Have your Bibles turn with me
to Genesis the 21st chapter. I'm going to read the first eight
verses. The title of my message tonight is Born of Life. Genesis 21. And the Lord visited
Sarah as He had said. The Lord did unto Sarah as He
had spoken. was Sarah conceived and bare
Abraham a son in his old age at the set time of which God
had spoken to him. And Abraham called the name of
his son that was born unto him, whom Sarah bare him, Isaac. And
Abraham circumcised his son Isaac, being eight days old as God had
commanded him. And Abraham was a hundred years
old when his son Isaac was born. And Sarah said, God hath made
me to last. so that all that hear will laugh
with me. And she said, who would have
said unto Abraham that Sarah should have given children son? For I have borne him a son in
his old age. The child grew and was weaned.
Abraham made a great feast the same day that Isaac was weaned. Let us pray. Our Father, we thank
You that when we read Your Word, Appreciate and realize the fact
that when you promise a thing, you speak a thing, it shall come
to pass. Forgive us of our lack of faith,
our weakness, our lack of trusting you. We're thankful we have the record
that what you do and what you say shall come to pass. We bow to that sovereign majesty
with thankful hearts that you are in control of all things
and reign from on high. Declaring the end from the beginning.
The things not yet done, as though they were already done. You speak
it and it shall come to pass. You purpose it and it shall stand.
We do praise you for it. Father, we pray for those who
are sick and going through trials, especially Michael Carver at
this time. Also, the good word on Zeta, we're thankful. So thankful. Pledge you'll bring her back
to a good measure of health and be with her family. Father, we
pray for those of our own company who are sick and away from us.
Ask the Lord you'll be with them. And especially Brother Wayne
and Sister Ethel and Peggy Lambert. But also, Father, remember Those
who are unable to be here, for whatever reason, we ask that
You be with them and watch over them. Keep them safe and bring
them safely home to us. We thank You for those who are
here, those who have come to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
I pray that You will gather our hearts together, knit them together
in love for Him who loved us and gave Himself for us. Cause
us in our hearts to worship as You consider the glory of these
words that are before us. help us to understand and to
know and to look to You alone, we pray in Christ's name, Amen. Now this is the account of the
birth of the seed that was promised to Abraham back in Genesis 15. Abraham already has a son And
he's called the son of Abraham in Scripture. A son named Ishmael
born of Hagar. But God had promised him a son
born of Sarah. At this time Abraham was 100
years old and Sarah was in her late 90's. You can't begin to
understand what that might be for a woman or a man at that
age. But it was a great time of joy
for God had fulfilled His promise to these folks. And this is the
account of the birth of Isaac. He's the child promised to Abraham
and Sarah in their old age. Now this blessed event is full
of gospel import because it is a catalyst of the New Testament
teachings of the two covenants, of election, of true Israel and
false Israel, the teachings of concerning the law and grace,
the teaching of faith in the promise of God and His ability
to keep His promise, and His ability to accomplish His sovereign
will. All those things are in these
first eight verses here in Genesis chapter 21. Pictures something
for us as all the Old Testament does. The stories are true. The
history is correct. But they always teach us something
that is not clearly set forth. Remember the Old Testament was
given and it was full of type and shadow. of the Lord Jesus
Christ. He was shrouded in mystery. Paul
called it a mystery as he wrote his first letter to the Corinthians.
A mystery of the gospel. A mystery of godliness. These
things are not a mystery to his people for they are unveiled
to his people. But they are a mystery to everybody
else. And during the Old Covenant when it was being, and the Old
Testament when it was being written, all these things spoke of Jesus
Christ. But it wasn't until we come to
know Christ that we saw that these things spoke of Him. That's
why I love to preach from the Old Testament. Because it's so
much joy to find the Lord Jesus Christ in these pages and His
Word. And what this picture is here,
this old man and this old woman having a baby. a promised baby
at the appointed time when God had said they would because God
had promised them. This teaches us and pictures
the new birth, the new birth, the distinction also between
the flesh and the spirit and how the two are always contrary
to each other. These things are all taught in
this chapter. As is all the Word of God, this passage addresses
the glory of God. And that glory is realized fully
in the salvation of the elect through the shed blood of Jesus
Christ. Now the characters involved picture the manner in which God
saves sinners. It's an old story. An old, old
story. Ever new to the ears of the redeemed
and never old to those who know it. It is the one thing that
continues to comfort, that continues to convict, that continues to
convince. is the old story of Jesus Christ
and His love for His people. Sarah and Abraham were two people
who were unable to produce life. They were unable. They were too
old to procreate. In the epistle of Romans, Paul
described their bodies as now dead in chapter 4 of Romans. This is the definitive spiritual
description of man and woman as they are born into this world.
Everyone born of Adam is spiritually dead. That sometimes is difficult
to grasp because we look at people and they're walking around alive.
We see them, they have ears to hear, and eyes to see, and nose
to smell, and lips to kiss, and a tongue that speaks, and all
those things. All those things, we see them.
But when you're talking about spiritual death, you're talking
about an inability to produce anything that has to do with
spiritual life. And that's where man is spiritually dead. They
can produce nothing. Men born of Adam, nothing that
will draw them closer to God and being dead, they have no
inclination to do so. People talk about the will and
they talk about it being free. But the will is also always inclined
or not inclined to what you want or do not want. It's that simple.
They cannot exercise faith because faith does not exist where there
is no life. I know people talk to, people
say, well you need to exercise your faith. Well if you don't
have it, if you ain't alive in Christ, you don't have faith
to start with. You may have false beliefs. You may have false faith. You may have faith in the flesh.
But you don't have spiritual faith, which is life and it's
a gift of God. Life must come first. This precedes
all things. Life must come first or else
there will be no seed. There will be no hearing. There
will be no hunger, no thirst, no desire, no ability, and no
will to respond to anything in the realm of the spiritual. It's
that simple. We, as it were, when we talk
to folks, we're talking, as Paul said, to dead men, as far as
we know. We talk. We don't know whether
they're going to hear us. And many times when they walk
away, we scratch their head, we wonder, have they heard anything
at all? And they may not have, but they
may have. We don't know. God has fixed it that way so
we won't think somehow that we're responsible for a man's death
or his life. This is God's doing, so we set
forth the truth. Man is born spiritually dead. It's a sad condition. It's a
sad condition. A despicable condition. But it
is the only aspect of salvation that is universal in scope. Every
other aspect of salvation is particular. But the one aspect
of salvation that is universal in scope is that everybody is
dead in Adam. We all died in Adam. In Adam
all died. humanity so we can say humanity
is born dead in trespasses and sins pictured by Sarah and Abraham
they can't bear children they can't bring forth life the only
thing that is absolutely necessary for a dead sinner to be brought
to life is that the Lord of life visits him and so that's how
this story begins the Lord visited Sarah And he said as he had said
and the Lord did unto Sarah as he had spoken. Without this visit,
the sinner will remain as he is and will do so eternally. Barnard used to say, you'll go
to hell if you can. Think about it. If you can, you
will. What would stop you? only the
grace of God. Only the mercy of God will somehow
interrupt your career, otherwise you will just go on like everything
is okay. The elect only differ from the eternally lost because
God has visited them. That is the only reason. Who
maketh thee to differ from another? What hast thou that thou hast
not received? And if you have received, why do you boast as
if you have not received? That visitation is always according
to the Lord's Word. He visited her as He had spoken. He visited her and did to her
what He said He was going to do to her. The Lord had promised
this. His promise to Abraham and Sarah. They were aware of. They understood.
The Lord had told them. Some 15 years had passed. Close
to 15 years had passed since He made that promise in Genesis
15. They understood. However, the
dead sinner is unaware that a promise has been made to him. I spent
most of my life not knowing a promise had been made to me. I had no
idea. It wasn't until I was made alive,
until the sinner is made alive and given faith through the preaching
of the gospel that he begins to grasp. A promise has been
made to him. A promise. In fact, we are called
heirs according to promise. Heirs according to promise. That
promise was that they would by predestination be conformed to
the image of God's Son. They didn't know that was the
promise. But that was the promise. God said that He had predestinated
them to be conformed to the image of His Son. That He might be
the firstborn among many brethren. That promise was secure in that
Christ was made sure to them before the foundation of the
world. Assuming all their debt of sin and being accountable
to guarantee the payment of their sin So in reality that promise
involved the fact that the elect of God whoever they were that
God chose to say before the foundation of the world came into this world
sinners all But not accountable God for their sin Because Christ
had become their surety before the foundation of the world the
guarantor of the payment That doesn't mean he was a cosigner
to what they owed. That means he took that debt
upon himself and signed his name to it. And God never looked to
the elect to pay that debt. He looked to the one who had
taken the debt upon himself. That's what a surety is. It's not a cosigner. It's a surety. If someone goes to the bank and
I owe $500 and they sign a surety to that bank and it's accepted
by that bank, They decide somewhere down the road they're not going
to pay it. The bank can never come to me to pay it, even though
I owed it originally. They'll have to go to the surety
who signed the debt for me. Christ became our surety and
guaranteed the payment of the debt of His people. That was
a promise. We didn't know anything about that. We came to this world,
we didn't have any idea. That promise was that they would
be taught of God. Which would result in them coming
to Christ. For it says in John 6.45, They all shall be taught
of the Father, whosoever hath learned of the Father, and taught
of the Father, comes to Christ. That's taken from Genesis 54.13,
where it says, All the children shall be taught of God. So we're
taught of God. That promise was that they were
given to Christ. That was a promise. They didn't
know anything about it. I didn't know anything about that until I heard
the gospel. They were given to Christ and
that also promised that He would lose not one of them but raise
them all up in the last day. That promise was that Christ
would see of the travail of His soul. What was that? Their new
birth. Their new birth. He'd see of
the travail of His soul and He would be satisfied for He'll
never do a miscarriage in the work that He did. The promise
was that they would know no condemnation. No condemnation. Their promise
was that no charge would ever be laid against them. Their promise was that they were
going to be perfected in Jesus Christ by His sacrifice. Perfected
forever, them that are sanctified. The promise was that they would
hear the voice of Christ and follow Him. That was a promise
to them. They didn't know that. Christ
said that 2,000 years ago. I didn't know He'd said that.
But when I heard His voice, I followed Him. Why? Because God had promised.
That's what's going to happen. God had promised. The promise
was that they would hear His voice and He would give to them
eternal life. The promise was that they would
be saved. That was the promise. How was that registered in Scripture? When Christ was born, they said,
Call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins. I did not know anything about
that promise, but that promise was made to me and to you if
you are a child of God. If you are a believer tonight,
those are your promises. You did not know anything about
them until you heard the Gospel. But that was the promise. When
God gives His people ears to hear the Gospel, they know immediately
that this is their salvation. They have no question about that.
after you heard the word of truth. You believed after you heard
the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When they
heard that promise, they realized that life had been imparted to
them. When God visited, they realized
the promise is going to be realized. It was according to purpose and
it was at the appointed time. That's what the Lord Sarah conceived.
And bear Abraham a son in his old age at the set time. of which
God had spoken to him. Always at the appointed time.
Always at the appointed time. The result of that knowledge
and understanding born of faith is joy. Joy. They named the child Isaac. Which means laughter. And the
birth of a child of God spreads laughter all around. That's what
That's what Sarah said, God made me laugh. It spread the laughter
all around. Everybody around me was laughing
too. There was joy. There was joy. Over in 1 Peter
chapter 1 verse 8 it says, Whom having not seen you love, in
whom though now you see him not, yet believe him, ye rejoiceth
with joy unspeakable and full of glory. whom having not seen,
we haven't seen Christ. I know if you look at Facebook,
there's 10,000 pictures of somebody on there, they say it's Jesus.
We haven't seen Christ. We don't see Him now. We don't
see Him. We believe Him. We believe because
God has written in His Word. And yet we rejoice with joy unspeakable
and full of glory. I used to have a picture in my
office back years ago when I had an office back here in the church.
Just a plain piece of paper in a frame. And people say, what's
that? I say, a picture of Jesus. They
say, what are you talking about? And I say, whom having not seen,
you love. Whom seeing not, you believe. There is also with the manifestation
of grace a continual sense of wonder. concerning the knowledge
of what God has done for us. It says in verse 7, Who would
have said? Who would have said unto Abraham
that Sarah should have given children's sons? Who would have
thought a thing like that? Who would have thunk? That's
what we would have said today. For I have borne him a son in
my old age. There is a sense of wonder for
every child of God. That's why the gospel never grows
old. Because when we hear it, even though we may have believed
it for years upon years and decades upon decades, we're reminded
of our sinnerhood and our helplessness and our hopelessness without
Him. And we're reminded of what He did for us freely without
us contributing anything. And it's a wonder. It's a wonder,
this thing called grace. And with that new life, that
true life, that eternal life comes a desire to obey God. Every
child of God desires to please God. He doesn't do a very good
job of it. None of us do. Some better than others. Not
me, but some. Better than others. But it's
every heart's desire. In verse 4 it says, Abraham circumcised
his son Isaac being eight days old as God had commanded him.
God had commanded. This is the heart of the elect.
Now there's a problem. Right outside the door of this
tent, there's a young fellow named Ishmael. He has a mother
named Hagar. They lurk in the wings. And Ishmael
is ever nearby to Tormat Isaac. Ever nearby. And though it is,
so it is with us. The Spirit lusts us against the
flesh, and the flesh against the Spirit, so that we're contrary
to each other and we never can do what we would. And Paul said
it this way, With my mind is what I want to do. This is my
heart's desire. With my mind I serve the law
of God. But with my flesh, with my Ishmael, I serve the
law of sin and death. That doesn't change until we
die and leave it behind. That's how it is with Abraham.
Ultimately we'll be reading about Abraham's gravesite. Then you
know who will be standing outside His great sight? One side will
be Isaac, the other side will be Ishmael. That's us. And He won't leave either one
of us until He dies. And that's the way it is with
us. But that new life, that true life, is the desire to obey God. Finally, when they heard the
promise, when they heard the promise was fulfilled, And when
you hear the promise set forth in the gospel, the promise of
a rest where he finds rest and refreshment, the believer receives
it because they are weaned. That's what it says here. It
says in verse 8, the child grew and was weaned. Abraham made a great feast the
same day that Isaac was weaned. This matter of being weaned is
important. You now go hear the gospel clearly
and appreciate the rest wherein you find sweet rest until you
are weaned. Our Lord said in Isaiah chapter
28, He said in verse 9, Whom shall He teach knowledge? And whom shall He make to understand
doctrine, Them that are weaned from the milk and drawn from
the breast. A precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept,
line upon line, line upon line, here a little and there a little,
with stammering lips and another tongue will He teach His people.
To whom He said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the
weary to rest. This is the refreshing, yet Israel
would not hear. But God's people hear. God's
people hear. 2 Peter chapter 3 and verse 18. Peter said grow in the grace
and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Strange growth
this. We mature in Christ and we grow
up by growing down. We grow high by growing low.
Because if you understand what grace is, then to grow in it
is almost an oxymoron. Because grace is unmerited favor. And to grow in unmerited favor
is to grow up in our knowledge of Jesus Christ. To grow in our
knowledge of the fact that we don't deserve any favor. Goddy
Bell used to say growing in grace is like a cow's tail grows. It gets longer, but it gets lower
to the ground. That's what it is to grow in
grace. You've been weaned. And here
it says, a great feast is made. A great feast is made when you're
weaned. Indeed it is. A feast of fat
things, wine on the leaves and well refined. Bring on the fatted
calf. The Father said, My son who is
lost is found. That feast is the gospel. It's
the good news. The glad tidings. that publishes
peace, that publishes salvation, that saith unto Zion, Thy God
reigneth. What a joy! This is our story. The story of Abraham and Sarah
and Isaac being brought from death to life by the spoken word
for God doing what He promised to do. And remember this, all
the promises of God are yea, and they are Amen in Jesus Christ. Father bless us to understand
Him, we pray in Christ's name, Amen.