Episode Transcript
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Let's turn to Genesis Chapter Fifteen,
and here God's word here from Genesis,
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the first book of the Bible,
and in this chapter we will come to
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hear God's confirmation of a promise that
he made to Abraham, the reminder that
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his promises are true and reliable.
Let's give our attention to God's word,
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which never fails. Genesis Chapter Fifteen. After these things, the word of
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the Lord came to Abram in a
vision. Fear not, Abram, I
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am your shield. Your reward shall
be very great. But Abram said,
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Oh, Lord God, what will
you give me for? I continue childless
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and the heir of my house is
Eliezer of Damascus. And Abram said,
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behold, you have given me no
offspring and a member of my house will
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be my heir. And behold,
the word of the Lord came to him.
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This man shall not be your heir, your very own son shall be
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your heir. And he brought him
outside and said, look toward heaven and
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number the stars. If you are
able to number them, then he said
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to him, so shall your offspring
be. And he believed the Lord and
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he counted it to him as righteousness, and he said to him, I
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am the Lord who brought you out
of out from Er of the Chaldeans,
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to give you this land to possess. But he said, Oh, Lord
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God, how am I to know
that I shall possess it? He said
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to him, bring me a heffer
three years old, a female goat three
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years old, a ram three years
old, a turtle, dove and a
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young pigeon. And he brought him
all of these, cut them in half
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and laid each half over against the
other, but he did not cut the
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birds in half. And when the
birds of prey came down on the carcasses,
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Abram drove them away. As the
Sun was going down, a deep
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sleep fell on Abram and behold dreadful
and great darkness fell upon him. Then
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the Lord said to Abram, know
for certain that your offspring will be sojourners
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in a land that is not theirs
and will be servants there, and they
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will be afflicted for four hundred years, but I will bring judgment on the
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nation that they serve, and afterward
they shall come out with great possessions.
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As for you, you shall go
to your father's in peace, you shall
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be buried in a good old age, and they shall come back here in
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the fourth generation, for the iniquity
of the Amorites is not yet complete.
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When the sun had gone down and
it was dark, behold a smoking fire,
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pot and a flaming torch passed between
these pieces. On that day,
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the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying to your offspring, I will
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give this land from the river of
Egypt to the great river, the River
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Euphrates, the land of the Kenites
and the Kennazites, the CADMANITES, the
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Hittites, the parasites, the refiem
and they the Amorites, the Canaanites,
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the Geergashites and the jebusites. May
God bless his word to us. But
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you remember, I hope, and
if not, I'll tell you right now,
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that back in Genesis Chapter Twelve,
God called Abram out of idolatry,
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out of his homeland, into a
new place. His life was turned upside
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down in many ways. It's like
others that God had called to change everything
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because he told them to do so. You might imagine Jonah being told to
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go to Nineveh. The the early
disciples, called to leave behind their livelihoods,
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or at least in some way,
go and follow Jesus, to turn
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aside from things of this world.
This is what happened to Abram, later
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called Abraham. The God of all
creation called him to himself, and what
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this chapter reminds us of, that
we saw back then, is that this
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wasn't because of anything that Abraham had
done, but simply because God had decided
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to be gracious and, through this
man, bless the whole world. He
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had promised that through Abraham, he
would become a blessing to all the nations,
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and would particularly happen through a promised
child, on offspring that would be
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given to Abraham, an offspring that
would somehow result in many, all offspring,
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I'm as many, as he says
here, as the stars in the
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heavens. I hope that at some
point you in your life have tried to
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count the stars. It's a good
thing to do. You won't take you
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very long because you'll stop really fast, but it if you look up and
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you consider how many they are,
especially outside the city lights and a place
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in a world without electricity that's blocking
out on those stars, it's it's humbling
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and this is what God points Abraham
to and he says if you can number
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them, which of course you can't, this is how many offspring I will
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give you. Your offspring will be
like this. Now this is all very
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strange to Abraham, because Abraham has
no children. Abraham has been following the
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Lord for a while now. He
has acted on faith. It's not always
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been perfect. Nevertheless, he's been
following Yahweh, this one who had called
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him, but still no child.
No Child. A God comes to Abraham
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in a vision and says, fear
not, I am your shield. Your
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reward shall be great. And Abraham
doesn't say thank you. He says,
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what will you give me for?
I continue childless. At this is it
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sounds to me something of a complaint. The air of my house is Eliazar
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of Damascus, and when he says
are of my house, he's not speaking
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of a house and, like we
usually think of it, his household,
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his family also includes slaves and other
people. And this one that is not
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his child, is going at this
point in the way that the everything is
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lined up, this is the one
who's going to inherit these things, not
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the one that he was hoping,
not the one that would carry on his
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name. God says to him.
This man, Eliazar, shall not be
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your heir, your very own son
shall be your heir. So sometimes it's
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asked, what is God doing in
Genesis Chapter Fifteen, because hasn't he made
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these promises to Abraham before, and
indeed we are going to get them again?
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It's a good question, but I
think it's answered pretty simply. Does
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God not repeat his promises to you
a lot? And why? Probably for
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all the same reasons Abraham needed this
promises repeated to him. We doubt,
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we struggle, we wonder. God
has promised things to us. He is
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given us reasons to have certain expectations, certain hopes, and when we don't
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see them happening, we wonder what's
going on here. This doesn't seem right.
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So God Confirms His promise. That's
what he's doing here in Genesis fifteen.
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God confirms this promise to Abraham,
and such an important thing for US
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human beings. We live in a
world where people lie to us all the
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time, where we lie to other
people, where we forget the things that
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we've been promised, even though we
know they are a hundred percent true,
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even though they're really great things.
There have been times in my life where
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people have told me really, really
important things and I have forgotten them.
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Maybe that's happened to you too.
Because of these things, God, knowing
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our weakness, he comes to us
and he confirms the promises. He reminds
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us. It's not as though God, in confirming his promise, is now
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extra going to keep his promise.
God will do what he says he will
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do. He doesn't need to pile
things up, but for the but it
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is for us and for Abraham,
who are weak. Our knowledge and confidence
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in anything has a way of slipping
away without practice, without reinforcement, and
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that's because of this. Our knowledge
and our trust is not like or I
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let me put it this way.
Our knowledge is not like God's knowledge.
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What he knows, he knows.
He knows it from a beginning to the
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end. It's not developing, it's
not growing, it's not changing. We're
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not like this. We are learning
creatures. We are creatures that require confirmation
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and proof and and and growth.
In these ways. Our knowledge growth is
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it develops through practice. We learn
it. It's how God made us,
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and so it's because of that that
he lovingly comes to Abraham and confirms these
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things and does it in a very
amazing way, as we'll see. I
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think this is similar to the way, Peter says, to husband's love your
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wives in an in an understanding way, live with them UN accord with who
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they are. God does this for
us as well. He comes to Abraham
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essentially to say, I love you, I will be faithful to you,
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you can trust me, and you
know what, he's going to say this
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and do this for Abraham over and
over and over and over again, and
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he does it for you to over
and over and over again, and for
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that we ought to be very grateful. The God reminds us of things.
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So what is it that Abraham is
concerned about? He's concerned about not having
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the sun that has been promised.
And it's in this situation that God says
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to him, this man shall not
be your air, your very own son
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shall be your heir. Now let's
continue to read on. He says he
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brings him outside. He says,
look to the heaven and number the stars.
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If you're able to number them,
and he says, so shall your
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offspring be. And then we have
this very important verse, in Verse Six.
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And he believed the Lord and it
was counted to him as righteousness.
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So what is it that Abraham believed? He believed not only that God would
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promise would give this offspring, but
that this would result in this massive blessing,
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this massive blessed family. Now,
typically in our lives, when we
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are going to receive a blessing,
or let's a good thing, a thing
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that really benefits an other people,
it's a result of a lot of hard
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work. Right, if you want
your yard to look Nice, especially this
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time of year, you probably should
be doing a lot of weeding. For
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those of you are at the men's
bile study, you know I am not.
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It takes a lot of work if
you want your yard to look this
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way, if you want to succeed
in your job right, you have to
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put in the hour, show up
on time do good work. This is
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how life constantly works all around us, and here Abraham is being promised the
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blessing of blessings, this massive blessed
family that will bless all the families on
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the earth. We know some families
like this in the world. They usually
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get their names printed on university buildings, they have announcements made before programming on
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your local stations. Supporters, philanthropists, families that are wealthy and have resources
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and are known. They have big
effects on on society and in politics and
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govern our business and lots of ways. It's kind of this that God is
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promising Abraham this massively blessed enormous family. Well, how do you get that
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kind of thing? Well, in
this case, God says he will simply
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give it to him. How would
he receive this? It would not become
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be be because he was a young, fertile, powerful man with big plans
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who knew how to get things done. It would because he would simply receive
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them with the empty arms of faith. He would receive this blessing only because
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he was accepting it, trusting God
that he would take that he would receive
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what was given. And, as
I say, this is not how things
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usually work in the world. Usually
you work and then you get the reward.
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And this perhaps is a specially true
of the work of holy living.
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Since this reward is coming from God, you would expect Abraham would need to
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be a specially holy person, somebody
who had lived his life perhaps in constant
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obedience, constant service to the Lord, and and now finally had kind of
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risen to the pinnacle of holiness,
and God would shower down these blessings on
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him, his reward. But that's
not what it says. Instead, it
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says that his faith would be counted
as righteousness. It would be as if
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he had done all of those things, even though he hadn't, that his
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simply believing and accepting the things of
the Lord, that that would be counted
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as the way righteousness is usually counted. An amazing thing, amazing thing that
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God is doing here. And in
this way God points us to a way
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that he has already opened and is
opening now up in a big way for
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blessing to come into the world and
many people, even beyond Abraham, to
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join him, away not of works
but of grace, a way not of
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earning but of receiving. And so
when Abraham is feeling perhaps frustrated that he's
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not he does not yet have the
child that he was hoping for, it
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is a good reminder to him that
his way is a way of receiving.
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That's what his new life is all
about, a way that is promised and
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finally finds its fulfillment in the offspring
that Abraham eventually produces, a long line
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which is, of course, Jesus
turn with me, if you can,
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at least to your attention, if
not in your bibles, to glacians chapter
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three. Let's consider what God has
to say here, glacians chapter three versus
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ten through fourteen. For All who
rely on the works of the law are
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under a curse. For it is
written, cursed be everyone who does not
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abide by all the things written in
the book of the Law and do them.
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Now it is evident that no one
is justified before God by the law.
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For, quote, the righteous shall
live by faith, but the law
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is not of faith. Rather,
the one who does them shall live by
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them. Christ redeemed us from the
curse of the law by becoming a curse
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for us. For it is written, cursed is everyone who is hanged on
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a tree, so that in Christ
Jesus, the blessing of Abraham might come
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to the gentiles, so that we
might receive the promised spirit through faith,
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so that we might receive the promised
spirit through faith, the blessing of who
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of Abraham? You see what Paul
is saying here. We receive the blessing
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of Abraham, this great family,
this blessed presence with God, of God's
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presence. Why? Because we receive
the same promise in the same way,
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by faith, not by works.
This link we have here between the old
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and two testament helps us to understand
so, so much. What Paul says
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here is that the reason righteousness doesn't
work when it comes to receiving the blessings
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of God, the final heavenly ascatological
blessings of God, is because no one
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is justified by them. Why is
nobody justified by them? Because everybody is
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cursed by them. And why is
everybody cursed by them? Because no one
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obeys it's not that the law is
sort of falling over itself and is unable
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to is unable to speak perfectly into
our lives the righteous requirement, it's that
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we're unable to meet it and so
being cursed. We have no access into
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these things. The only way that
we can receive the blessing of Abraham,
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as it's for filled in Christ is
through faith. And so we'll come back
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to glacians in a moment, but
let's go back to genesis now and consider
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what we began with, because remember, this is not merely a promise to
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believe be believed. It is that, but it is the confirmation of a
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promise that is believed. And so
in the rest of the verses here we
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have God bringing this point home that
righteousness is by faith alone. In very
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vivid details, it begins by God
establishing his authority in Verse Seven. I
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am the Lord who brought you out
of her of the Chaldeans to give you
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this land to possess. You can
imagine why Abraham might be feeling a little
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proud of himself at this moment.
Right he had just gone into these battles,
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he had just rescued lot, he'd
just defeated all these kings. He
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might be feeling like he's sitting pretty
at this point. Look at this land
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that I'm possessing, look how powerful
and wealthy I am. And God starts
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out by reminding him right away that
I am the one who called you out,
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and of course, he is the
one that received all the great possessions
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out of Egypt, a parallel to
the promises that are coming to future generations.
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Continuing on, Abraham says in Verse
Eight. But he said, Oh,
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Lord God, how am I to
know that I shall possess it?
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You see what he's asking for.
He's asking for help. This is hard.
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Can you confirm this promise? And
he says to him, bring me
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a half for three years old and
some other animals as well. Five animals,
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cow, a go, a Ram, a turtle, dove, a
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pigeon. Abraham seems to know what
to do without instruction, because he knows
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that in God calling him to do
these things, he's calling him to a
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covenant is going to be made.
We find parallels with this and other places
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in scripture and throughout the ancient world. In Abraham's time, similar ceremonies which
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similar things are done. But here
are something very different. As we'll see,
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Abraham cuts these animals in such a
way that in scripture sometimes to cut
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a covenant is that means the same
as making a covenant, and what we
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see here is these animals are cut
and then the Lord, figured as a
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smoking pot and a flaming torch,
passes between them. Now this is very
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odd. For this reason, listen
to Jeremiah thirty four, eighteen through twenty,
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Jeremi eighteen through twenty, and the
men who transgressed my covenant and did
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not keep the terms of the covenant
that they made before me, I will
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make them like the calf that they
cut into and passed between its parts.
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So I know we're jumping into the
middle of something here, but hear what
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he says? He says the men
who transgressed the covenant. Right, so
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a covenant was made. These men
who transgressed it, he says, the
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I will make them like the calf
that they cut into and passed between its
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parts, the officials of Judah,
the officials of Jerusalem, the Eunuchs,
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the priests and all the people of
the land who passed between the parts of
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the calf, and I will give
them into the hands of their enemies and
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into the hands of those who seek
their lives. They're dead body shall be
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food for the birds of the air
and the beasts of the earth. What's
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going on here? What's going on
is an ancient ceremony, a covenantal ceremony.
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A covenant is a Solemn Promise,
a ceremony that depicts that promise.
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We have a covenant ceremony when we
two people get married, and we have
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signs in that ceremony, typically a
wedding ring, when we say with this,
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using old words, I the WED
right, this is a sign and
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a pre seal of my promise,
a to you, and the husband and
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wife exchange that sign. Something similar
to that is going on here, and
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it works like this. You cut
the animals in half and you walk through
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the animals and you say, may
what happened to these animals happen to me
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if I do not keep my promise. That's how this particular ceremony works,
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and that's why, in Jeremiah,
God is saying, let it be so.
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You made a promise, you cut
the animals in half, you took
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this oath curse upon yourself. You
have not fulfilled the promise, and now
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let it be to you. You
will die, as you promised you would.
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For Your lack of obedience. The
birds of the air and the beasts
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will feast on your bodies. We'll
see something similar happening here. Is the
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birds of the air come down and
grab start grabbing on these animals, on
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these carcasses. Abraham's shoes them away, but death is all around. This
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strange moment in which God is promising
His grace and love that is going to
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be poured out on the world,
is strounded in blood and death, and
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darkness too. As the Sun Descends
and Abraham is put into a sleep,
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we have what is really if you
had a vision like this, you'd probably
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call it a nightmare, but in
this scenario it is the Lord, God
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himself, who walks through those animals
and makes this promised Abraham. God himself
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says, let this curse fall on
me if I do not keep this covenant.
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That is what he is saying when
he does this thing. There is
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darkness, as I say, all
around there is death, there is curse,
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there is there are these birds feasting
on the carcasses. There is darkness,
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there is the mention of the wrath
of the Amorites, not yet filled,
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completely filled. And yet who is
in the midst of all of that
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darkness? It is God. It
is the Lord in these smoke and fire,
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foreshadowing the pillars that would lead Israel
through the desert as he brings them
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out of Egypt. As he says
here, God will keep his people.
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As I said, what Abraham experience
would be fairly called a nightmare if we
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were to include the point that this
was not his, if this was just
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his imagination. But it is in
fact a vision from the Lord and in
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that ultimately is a very blessed one, because though it is dark and scary
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and serious, ultimately God is in
control of the whole thing and he is
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promising that he will bring Abraham to
this place of blessing. One of the
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things this reminds us of is that
our salvation is no light thing. God
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makes it very clear that, unlike
our fickle hearts, which doubt, he
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is deadly serious about his love for
us. He will do the miraculous,
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the amazing. He will even send
the offspring of Abraham and his offspring as
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well, the only begotten Son,
our Savior, to die on a cross,
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to take on the curses, not
for a failure to fulfill the promise
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on God's part, but because of
our failures to keep the prom the requirements
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of righteousness, and doing this,
Jesus is able to atone for our sins,
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to become this sacrificial lamb that takes
away the sins of the world and
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ultimately find for us a perfect salvation. With Genesis fifteen, reminds us of,
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brothers and sisters, is that God
will keep his promises. That's why
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he gives this to Abraham. That's
what Abraham's question is, that's why he
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says these things. God called Abraham
out of the earth of Chaldees, made
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all of these promises and he's going
to keep Abraham in them. I want
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to end with this. What are
the implications of this? There are hundreds
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millions. Maybe we could think of
classic thoughts like let's not boast in ourselves,
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but boast of the Lord. Let's
be filled with thankfulness for all that
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God has done for us. I'd
like to conclude with this. This evening,
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the God called Abraham out of the
her of Chaldee's to bring him not
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just momentarily there, but really into
a new way of life that, from
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beginning to end, would be a
life of faith, a life totally depending
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on God. And to impress that
point upon you, I want to read
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again from glacians, now from the
beginning of glacians, glacians three through nine.
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Paul says, Oh foolish glacians,
who bewitched you, or who has
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bewitched you? It was before your
eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as
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crucified. Let me ask you only
this. Did you receive the spirit by
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works of the law or by hearing
with faith? Are you so foolish?
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Having begun by the spirit, are
you now being perfected by the flesh?
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Did you suffer so many things in
vain? If indeed it was in vain,
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does he who supplies the spirit to
you and works miracles among you,
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do so by the works of the
law or by hearing with faith, just
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as Abraham believed God and it was
counted to him as righteousness. Know,
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then, that it is those of
faith who are the sons of Abraham.
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Him and the scripture, foreseeing that
God would justify the gentiles by faith,
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preach the Gospel beforehand to Abraham,
saying in you shall all the nations be
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blessed. So then, those who
are of faith are blessed along with Abraham,
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the man of faith. You see
what God is saying here. He's
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saying here that just as Abraham received
these promises by faith and God continued in
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him this work. He didn't just
call him into the earth, out from
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the Earth Keldies, into Cana and
say, all right, best of luck,
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to do your best to obey my
law. I'll check you at the
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end and we'll see how you did
right. This is not what he said.
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He continued him in that same grace
in which he began. He Confirms
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His promise in Genesis Fifteen in this
amazing way, and he will continue to
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do it again and again for us. And so we, like Abraham,
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if we are to receive the blessings
of Abraham, if we are to receive
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the promises of God, then we
two must live by faith, not pursuing
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our own ways and not pursuing our
own paths, and the righteousness that comes
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through works, but the righteousness that
comes through faith, a right of a
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faith that is counted as righteousness because
of Christ's righteousness for us. And when
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we do that, when we work
simply by receiving the things that God has
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given to us, then we are
blessed along with Abraham, the man of
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faith. My encouragement to you is
that when you doubt this, when you
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struggle with this, remember God's covenant
with Abraham, Remember this vision that he
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has recorded here, preached beforehand for
Abraham and for us that our faith might
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be confirmed. And look also to
the other promises that God gives to us,
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in the sacraments that he gives to
us and baptism and the Lord's supper,
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more signs and confirmations that God gives
to us that these things are true,
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that his word is true, that
he keeps his promises. And finally,
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remember the thing to which all of
these things point, the one to
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whom all of these things point Jesus
Christ, your savior, taking on the
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wrath of God for you on the
Cross so that you would not have to
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be cursed by your works, but
blessed by his. May God grant us
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to live by faith and faith alone. Let's pray
