Hebrews chapter 6, and let's
begin reading in verse 12. Hebrews chapter 6, verse 12, that you be not slothful,
sluggish, sleepy, lazy, but followers, imitators of those who through
faith and patience inherit the promises For when God made promise
to Abraham, because he could swerve no greater, he swore by
himself, saying, Surely, blessed, I will bless thee, and multiply
it, I will multiply thee. And so after he had patiently
endured, he obtained the promise. For men verily swerve the greater,
and an oath for confirmation is to them that end of all strife.
For in God, willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs a promise,
the immutability of his counsel confirmed it by an oath. that
by two immutable fangs in which it was impossible for God to
lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge, to
lay hold upon the hope set before us, which hope we have as an
anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth
that within the veil. Whether the forerunner is for
us entered, even Jesus, made a high priest for ever after
the order of Melchizedek. Paul here in verse 12 was encouraging
these believers not to be slothful but diligent, be careful. And
he told them the reason why, that they may through faith and
patience inherit the promises. And then he goes on here in verse
13 and he uses Abraham as an example of someone to whom God
made promises and Abraham obtained those promises. And he is our
example of doing that. And Paul quotes here in Genesis
chapter 22 when he says, God swore by Himself saying, Surely
blessed I will bless thee, and I will multiply thee. And I want
us to turn over there and look where Paul was quoting from in
Genesis chapter 22. And put your little marker in
Hebrews chapter 6 if you want to because we'll be coming back
there. Here in Genesis chapter 22, Abraham had just offered
Isaac. You remember the context of this.
The Lord had stopped him. And here is when he swore that
he was going to bless him. Look here in chapter 22 and verse
13. Chapter 22 verse 15. And the
angel of the Lord called unto Abraham out of heaven the second
time and said, By myself have I sworn saith the Lord, For because
thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine
only son, that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying
I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sand
which is upon the seashore, and thy seed shall possess the gate
of his enemy, and in thy seed shall all the nations of the
earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my voice. The promise here that God gave
to Abraham and swore to it was blessings. I will bless. I will bless. And He tells him
here who He will bless, His seed. That was His people. That was
Abraham's children, His descendants. And when we look at this, we
have to look at this blessing as two-fold. And you'll see this
as you go all the way through the Old Testament. And this is
one of the reasons it's so difficult to see which aspect of the blessing
you're looking at. Abraham had two seeds. He had a natural seed after the
flesh and he had a spiritual seed. The natural seed had promises
and this was God's promise to Abraham of his natural seed.
He said, I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven. And that is what he did with
Abraham's natural seed. Abraham had Isaac. Isaac had
Jacob. And Jacob had twelve sons. And
man, they became innumerable. There was a multitude of those
people. And the Lord promised to give
them the land of Canaan. And when Moses was ready to die,
the children of Israel were ready to go into the land of Canaan.
Here is what Moses said. to Abraham's descendants, those
Jews. He said, Behold, I set the land before you this day.
Go in and possess the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers,
to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give unto them and
his seed after them. This is the promise, I'll multiply
your seed. And Moses continued, The Lord
your God hath multiplied you, and behold, you are this day
as the stars of heaven for multitude. So who does this promise include
when the Lord says here in verse 17, Blessed I will bless thee
and multiply and I will multiply thy seed. He is speaking of the
natural Jews and He multiplied them and sent them and gave them
the land of Canaan. And you know that the Jewish
nation continued right on up until the times of Christ Christ
was arguing with the Pharisees one day and He said, I know you're
Abraham's seed. And they're still around today,
aren't they? They're still enduring today as a nation. So Abraham
had a natural seed and a promise of a physical country. And God
also blessed Abraham with a spiritual seed. When He says, I'll multiply
thy seed, He also had a spiritual seed, spiritual children, a heavenly
people and they are blessed with heavenly blessings, blessed with
all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Abraham's
natural descendants were called Jews. Sometimes they called them
Hebrews. Sometimes they called them people
of God. Abraham's spiritual seed is called the children of promise.
You, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise.
They are said to be blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places in Christ. They're called the chosen of
the Lord. They're redeemed of the Lord. They're called believers.
They're called sheep. I know my sheep and they know
me. I'm known of mine. They hear
my voice and they follow me and other sheep I have. These are
Christ's redeeming, redeemed people. These are His loved ones,
redeemed by love. He said, if you be Christ, if
you belong to Christ, if you belong to Christ by purchase,
if He's bought you, if you belong to Him by faith, then He said,
if you be Christ, then are you Abraham's seed and ours according
to the promise. You know, and I know this from
listening, I can't say the multitude of Baptist churches, but there's
many, many, many professing people today, especially among the Baptists,
who do not believe that the believing Gentiles are the seed of Abraham.
If you're a believer in Christ, you're a child of Abraham. Galatians
chapter 3 verse 7. If you're a believer, then you're
the seed of Abraham and you're a child of Brahma. And the heirs
of this heavenly Abraham, this seed, they have an inheritance
too. It's not earthly but it's heavenly. It's spiritual and it's eternal.
Now hold that. Hold this right here. I want
to come back to that and let me show you that because this
is a blessing we'll get to over in Hebrews chapter 9. Look over
in Hebrews chapter 9. The Lord gave Abraham's natural
seed a blessing. He blessed him with a land of
Canaan. And look here what He blessed
is His heavenly seat, Abraham's spiritual seat. Look all the
way back in verse 11. But Christ being come, then I,
a priest of good things, to come, by a greater and more perfect
tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building,
not of that tabernacle in the wilderness, neither by the blood
of goats and calves, But by his own blood he entered in once
into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. For
if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of the heifer,
sprinkling the unclean, sanctified to the purifying of the flesh,
how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal
Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience
from dead works to serve the living God? And for this cause
he is the mediator of the new covenant. that by means of his
death for the redemption of the transgressions that were under
or against the first covenant, they which are called might receive
the promise of what? Eternal inheritance. Eternal. God promised Abraham's natural
seed, the land of Canaan. What did he promise his spiritual
seed? An eternal inheritance. and eternal inheritance. James said, Blessed is the man
that endureth temptations, for when he is tried, he shall receive
a crown of life which God has promised to them that love him. And then he went ahead to say,
Hearken, my beloved brethren, hath not God chosen the poor
of this world, rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which
he hath promised? So Abraham had two seeds. One was earthly that had an earthly
inheritance and he had a spiritual seed. Those who believe in Christ
and they have an inheritance also and that is an eternal inheritance. Now look back to Genesis again
in verse 18, what he said in verse 18 again. And in thy seed
shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. I want you
to turn to another Scripture. I will give you a little bit
of exercise tonight. Turn over to Galatians chapter 3. Here
is another seed Abraham had. I said he had two, really he
had three. Counting this one, look over here in Galatians chapter
3. In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.
Now look how Paul translates this in Galatians chapter 3 and
look in verse 16. Galatians 3.16. Now to Abraham
and his seed were the promises made. What was the promise? In thee shall all nations be
blessed. I will multiply you exceedingly
as the stars of heaven. To Abraham and his seed were
the promises made. And he saith not unto seeds as
of many, but as of one, and to thy seed, look at this, which
is Christ. Christ is the seed of Abraham.
And it is through Him and in Him and by Him that all the blessings
come. In Christ shall all the nations
of the earth be blessed. Blessed with what? Gospel blessings. Gospel blessings. The blessings
that God promised to Abraham in a nutshell were gospel blessings. When God made promise to Abraham,
what promise was there? I will bless you. I will bless
you. In you, in Christ, in your seed,
all the nations of the earth are going to be blessed. And
we are told right here in chapter 3 of Galatians what that was
all about. And Paul translates that for
us. Look back in chapter 3 here in Galatians and look in verse
7. Look in verse 6, chapter 3 verse
6. Even as Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for
righteousness, know ye therefore that they which are of faith,
the same are the children of Abraham. There is what we were
talking about a while ago. Look in verse 8, And the scripture
foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached
before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations
be blessed. What was that blessing? Gospel
blessing to all nations. His people among the Gentiles
as well as the Jews. In these shall all nations be
blessed. The Bible says this, David describes
the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness
without works. Now ain't that a blessing? to
have a righteousness given to you that you can't work out,
that you can't earn, that you don't merit it? Saying this,
blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are
covered. Now that's the blessing that
God promised Abraham. As you go through the Scriptures
and you read about the blessing God promised Abraham, they're
gospel blessings. They're gospel blessings. Either
they pertain to natural Israel and the natural inheritance or
they pertain to His spiritual seed and gospel blessings. Listen to how Peter says it in
Acts 3.25 when Peter was preaching to the Jews. Here's what he said
to them. He said, You are children of the prophets and of the covenant
that God made with our fathers. And if you stop there, you may
think, well, this is the covenant God made with the children of
Israel on Mount Sinai. But that's not the covenant He's
talking about. Listen. Say it unto Abraham. In thy seed
shall all the kindred of the earth be blessed. Unto you first
God, having raised up His Son Jesus, sent Him to bless you. Now that's what God promised
Abraham. In your seed shall all the nations be blessed. Peter
said, ìGod has raised up His Son and sent Him to bless you.î
And what was that blessing? He went ahead to tell them, ìAnd
turn it away, every one of you, from your iniquity, from your
sin.î Now what a blessing that is! God told Abraham, He said, ìAbraham,
I promise you that I am going to multiply your seed, and in
you, in your seed, shall all the families of the earth be
blessed.î And here we come here to Acts 3.25 when we find out
what one of those blessings are. Turning a man from his iniquity,
turning him from the power of Satan to God, turning him from
darkness to light, turning him from unbelief to faith, turning
him from this world to Christ and salvation by Him. That's
the blessing that He promised. Let's go to another place. Look
over in Luke Chapter 1. Luke's Gospel Chapter 1. You
find these through the Old Testament and you find them through the
New Testament. And when He says that in you shall all the nations
be blessed, all the Gospel is contained in that one little
line. In you shall all the nations
be blessed. Redemption is that blessing.
Calling is that blessing. Regeneration, forgiveness of
sins, the sealing of the Holy Spirit, His power to keep you,
and heaven at last. Every bit of that is contained
in this one little phrase. In thy seed shall all the nations
of the earth be blessed. And here in Luke chapter 1 is
the birth of John the Baptist, the forerunner of our Lord. And
Zachariah, his father, is filled with the Holy Ghost. And here
is what his father says in verse 67. His father Zacharias was
filled with the Holy Ghost and prophesied saying, Blessed be
the Lord God of Israel for He has visited and redeemed His
people and hath raised up and adorned His 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 that
hate us, to perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and
to remember His holy covenant." What is that covenant? It's the
gospel. Look in verse 73, "...the oath which He swore to our father
Abraham." What was that oath? Multiply and I'll multiply you.
And in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blest."
I swear, Abraham, he said, didn't he? I swear that in multiplying,
you multiply and multiply. And right here it is, look in
verse 74, that He would grant it to us that we being delivered
out of the hand of our enemies might serve Him without fear
in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our
lives. And thou, Charles, shalt be called
the prophet of the highest, for thou shalt go before the face
of the Lord to prepare his way, to give knowledge of salvation
unto his people by the remission of their sins, through the tender
mercy of our God, whereby the day spring from on high has visited
us, to give light to them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow
of death to guide our feet into the way of peace." Boy, I tell
you, Zechariah was filled with the Holy Ghost and he got an
insight as to what this blessing was that God had promised to
Abraham. And it wasn't anything physical.
He wasn't speaking to the natural Jews. He was speaking to those
that God had, was to call the children of promise, His elect
people. He knew the Pharisees didn't
want to have anything to do with Christ and salvation. But He
says, listen, God has a people. And He sent His Son to bless
them and redeem them. And he said, That's what's happening
now. And John, my son, is going to raise up to give knowledge
of salvation to his people and the remission of their sins.
And he's going to do it by this Christ, this Son of God. So in
the last day when the number of the glorified saints in heaven
will be a number that no man can number, and when they're
standing there around the throne, you can say there the blessing
is accomplished. What blessing? Multiplying? I'll multiply you. And in your
seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. Promise, the promise God made
to Abraham. Now, look back over in our text
again. You can go through that. We just touched the surface.
You can go through there and look at all the different promises. And sometimes, as I said, it's
difficult reading the Old Testament, which Israel is talking about.
Is he talking about natural Israel? Or is he talking about spiritual
Israel? Look what he says here down in
verse 15. And so after he had patiently endured, he obtained
the promise. Now how could it be said that
Abraham obtained the promise? He didn't live long enough to
see the promise fulfilled either to his natural seed or his spiritual
seed. He died and He didn't see Jacob's
twelve sons increasing as the stars of heaven. And He surely
didn't see the coming of Christ, did He? He didn't live that long. So what does it mean here when
it says, after He had patiently endeared, He obtained the promise? And it sounds like He obtained
the fulfilling of it, doesn't it? I called Brother Baker last
night and asked him for help on this. some help. He did. He gave me some help.
Let me give you these three suggestions to think about Abraham obtaining
the promise. First of all, and Brother Larry
mentioned this to me last night, he did obtain this promise by
faith. By faith. The Bible says, Abraham
staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but
was strong in faith giving glory to God, being fully persuaded
that what he had promised he was able to perform. The Bible
says faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence
of things not seen. Thomas Manton said this about
faith. He said faith can look up, faith
can look upon things that are not present. I'm sorry, let me
begin again. Faith can look upon things that
are absent and future, as sure and near, even present. And when Abraham by the eye of
faith looked ahead and saw Christ by faith and Him crucified, and
when we look back by the eye of faith and see Christ and Him
crucified, that look of faith brings all the blessings of God
to us right now. We're not waiting for life. By
faith we have life, don't we? God hath given to us. Faith makes
those things that's far off and unseen to be seen and present. So Abraham obtained them by faith.
We could say that. We could say secondly this. Abraham
obtained it because he knew that if God had promised it, if God
had purposed it, He could count it as being done already. God said to Abraham, He said,
Abraham, I have made you a father of many nations. And you know
something? Abraham didn't even have a son
when He told him that. And He said, I have already made
you a father of many nations. before Him whom He believed,
even God," listen to this, "...who quickens the dead and calls those
things which be not as though they were." Somebody said, we need to look
at things from God's perspective. And then they said, that's the
only perspective there is. Who else's perspective are we
supposed to look at it in? The way God sees things is the
way it really is. And he said, Abraham, you're
already the father of many nations. Abraham said, all right, then
I've already obtained it. I've obtained it. And you know, that's
not a mystery because the Bible says in Christ we have obtained
and inherited, being predestinated according to the purpose of Him
working with all things after the counsel of the Lord. Don't
the Bible say that those He foreknew He glorified? So I'm looking
at a bunch of glorified saints. Well, you say, Bruce, not really.
In the purpose of God. The way God sees things and calls
things. So if He said, Abraham, I'm going
to bless you. I'm going to multiply your seed
and in your seed shall all the nations be blessed. And Abraham
said, okay, it's done. I've obtained the promise. We
could look at it like that. Thirdly, look at it literally.
Literally. Could it be possible that Abraham
really saw the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ, His seed
in whom all the nations would be blessed? Well, let me ask
you this, where was Abraham when Christ left heaven and came to
this earth? Where was he? Where was Abraham when Mary wrapped
her firstborn son in swaddling clothes and lay him in a manger?
Where was he? Where was Abraham when that angel
told the shepherds, fear not, I bring you good tidings of great
joy which shall be to all people. What was Abraham then and what
did he know about all of that? When the heavenly host began
to sing, Peace on earth and goodwill towards men. Did Abraham know
about that? Did he see that? You know what
the Lord Jesus said, Abraham rejoiced to see My day. And he
saw it. What day was that? We could say
it's the whole Gospel day, but I think we can narrow it down
probably to better than that. This day is born in the city
of David, a Savior. That's His day for sure, isn't
it? The day to be born to come and redeem His people. Did Abraham
see that day? I don't know why he didn't, wouldn't
have. We've got evidence that the saints in heaven know more
than the saints on earth. I think it's so sad and almost
embarrassing that sometimes some of the dear saints of God talk
about the saints going to heaven and not knowing who they are
there, and not knowing anybody else there, not knowing what
they're doing there. Brother Henry said one time,
he said it's sort of embarrassing to think that the saints on earth
know more about everything than the saints in heaven. I think the saints in heaven
are going to know a lot. I know this much. When the Lord
Jesus stuck His apostles up on the Mount of Transfiguration,
who was it that came down from heaven? And how much did they
know about why Christ was here? They spoke of His death that
He was to accomplish. I can't believe Moses and Elijah
knew more than Abraham, the Father to whom the promises was made.
I just wonder if He wasn't there in heaven and Christ said, Abraham,
I'm leaving. I'm leaving. Abraham said, I
know you are, Master. I know you are. I know what you
are going to do. You have already told me, even one of us down
there, that in you all the nations would be blessed. And now you
are going there to accomplish that. And Abraham began to shout.
You say, Bruce, how do you know that? Because the Lord Jesus
said, Abraham rejoiced to see my day. I bring you tidings of
great joy. when the Lord said there's rejoicing
in the presence of the angels. I just can't see the angels up
there rejoicing over one sinner that repented. And the saints
in heaven said, wonder what they're rejoicing about. I wish they'd
let us in on that. I believe saints in heaven know
things. I believe they do. I believe they do. Was Abraham
up there in heaven rejoicing when Christ came? Did he see
Him hanging on Calvary's tree? Well, that's three things there.
Back here in our text again, back in Hebrews chapter 6, why
did God feel it needful to swear unto Abraham? He says here in
verse 13 of chapter 6, Because he could swear but no greater,
he swore by himself, saying, Blessing I will bless thee, and
multiplying I will multiply thee. I guess I guess if you would
just consider, if we just consider a minute, here he was talking
in chapter 12 of Genesis, then chapter 15 and chapter 17 and
chapter 18. He was talking to an old man,
a hundred years old. He came to him in chapter 18
and said, Abraham, this time next year you're going to have
a son. And I'm going to multiply him. Nations are going to come
out of him. Kings of people are going to
come out of him. Multitudes, as the stars of heaven, are going
to come out of your loins, Abraham. And they are going to be a blessed
people. And here stood an old man, a hundred years old, and
his wife's womb was dead. And these promises were made
to you. I guess you would see a need
to have an oath with it, wouldn't you? Don't you think it'd be
very encouraging if the Lord finally come along and said,
Abraham, I swear to it. I swear to it. I swear to it. God don't need an oath. His promises
are sure. The Bible says all the promises
of God in Christ Jesus are yea and amen. Then who needs the
oath? We do. We need an oath. We're the weak ones, aren't we?
We're the ones that grapple with unbelief and all these infirmities. We're the ones that need to hear
God say, Child, this is My promise, and I swear to it. I swear to
it. Was the blessing to Abraham's
natural seed good? Were all the promises God made
to them good? Listen to Joshua chapter 21,
verses 43 through 45. God said to Abraham, I'm going
to multiply your seed. They're going to be in the bondage
400 years. I'll redeem them. I'll bring them out. I'll give
them the land of Canaan. I'll give them houses they thought
they'd not built. I'll give them wells they've
not dug, vineyards they've not planted, a land floored with
milk and honey. And here is what the Lord said
to Joshua and the children of Israel just before Joshua died. Let me read it to you. I want
Joshua chapter 20, 21. And verse 43, And the LORD gave unto
Israel all the land which ye swore unto their fathers, and
they possessed it, and dwelt therein. And the LORD gave them
rest round about, according to all that ye swore unto their
fathers. And there stood not a man of all their enemies before
them, The LORD delivered all their enemies into their hands.
Listen to this. There fell not ought of any good
thing which the LORD had spoken to the house of Israel. It all
came to pass. And you know something? If he
was so sure to fulfill his promise to the natural seed of Abraham,
How much more is He going to fulfill the promises to His spiritual
Savior to give them these heavenly blessings? When the believer brings these
two things together, when he thinks of his low estate, when
he thinks of his wretchedness and his misery and the dust that
awaits him, And then in turn, he thinks of all the incomprehensible
blessings contained in the gospel. He's going to need all that God
is pleased to give him just to be able to believe these promises. Look at us. Look at us. Look
at yourself. Look how we feel. Look what we
are. We're the most wretched people and we're growing old
and painful. And look at these heavenly promises.
Eternal wife, justified from everything, sealed, possessed
of Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit, having God as our Father, having
heaven reserved for us, me, me, being with glorified saints in
heaven? Me having elect angels, holy
angels for my company with undimmed eyes and an unsinning heart looking
upon Jesus Christ and worshiping Him? Me? I tell you, when we
bring these two things together, we realize why God gave an oath. Promises would have been just
fine if God was concerned. Boy, He looked upon us and said,
Listen, they're not going to believe this. They're not going
to believe what I've prepared for them. I'm going to have to
swear to it. And that's what He did. That's
what He did. He knows this is what men do
upon the earth. He says here in verse 16, For
men barely swerve to the greater, and an oath for confirmation
is to them an end of all strife. That's what men do here upon
this earth, isn't it? If you have somebody upon this
earth to make you a promise, you better get an oath with it.
You better get legalized and hire your lawyer and get a down
payment and everything else. Because that's the way man is,
isn't it? I thought it was awful amusing.
If you want to read an amusing story, read about when Jacob
was fleeing from his father-in-law, Laban. And Laban caught up with
him and they were so mad at each other because they tricked each
other. They'd been tricking each other for how many years? How
many years did he work for his wife? Fourteen, fifteen years.
And he had changed Jacob's wages ten times. And Jacob had tricked
him out of his, you know, the way he got them cows to have
calves like that. And what was Jacob's name? Jacob.
What does that mean? He tricked his brother, lied
to his dad, tricked him. So he had these two fellows here
and Laban said, I want your promise. I want you to swear to me that
you will never come back here to do my family harm. And Jacob
said, if you will swear to me, you will never come over there
and do my family any harm. So they swore to each other.
And they said, that is not enough. And you know what they did? They
piled up a pile of rocks. A big old pile of rocks. So big
they all got on it and ate. And Laban said, I swear by these
rocks. And Jacob said, I swear by these rocks. They had to have
something big to swear by. That's the way men are. We used to swear on a stack of
Bibles. Did you ever do that? That's what my mother always
said, I swear on a stack of Bibles. I swear on my word and honor.
I swear on the rock that you're rolling. Why did we do things
like that? Well, it's an end of strife.
You must be serious. when you swear on a stack of
Bibles. And that's why God gave an oath. Because He said, I don't
want unbelief to prevail in their hearts. I don't want them to
doubt Me. Look what He said here in verse
17. This is exactly what He said.
For God, willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise
the immutability of His counsel, He confirmed it by an oath. Here he calls the counsel of
God the gospel. And you know something else of
the gospel? The good pleasure of God. That's a gospel. My counsel
shall stand and I will do all my pleasure. That's the gospel,
isn't it? He works all things after the counsel of His own
will. He made known unto us the mystery of His will according
to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself. What is
the purpose of God? It's the gospel. It's the Gospel. I purposed it and I'll also do
it. And God has sworn to the blessings
of the Gospel. He's put all these blessings
in the Lord Jesus Christ and He says, I swear that these promises
will be all fulfilled. As wonderful as they are in your
eyes, as unbelievable as they may seem, I swear that all of
these blessings will be accomplished. All of my promises are with an
oath. There are two immutable things
concerning the blessings of the gospel that God has given us
to comfort us as we live by hope of heaven at last. And what are
those two things? We've read this for years and
years and years, and people asked you. I had a man come up to me
a long time ago. He said, Could you tell me what these two immutable
things are? Well, I think the context would
tell us. I think the context settles this question of what
these two immutable things are. What's he been talking about?
What have we been talking about in this text? We've been talking
about two things, haven't we? One, promise. Look in verse 12. That ye be not slothful, but
followers of them who through faith and patience inherit what?
The promise. Look in verse 13, When God made
promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he
swore by himself, saying, Blessed am I, I will bless thee, multiply,
and I will multiply thee. And so after he had patiently
endeared, he obtained the promise. Verse 17, Wherein God more willing
abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise, promise, promise,
promise. What is one immutable thing? The promise of God. the promise
of God. They are all yea and amen in
Christ. One man gave the definition of
a promise and I like this. He said, A promise is an expressed
engagement by which a man lays himself under an obligation and
does not leave himself at liberty to act indifferently. In other words, you make a promise,
you fulfill your promise. God makes a promise, It's immutable. The second thing that we've been
talking about here is the oath. Is it not? Three times he kept
talking to you about the oath which he swore unto Abraham.
What is an oath? One man said this, an oath is
a solemn affirmation that binds someone upon penalty to keep
his word. So here we have God making a
promise. That's immutable. It can't change. I hate Arminianism,
don't you? And you know why I hate it? Because
it said God lies. He promises, then breaks His
promise. I give unto them eternal life. Is that a promise? Is that a sure promise? Then
how can people say they may not have life? That makes who a liar? It makes God a liar. Makes one a God who made a promise
and can't keep it. Yeah, but man, but man, but man's
got to do it. Man. Man lies all the time, doesn't
he? Man's an utter failure. But don't
apply that to God. I give and they shall never. I give and they shall never.
That's a promise. God has laid Himself open to
make promises and keep promises that He makes. And I'm telling
you they're immutable. If they're not immutable, then
let's tear this scripture out that says these two immutable
things. And it's oath, it's solemn affirmation that binds Himself
upon penalty. Upon penalty of what? What if
God swore to a promise and then broke it? I tell you, He's lost
His Godhood. He's lost His character. He's
not God if He can't keep His Word. Two immutable things, the
promise and the oath in which it is impossible for God to lie. I promised it. He cannot lie. I swore to it. He cannot lie.
Those are two immutable things to my humble opinion is the promise
and the oath. And He goes on to give us the
reason why He gives us these two things. That we might have
a strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon
the hope set before us. What have we laid hold upon?
Christ. Is He not our hope? Christ in
you, the hope of glory. Paul wrote to Timothy and he
said, Christ who is our hope. And we've fled to Him, haven't
we? Like the slayer fled from the
avenger of blood to the city of refuge. He's our refuge and
we fled to Him to lay hold upon Him. Which hope we have, look
at this, as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast,
which enters to that within the veil. I read a lot of stories
about the old Back in the 1800s, the main transportation between
countries that they had was by ship. And boy, they had some
awful shipwrecks. And they always made sure that
their anchor was never loose before every trip. And during
the trips, they made sure that anchor was secure to that ship.
Because they knew in a storm, that's the only thing that's
going to keep them from sinking or being driven up on the rocks
or the sand and perish. Anchor is important, isn't it? I remember a dear old John Mitchell
told some of us one time that somebody was in a storm, boy,
in a bad storm with afflictions in their hearts, and he said,
you know, when they get out of this storm, they'll appreciate
the anchor. He said, that's where you learn
to appreciate the anchor is in the storm. Haven't you found
that to be so? And boy, that old anchor goes
down and it drags and gets hold of a rock and it holds that ship
steady. But this anchor of our soul doesn't
go down, it goes up. Up there within the veil, heaven
itself, and it grabs hold of something up there that's solid
that will hold us. And what is it? That's our forerunner,
Jesus, who is already there on our behalf. And you know something? If He's already there, I've just
got a sneaking hunch that all these people are going to be
drawn right up to Him. That's where the anchor is. And
in the old place, the ship pulled up the anchor. But here, our anchor is going
to pull us up to heaven. Ain't that wonderful? May the Lord bless His Word.
Shannon, would you dismiss this?