Tonight, Lord willing, out of
Acts chapter 17, I'm going to be preaching on the noble Bereans. Now, the message I'd like to
attempt to bring this morning, I've entitled, The Experience
of Grace. the experience of grace. And this was Abraham's experience. And if you and I have experienced
the grace of God, it will be our experience. I will be telling
you your experience if you know and if I know anything about
the grace of God. Now, God's grace to Abraham preceded
Abraham's experience of grace. You don't experience grace unless
God gives you grace. It was grace from before the
foundation of the world. You see, all of God's grace,
listen real carefully, all of God's grace is purposed grace. grace that HE purposed before
the foundation of the world. We have so many scriptures that
verify that, but II Timothy 1 and 9 says He saved us, and He called
us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to
His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus
before the world began. There will never be the experience
of grace. unless this grace is first purposed
by God Himself in eternity. Everything God does is eternal.
That's who He is. Now, in Abraham's experience, he was born not knowing God. He was born an idolater. He was born worshiping other
gods in the land of Ur of Chaldees. According to Joshua 24, 1 and
2, he was a server, a worshiper of other gods. He didn't know
God. And I love what the Lord says in Isaiah 51, 1 and 2. The
Lord says with regard to Abraham, I called him alone. And if he's called me and you,
he's called us the same way. He's called us alone. He always saves certain individuals. And if he's called me and you,
he's called me and you the same way he called Abraham. Now here's Abraham's experience.
Look in verse one of chapter 12. And I want us to notice this
word had. Now the Lord HAD said unto Abram. He said this previously. The
Lord had said unto Abram. Now look back in verse 31 of
chapter 11. And Terah, that's Abraham's father,
took Abraham, his son, and Lot the son of Haran, his son's son,
and Sarah his daughter-in-law, his son Abram's wife. And they
went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees to go into the
land of Canaan, the land of promise. Now, the Lord had said to Abraham,
go into the land of Canaan. And when he told him to do this,
he said, you leave your mother, You leave your father and you
go into the land of Canaan. You leave your relatives and
you go into the land of Canaan. Look what it says. And they came into Haran and
dwelt there. They didn't make it into the
land of Canaan. They stopped in the land of Haran. And the
days of Terah were 205 years, and Terah died in Haran. Now the Lord had said unto Abram,
he had said. And when he said that, this is
when Abraham took Lot and his father on the way to Canaan,
and they stopped in Haran. Now hold your finger there and
turn to Acts chapter 17. I mean, Acts chapter 7. The Lord causes this to be pointed
out in verse 2 of Acts chapter 7, and He said, this is Stephen,
Men and brethren and fathers, hearken, the God of glory, I
love that name of the Lord, don't you? The God of glory appeared
unto our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia. before
he dwelt in Quran, and said unto him, Get thee out of thy country,
and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I will show
thee. Then came he out of the land of the Chaldeans, and dwelt
in Quran, or Haran in Genesis 12. And from thence, when his
father was dead, he removed him into this land wherein you now
dwell. Now, Note the picture. God says
to Abraham, leave everybody, leave your family, go to the
land of Canaan. What did Abraham do? He took
his family and got halfway to Canaan and dwelt in the land
of Haran until his father died. And he dwelled in the land of
Aaron about five years. And then the Lord, the scripture
says, the Lord brought him into the land of Canaan. Now there were holes, inconsistencies,
and contradictions in Abraham's obedience. Now I admire Abraham. He's called the father of the
faithful. And I love his conduct, the way he's spoken of throughout
the scriptures. But there were holes, and God
the Holy Spirit points this out. There were holes, there were
contradictions, and there were inconsistencies in Abraham's
obedience. Sound like anybody you know? I repeat, in Abraham, in his
obedience, he didn't do exactly as God said. He brought his family
when God said to leave them. God said, go into Canaan. He
stopped in Haran for five years until his father died. Now, what that lets me know is
that we are not able to trust anything that has our fingerprints
on it. Abraham couldn't. He had so many
grave inconsistencies with regard to what God said to do that Abraham
did. And the scripture points this
out. This isn't me making up something.
The scripture points out these flaws in Abraham. And in our experience, like Abraham,
we have nothing but Christ to rely on. We can't rely on our
obedience. We can't rely on our experience. There are too many holes. There
are too many inconsistencies. There are too many contradictions
in our experience. All Abraham had was Jesus Christ. All you and I have is Jesus Christ. That is our experience of grace. In our faith, there's always
something lacking. And Paul said to the Thessalonians,
he came to perfect that which is lacking in your faith. There's
always something lacking in our repentance. There's always something
lacking in our love. Just whatever it is that has
anything to do with us, put a lacking beside of it. That was Abraham's
experience. This was his experience of grace.
All he had. was Christ. Now, let me ask you
a question. Do you still sin? Well, if you do, you're like
Abraham. That's your experience. And if
you still sin, there's always something lacking in you. Now, verse four, so Abraham departed as the Lord
had spoken unto him. Genesis 12, verse 4. So Abraham
departed as the Lord had spoken unto him. And Lot went with him,
and Abraham was seventy and five years old when he had departed
out of Haran. And Abram took Sarah his wife,
and Lot his brother's sons, and all their substance that they
had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran, And
they went forth to go into the land of Canaan. And into the
land of Canaan they came. And Abram passed through the
land into the place of Sycam under the plain of Morah. And the Canaanite was in the
land, and the Lord appeared unto Abraham. Now this is another
appearance. This is another appearance. Now what that reminds me of,
is I need the Lord to continually appear to me. I need to hear
the gospel over and over and over again, just like Abram did. The Lord appeared unto him again,
and it was the appearance of grace. Unto thy seed will I give the
land. Not unto thy seed I will give
the land IF you fill in the blank. Unto thy seed I will. Oh, I want to hear that. Unto
thy seed I will give the land. Now, this is the promise of God's
purpose, grace to Abraham that he would consequently experience
Now, if this would have been conditioned upon the perfection
of Abraham's obedience, where would Abraham be? He'd be toast,
wouldn't he? He'd be toast, me and you would
too. But this is God's purposed grace given to Abraham. I will give this land. And what did he do? Verse seven,
and the Lord appeared unto Abraham and said unto thy seed, will
I give this land? And there, BUILDED HE AN ALTAR
UNTO THE LORD, WHO APPEARED UNTO HIM." Question, what's an altar for? Altar's only got one purpose, sacrifice. the death of the sacrificial
animal sacrifice. You see, God was going
to do all this for Abraham because of the sacrifice of the coming
Messiah, not because of obedience on Abraham's part, but because
of the sacrifice of the coming Messiah, and Abraham knew that. Now listen to me real carefully.
I want you to listen to every word. False churches, and there
is such a thing. Antichrist Babylonian churches
have altars. They have them down in front
of the church. Come lay your all on THE ALTAR. THEY HAVE ALTAR CALLS. THEY SING SONGS LIKE, BUT WE
CAN NEVER PROVE THE DELIGHTS OF HIS LOVE UNTIL ALL ON THE
ALTAR WE LAY. ANYTHING NEAR YOU LAY ON THE
ALTAR DEFILES IT, It's against the meaning of altar
in the first place. That is the religion of Babylon. That's salvation by works. If
I think I can take my sacrilegious hand and put my filthy works
on the altar, the things I give up, and say, well, here, I've
given it all up, all I've done is deny the meaning of the altar
in the first place. that is Antichrist Babylonian
religion. He built this altar because he
knew all of his salvation was in the sacrifice of the coming
Messiah. Now look in verse 8. Remember,
this is his experience of grace. And he removed from the ensign
to a mountain on the east of Bethel. and pitched his tent. He settled down here, having
Bethel on the west, and Hai on the east, and there, you know,
this is something Abraham was always doing. He built an altar. He built an altar unto the Lord
and called upon the name of the Lord. He pitched his tent between
two places, and this is very significant, Bethel and Hai. Now these two words mean two
different things. Bethel means the house of God. Perhaps you've heard that. Hai
means the house of ruin. the house of destruction. There he pitches his tent between
these two places, the house of ruin and the house of destruction. Is that your experience of grace? The house of God, and the house of ruin. Now what
that speaks of is the two natures of the believer. An unbeliever
cannot understand this. This is the language of grace.
Only a believer can understand this. You see, if you only have
one nature, you can only see one nature. But if you have two
natures, You see these two natures. This is your experience. This
is the experience of grace. Abraham pitched his tent between
these two places, the house of God and the house of ruin. We have the nature we're born
with, and we have the nature we're
born again with. Now, the nature we're born with
is nothing but sin and it will never be anything other than
that. And the nature we're born again
with is the nature that does not sin, the holy nature that
every believer possesses. Now, you can see the effects
of sin If you don't have a holy nature, you can see the consequences
of sin. You can see some of the bad things
sin has created in your life, the problems it's created. But
it takes a holy nature to be able to see a completely sinful
nature. Now, if you don't see that completely
sinful nature that does nothing but sin in yourself, you do not
have a holy nature. Only the holy nature can perceive
that. Paul said, I delight in the law
of God after the inner man. But I see another law in my members,
warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity. to the law of sin, which is in
my members, O wretched man that I am. That's Paul speaking under
the influence of the Holy Spirit, not O wretched man I used to
be, but O wretched man that I am right now, present tense, who
shall deliver me from the body of this death. Now let me tell you, and I can
say this with such conviction and assurance, let me tell you
when you really believe you're a sinner, when you look to Christ
alone. Not until then. You've never
really been convinced of your sinfulness until you look to
Christ alone. And when you look to Christ alone,
that is when, well, that's the work of God the Holy Spirit in
you. Now, if your tent is pitched
toward Bethel and Hai, your chief concern will be the altar. Look
what it says, verse eight. And he removed from thence unto
a mountain on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent between
having Bethel on the west and Hai on the east. Now, I think
it's interesting that every time you read in the scripture something
east, it's always bad. It's always bad. Where did a
cane go? East. When Adam and Eve left,
it was east of Eden. It's always bad. And this Bethel
is on the east. I mean, Hai is on the east, Bethel
is on the west. And there's a lot of that in
particularly in the book of Genesis. But when he pitched his tent
between these two places, what did he do? There he built an
altar unto the Lord. If your tent is pitched between
Bethel and Ai, your chief concern is the altar and what the altar
represents. Hebrews chapter 13, verse 10
says, we have an altar. that they who serve the tabernacle
have no right to eat. Those Levitical priests, they
don't have any right to this altar. They've got a material
altar. Every believer has an altar. It's not down at the front of
the church. Jesus Christ himself is the altar. You see, he's the
priest and he offers the sacrifice of
himself And the altar of that sacrifice, the place of that
sacrifice, is His own body. We have an altar. Now, I want to talk some about
the altar. Drew, you read about it there
in the book of Ezra. The altar. Abraham was always
building altars. That's one of the characteristics
of this man's life, the father of the faithful. He was always
building altars. Now, the first thing Noah did
when he came off the ark was what? He built an altar. First thing he did. The sacrifice
of all those clean animals. Hundreds of sacrifices, but the
first thing he did is he built an altar. Now, if you read in
Exodus, after the children of Israel have left Egypt in the
very first battle against the Amalekites where the Lord defeated
the Amalekites for them. You know what Moses did? He built
an altar. And you know what he named it?
Jehovah Nissi. He gave a name to that altar.
The Lord Our Banner. And what that lets us know is
that our banner is Jesus Christ and Him crucified. That's our
continual message. The cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.
That is our message. There is no other message. You
know, that's the first time I'd seen that Jehovah Nissi was the
name of an altar. The Lord Our Banner. Now, after the Lord gave the
Ten Commandments, and you know I love the Ten Commandments.
I love what Paul said, I delight in the law of God after the inward
man. No other god before God. What
a glorious commandment. The evil of idolatry, making
false gods, gods that are always lower, gods that are always man-like,
the gods of graven images, the commandment concerning remembering
his name, the reverence of his name, the holiness of his name,
the commandment regarding rest, the commandment regarding honoring
authority, honoring your mother and father, the commandment regarding
not killing, the commandment regarding no sexual sin, the
commandment regarding not lying, not bearing false witness, not
stealing, not taking what doesn't belong to you, not coveting. Oh, I love the holy law of God. But let me also say this. If
you think you've kept one of those commandments one time,
you have no understanding of the law of God. Now you just
write that down. You don't understand the law
of God. If you've kept one commandment, one time. But in Exodus chapter
20, we have God's holy law. Does anybody know what comes
next? An altar for sacrifice. You see,
when God gave those commandments, He knew they wouldn't keep them,
and Moses knew it too. I can't help but think of when
God spake to The children of Israel in Exodus chapter 24,
and they replied, All that God has commanded, that will we do. What Moses started doing? He
started throwing blood on them. He knew that was the biggest
lie ever told. And he started throwing blood
on them, the blood of the sacrifice. I never will forget hearing a
preacher say that was their pact of obedience. No, it was the
certainty of disobedience and the only way they could be saved
is through the blood of Christ. Now this, as soon as he gave
the law, build an altar. And there were two requirements
with regard to that altar. Here's the first requirement.
It's to be made of unhewn stone. If you put your hand on it, if
you put a tool to it, if you try to shape it, if you do anything
to it, it's polluted and defiled. It's no good. And that was the
commandment with regard to that altar. You don't do anything. And you know what the next requirement
was? There couldn't be steps to that altar. You see, there's not steps to
Christ. Well, if I do this, this, and this, God will save me. No, He won't. Not like that. There are not steps to Christ.
There's nothing you need to do BEFORE you can get to Christ. That's salvation by works. That's
all that is. There are not steps to Christ. The altar, don't wait for something
to happen. Don't wait for some experience.
Don't wait for some feeling. Don't wait for you to do something
or quit doing something. They're not steps to Christ.
You know, when they made the tabernacle, there was a brazen
altar made. Remember that? It was seven and
a half by seven and a half, a perfect square, this brazen altar. This
speaks of the stability. perfect square. And it was made
of brass and chitim wood, not gold, but brass. Now, why is
the altar made this way? Well, for two reasons. Number
one, to support the weight of the sacrifice. And number two,
to be able to withstand the fire and the judgment. Now, you think
of the Lord, our altar, you think of the weight of the sins that
he bore. He bear our own sins in his body
on the tree. Every sin of every one of the
elect, he bore in his body. If you're one of His elect, if
you're somebody for whom Christ died, every sin you ever committed,
thought, and what I think is interesting is most of them you
don't even know about, ignorant of. Every sin, every thought,
every wrongdoing, every bad motive, He was made to bear the filth
of it in His own body on the tree. Now, remember this, sin
can't be two places at once. If He bore them, you don't. And you think of the wrath he
endured, and he stood up to. The brass being his ability to,
the fire of God's wrath came down upon him. He bore the full
equivalent of hell, and he satisfied God's justice. He was that bush
that could not be consumed. He consumed the wrath of God. It was gone. This is the ability
of Christ, our altar, the weight of the sins He bore, the wrath
that He bore, and that is why there is therefore NOW NO CONDEMNATION
to them that are in Christ Jesus. None at all! According to Exodus chapter 29,
verse 37, Whoever touched that altar was most holy. And that describes every believer
because of the work of Christ in their behalf. You are most
holy. That's what God says, most holy. Do you remember in Isaiah chapter
six, where Isaiah said, woe is me, I'm undone. I'm a man of
unclean lips and dwell in the midst of a people of unclean
lips. For mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. That's where his view of himself
came from, seeing who the Lord is. And then a seraphim at that
time took a live coal from off the altar. and touched his lips,
those lips that were so unclean that came as a result of his
own uncleanness. And what do we read? Your iniquity is taken away and
your sin is purged. And that's what that live coal
from off the altar did, the altar of sacrifice. It made your iniquity
to be no more, disannulled, canceled, gone. It made your sin to be
purged. It's what the Bible calls justification,
standing before God without guilt. You remember when Nadab in a
bayou offered strange fire before God. You know what that strange
fire was? Fire that didn't come from off
the altar. They took the incense and they
said, well, we've got the incense, it's right. And perhaps it was
not convenient at that time to get the fire from off the altar.
They said, any old fire will do. We're sincere. We're doing
what we think is right. And they lit up that incense
with fire that was strange fire, not from off the altar of sacrifice.
And what happened? Fire came down from heaven and
consumed them. And you know what Moses said
to Aaron? These were Aaron's two sons. He said, don't cry. Don't
cry. They got what they had coming. they dared to come into God's
presence in some way WITHOUT the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus
Christ. I think of what the Lord said
to the Pharisees, O fools and blind, whether it is greater
the gift or the altar that sanctifies the gift. They thought their
gift is what was counted. No, the only way that gift can
be accepted is because of the altar of sacrifice that sanctifies
the gift. Now, in our experience of grace,
in Abraham's experience, in my experience, in your experience,
grace precedes the experience of grace, doesn't it? And when you have grace, you're
placed in this place between Bethel and Hai. And whenever
you're placed in that place, between the house of God and
the house of ruin, there's one thing that's on your mind, the
altar, the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. and what it accomplished. And look what Abraham did at
that time. Verse eight, he removed from
thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel and pitched his
tent, having Bethel on the west and Hai on the east. And there
he builded an altar unto the Lord. And what next? He called
upon the name of the Lord. Now listen real carefully. The
name of the Lord is only seen and realized and understood in
the light of the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. Every
attribute of God is revealed in the sacrifice that took place
upon the altar His holiness, His justice, His sovereignty,
His independence, His immutability, His power, His wisdom, EVERY
ATTRIBUTE OF GOD IS MADE KNOWN IN THE SACRIFICE OF THE LORD
JESUS CHRIST. AND WHEN I CALL ON HIS NAME,
I'M CALLING UPON THE NAME OF HIM WHO'S REVEALED IN THE SACRIFICE. Abraham, over and over again,
he builds that altar, and the next thing he does, he calls
upon the Name of the Lord. And this is what our experience
of grace is. SAVE ME! By your justice, by
your grace, by your sovereignty, by your power, by your wisdom,
we call upon the Name of the Lord! That's not a one-time act. All the time, whosoever. Weren't you thankful for that
word? WHOSOEVER SHALL CALL UPON THE NAME OF THE LORD SHALL BE
SAVED. Verse 9, And Abram journeyed,
going on still toward the south. Now, if you had asked the average
Joe, What's your experience of grace?, they'd talk about how
bad they used to be and how good they are now, really, is basically
what it comes down to. But that's not the true experience
of grace. That's a lie, really. It's a
lie. Now, I'm not discounting it. Abraham was, by the grace of
God, he was a fine man. He was like us, weak and sinful.
But look at the way that people talk to him when he's burying
his wife. They said, you're a mighty prince among us. And he was such
a humble man with those people. And you think of his obedience
in Genesis 22. I mean, I'm not trying to trash
Abraham in any way, but God the Holy Spirit does point out the
holes and inconsistencies and contradictions in his obedience.
To let us know that all Abraham had in his experience and all
you and I have in our experience is Jesus Christ the Lord and
His sacrifice. He is everything in our salvation. And as long as you have your
tent pitched between Bethel and Haggai, you're going to know
that is so. Let's pray. Lord, how we thank you for the
sacrifice of thy dear son that actually makes everybody
you died for most holy before you. Oh, Lord, how we give thanks. In Christ's name we pray, amen. Dwight.