And there's Abram in a nation
of idolaters. Abram amongst a lost, ruined,
heathen, pagan people. Kind of like you and me. In the
same kind of society. Religious as all get out. But
these folks didn't know God from a gourd, and they'd come just
as likely to worship a gourd as to worship God, just like
folks around whom we live. There's Abram in that idolatrous
land, a land where people were steeped in idolatry. Well, why
did the God of glory appear to Abram? What was there about Abram? What was significant about Abram?
What caused God to turn His face toward Abram? What caused God
to step into Abram's life? Just one thing. It pleased God. That's all. Nothing in Abram to win God's
favor. Nothing in Abram to turn God
toward him. We're not told anything about
some quality, some character, some decision, some will in Abram. Oh no! God loved Abram. God chose Abram. Abram's name
was written in the Book of Life of the Lamb, slain from the foundation
of the world. Therefore, the God of glory appeared
to Abram. That's the reason how come, Merle?
He came down to Harrisburg, Kentucky and appeared to you. That's all. That's the reason he stepped
in your way. That's the reason he planted
himself in your path and stopped you in your mad rush to destruction,
because he pleased to do so. We're told in Romans chapter
9, So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth,
but of God that showeth mercy. How plain could Scripture be,
David? But what does man's will have to do with salvation? Nothing.
What does man's work have to do with salvation? Nothing. What
does man's doing have to do with salvation? Nothing. It's not
of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that
showeth mercy. Not unto us, O Lord, but unto
us. Unto thy name give glory for
thy mercy and for thy truth's sake. Faith is wrought in the
hearts of chosen sinners by the revelation of Christ. We teach men, we instruct men,
we take our children and instruct them in the things of God, instruct
them in the gospel of God's grace. I preach to you as plainly as
I know how. I prepare my sermons and messages
for you with, you know, the best of my ability. I do the best
I can to put things in some kind of a logical order so folks can
get a handle on what I'm saying. But Rex, I can't communicate
that. You can't communicate faith to
your sons and daughters. You can't take that little girl
you love so dearly and give her faith. It can't be done. It can't
be done. It can't be done. No matter how
pious, zealous, and how earnest you are in all your efforts,
no matter how you shut your children up from society and the world,
no matter how you protect them, no matter how you train them,
you can't communicate faith. Faith does not depend on the
preacher's eloquence, or the preacher's telling a sad story,
or the preacher's being able to psychologically manipulate
your mind and your emotions. Faith comes by the revelation
of Jesus Christ, when it pleased God, who separated me from my
mother's womb to reveal His Son in me. Oh, Son of God! Come, reveal yourself to sinners. Then they shall look on me whom
they have pierced. And when they look on me whom
they have pierced, when I make myself known to them, they'll
see me. And seeing me, they'll mourn
for me as one mourns for his only son. That's the language
of the Bible. Faith then comes when Christ
comes and makes himself known. Now, I don't know how it had
happened. I don't know how it took place. But somehow in this
dark, heathen, pagan, idolatrous society, God yet had a witness. He always does, doesn't he? He always does. God never leaves
himself without a witness. We say, Pastor, how do you know
that? Because faith comes by hearing, hearing by the Word
of God. Somehow, somewhere, somewhere along the line, somebody came
by God's direction and crossed Abram's path and told Abram. He said, Abram, did you ever
hear, did you ever hear the story how all this thing got started? Did your father, your grandfather
ever sit you down and tell you about Adam in the garden? how
he sinned against God, and before God put him out of the garden,
he said, I'm going to send a Redeemer, a man made of a woman, and he's
going to crush the serpent's head, and I'll show you what
he'll do. He took a pair of animals, and he killed the innocent animal.
shed their blood for the fallen pair, took the skins off those
animals, and put them on Adam and Eve. Did you ever hear, Abram,
how Abel came and worshipped God? Brought him a sacrifice
of blood, picturing Him who would be the Lamb of God, who would
make atonement for our sins. Abram, do you remember? Do you
remember not so long ago how that God sent the flood of His
wrath, but He prepared an ark in which He saved Noah and his
family, an ark on which the wrath of God fell, an ark in which
Noah and his family were saved from God's wrath? Did you ever
hear how that picture, that one whom God promised Adam before
the world began, and the God of glory appeared to Abram? Abram
said, That's it. That's it! And he lifted his
eyes to heaven. And he believed God. Have you
heard the message? The God of glory appeared to
us in the person of His dear Son, who by the sacrifice of
Himself has obtained eternal redemption for us. Faith is the result of God's
choice, the result of God's revelation of Himself in Christ. and the
result of God's irresistible call. The God of glory appeared
to Abram and said, get out. Thy people, the scripture says,
shall be willing in the day of thy power. The scripture says,
blessed is the man whom thou choosest and causes to approach
unto Now, the call of God, when we talk about irresistible grace,
when we talk about the effectual call, those are big words. This is what they mean, Josh.
When something's irresistible, it means you can't resist it.
That's not too profound, is it? You can't resist it. Now, you
can try, and you will. You can fight, and you will.
But you can't resist. You can't resist it. When something's
effectual, that just means it gets the job done. It's that
which accomplishes its intended purpose and design. Will you
hear me now? The call of God, thank God, is
irresistible. Aren't you glad he wouldn't take
no for an answer? The call of God is the effectual
call of Almighty Grace. But we preach the gospel to all
men, yes we do, but we can't make you hear it. We call all
men to repentance. Yes, we do, but we can't bring
them. We bid all men believe. Yes, but we can't give them faith.
Oh, but if God speaks through His Word and calls His Word to
come to your heart in power, you won't resist His call. You
won't resist it. The call of God is a personal
call. He appeared to Abram. It's a
call to separation. He said, Get out from these idolaters. Leave your father's house and
your father's goods and the land of your nativity, the land of
your kindred, and get to a land I'm going to tell you about.
I'll show you where it is. It's a call accompanied with
the promise of grace. God said, you get out. You follow
me, and I'll bless you. And I'll make your name great. Now, I've read as it could be.
Comments last few weeks on this Abraham's name being made great
folks talk about you know such a great name revered among Christians
Jews and Mohammedans That's nothing That's that's no greater name
OJ Simpson and nothing to that that's not what God's people
want oh no Great before the angels of God Great in heaven great
among the people of God because his name is written amongst the
names of those whose names are in the book of life written in
heaven. That's the greatness he promises,
and he's, I'll make you a blessing. I'll make you a blessing. A blessing
to your family, a blessing to yourself, a blessing to all the
peoples of the earth. This call comes to sinners who
are nothing, insignificant, nobody's. Worthless, vile, helpless, undone
wretches. That's what you had to offer
God? Nothing. Somebody says, give your heart
to Jesus. What would he want less than
he could take? Your heart's your problem. We'll give your life
to Jesus, but you don't have anything to give him. Oh, it's
our prayer he'll give you his life, and give you his heart,
and give you his grace. You've got nothing to offer.
Abraham, you follow me. I'll make your name great. I'll
bless you. I'll bless you. And I'll make you a blessing. Oh, what a wondrous thing. There
stands before you now a man who corrupted and ruined
and hurt everything he ever touched until the God of glory appeared.
And this man who was nothing but destruction and sin, God
has blessed. The whole wonder of wonders even
makes me a blessing to somebody else. I bless you and make you
a blessing. The call of God is irresistible. God said, Abraham, get out. Look
at verse 4. So Abraham departed. No surprise
about that, is it? And yet if you read the scriptures
carefully, you'll notice that we're told in verse 1 that the
God of glory had said to Abraham, the Lord had called Abraham. It's obvious then that Abraham
did not immediately obey God in the universality of this thing
of obedience. So first thing I want you to
understand is faith is the gift of God. The second thing is this. Faith is obedient. It's obedient. Faith obeys God. It obeys God. Now, I'll say more about this
in just a minute. It never obeys Him perfectly.
You see, faith is something that's limited to this existence in
this world. When we leave here, faith will
be no more. And while we live in this world,
no grace is perfect. No one believes God perfectly. We're told here, Abram departed.
God, you see, has ordained that those who are saved by His grace
obey Him. He's ordained. We are His workmanship
created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God has before
ordained that we should walk in them. That means, Larry Brown,
God's going to make you obey Him if you're His. That's just
all there is to it. It's not a matter of this preacher
or a board of deacons or a board of elders or a church getting
a police committee together and ruling over you and making sure
you keep in line. Oh, no. God'll take care of that. If
you're His. And if you're not, what I do won't make any difference.
But if you're His, He'll keep you in line. He'll do it. He's
ordained that we walk before Him in obedience. And if we have
faith, we will obey Him. He'll see to it. God said to
Abram, while he was yet in earthly calities, get out and go to a
land that I'll tell you of and leave your daddy behind. Now
apparently Abram made a mistake, apparently. Apparently he talked
to his daddy and his daddy said, well alright, let's go. Well
what could be wrong with that? God said, leave your father. Let's go toward Canaan." And
they got to Herod, and they, man, this is a nice place. This
is good enough. We left Ur to Caldee. We'll stay
right here. God said to Abram, leave Ur,
leave your father, leave your father's house, and go to Canaan. But they stopped in Herod, and
there Terah and Abram and their families dwelt together fine.
And Abram's disobedience. Now buddy, disobedience is going
to cost you. It's going to cost us. If we're
his, it will. If we're his, it will. God said go to Canaan. Abram's going to Canaan. There's
no question about that. He's going to obey God. But somehow
he must be made willing to go. And so God killed his dad. And
Abram left Haran and went to Canaan. God has his ways of making his
children obedient. You remember in Exodus chapter
4? Moses had his boys and God commanded him to circumcise them
and his wife objected. Oh, you can't do that to our
boys. You hurt them so bad. I just can't stand that. That's
not the way my people are. I wasn't raised that way. If you love
me now, you won't do that to the boys. And God stopped him. He stopped him in the motel room.
And he said, now either you're going to circumcise those boys
now, or I'm going to kill you. Read it for yourself. What is
that? Well, you reckon he'd have done
that? Take that up with God if you want to. He said, you do
it now, I'm going to kill you. And while his wife watched him
laying on the bed, apparently so stricken by God, he could
not do it himself. And she's there in that motel
room in the middle of nowhere. And she's either got a choice.
She's either going to lose her husband here and now and be left
with those boys out here in the middle of nowhere, or she's going
to do what God said. And so she takes a sharp rock
and cuts the foreskin off and throws it at Noah's feet and
cusses him. So I said, all right, now go on about your business.
And I'm telling you, God will see to it that his children obey
him. He'll see to it. Thank God he
won't leave us to ourselves. And we will prosper by the obedience. Absalom called for Joab on one occasion.
And Joab just ignored it. Who are you? Why should I bother
with you?" And Absalom couldn't get his attention. So Absalom
said to his servants, he said, fellas, it's hot and dry outside.
The barley is ready to harvest. I want you to go pour kerosene
all over Joab's field and set the stinking things on fire.
And Joab looked out and saw the fields on fire. There goes his
crops for the year. And he saw Absalom's men out
there waving at him. And he gets on his donkey and
comes over to Absalom and says, what are you doing? He said,
I want your attention. I've been calling you. Now you're
here. Now I'm going to tell you, God's
going to get your attention. He's going to get your attention.
No matter who or what he destroys to get it. He won't let anything stand in
the way of the obedience of his sons and daughters. Won't happen.
Having said that, I understand this too. Faith, true faith,
worships God. In chapter 12, verses 6 through
9, we see Abram, as God appears to him, he builds an altar and
worships God. You see, if we believe God, we
will worship Him as He appears to us in His Word, in His works,
in His providence, in His grace, and in His Son. We will worship
God as God. All believers do. Somebody talks
about people, say, well, they love the Lord, they just don't
like election, they love the Lord, they just don't like this
message of particular redemption. They love the Lord. They just
don't like talking about effectual grace. They love the Lord. They
just don't understand the gospel. That's like saying they love
God, but they don't know Him. Faith worships God as He is,
as He makes Himself known in the revelation of Himself in
His Word and in His Son. If we believe God, we'll worship
Him at the altar as He requires in the way He requires. We have
an altar, the scripture says, whereof they have no right to
eat which serve the tabernacle. You see, we worship at the altar
Christ Jesus. We don't worship at a material
altar. And if you worship at a material
altar, you don't worship Christ. You have no right to eat at this
altar, not as long as you're serving in the tabernacle. This
is an altar made of earth. That is an altar of God's making,
not ours. This is an altar without our
hands being lifted up on it to pollute it, not made of hewn
stone. That's the kind of altar Abraham
erected to God. Read the Old Testament. They
pile up rocks and they call it an altar. Well, man, no stained
glass, no crosses, no gold. You start to adorn it with your
works, you've polluted it. And I'm telling you, if you would
worship God, you'll worship Him through Jesus Christ, the Lord,
by His blood and His righteousness alone, recognizing you have nothing
to contribute. And this is an altar without
any steps. You come to Him all at once. You come to Him as you
are. You don't make any progress or
degrees by your works. If we worship God, we'll worship
Him in His house. means house of God. Here's Abraham. He's left earth
to Caledonians. And he stopped in Herod, and
now God's killed his father and he leaves Herod and he goes to
Canaan. And he comes between Bethel, house of God, and Haiyai. I looked that word up. You know
what it means? Heap of ruins. Oh, what a place to worship God.
He comes here in the midst of the Canaanites, around this heap
of ruins, and he worships God in his house. I can hear him
almost as he comes before the Lord and he says, I was glad
when they said to me, let us go into the house of God. Fourthly,
faith in Christ. Even the most exemplary faith
is never perfect. Don't expect it from yourself. Don't expect it from me. Don't
expect it from anyone. And yet, Bobby, we must never
be satisfied with anything less. Faith is never perfect. Every
idol of men has got clay feet, and they're usually dried clay
feet, very brittle. Here's Abram. God commands him
to go out of Ur of the Chaldees unto Canaan, and he says, There,
in this land, I'll bless you. There, in that land, I'll make
you great. There, in that land, I'll make
you a blessing. But faith must be tried. And
the trial of faith is designed for two purposes. Under the glory
of God's gift, it's designed, number one, to prove that we
really believe God, and number two, to prove that we're nothing.
Faith is tried to make us constantly be reminded of our weakness and
our insufficiency. So God sends a famine in the
land, and here's Abraham with Lot, and Lot's wife. and Sarah,
and all their servants, and their cattle, and there's no water,
and there's no bread. But man, down in Egypt, boy,
look, get up there on the mountain, that light, look, look down there.
See that green, fertile ground? Look at that. Man, the water's
down there, plentiful. Look at the Nile River. That
old muddy thing looks so good. Let's go down to Egypt for a
little while." And so he sojourned in Egypt. And as he got near,
he takes his wife Sarah and he says, now honey, you're a looker. And when that king sees you,
he's going to kill me to get you. So tell him that you're
my sister, not my wife. For your sake. Now here's a man. This is a man who dares go out
against the kings of the plain with nothing but a shepherd's
crook. And yet this man in his weakness, willing to give his
wife to another man, and pretends to do it, hiding behind her skirt,
for your sake. So many things to learn here. If we believe not, yet hereby
it's faithful. He promised, I'll never leave
you nor forsake you. Abraham temporarily forsook God,
but God didn't forsake Abraham. Abraham temporarily forgot God,
but God didn't forget Abraham. Abraham turned his back on God,
but God didn't turn his back on Abraham. Instead, you know
what he did? He plagued Pharaoh and his family
to protect Sarah and protect Abraham. And before he was done,
Pharaoh not only refused to touch Sarah, this pagan king, but he
gave Abraham more ashes, and more camels, and more men servants,
and more female servants, and commanded everybody in his kingdom,
don't you touch this family, now get out of here. And we pick up in chapter 13
and learn one more lesson. Faith never quits. Faith perseveres. Faith keeps
on believing God. Now, not because Abraham's great
But God's great. We hold Him not because of our
strength, but He is. Our perseverance is not because
we're so determined, but because He is. Our perseverance is not
the result of our faithfulness, but He is. Understand that, Oscar? We're kept for the power of His
grace. That's all. That's all. That's all. we're told in chapter 13, went up out of Egypt. He and
his wife and all that he had locked with him into the south.
And Abram was very rich. You know what the word is? Not
just rich in cattle, not just rich in earthly possessions,
though he had that. The word means honorable. Oh, how wonderful is God's goodness,
David. He even overrules our infidelity
to him to make us better. Abraham came out of Egypt a better
man than he was when he went down to Egypt because God was
with him. Oh, what a great God. What a
great God. God brought him out of Egypt.
God enriched him. And then we read that Abraham
pitched his tent between Bethel, the house of God. And there I,
the heap of ruins, and worship God. Look at this now. At the place of the altar which
he had made there at the first, and there Abram called in the
name of the Lord. Sons and daughters of God Almighty,
children of God, come with me now. Come, come on. Come back
to the foot of Mount Calvary and lift your eyes, yadda, to
the crucified Son of God, here where first you met God, and
stay right here in the house of God, in the midst of these Canaanites,
right here beside this heap of ruins, and worship God. Oh, what shall I render unto
the Lord for all his I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll
take the cup of salvation and I'll call on the name of the
Lord as long as I live. Amen. David, you come lead us
in the hand, will you?