[0:00] Just a wee word to the young folk. The other day, recently, a man came to the house and he came in.
[0:13] And normally, when somebody comes in, sometimes people say, I'm not going to come in, just stand at the door or stand in the lobby. Or they come in to the kitchen or they come in to the living room.
[0:24] But this man, he asked if he could go to the garage, which isn't what people usually ask when they come. In fact, in some houses, this man, when he comes in, he asked if he could go to the cupboard under the stair or a cupboard.
[0:38] Well, this man, he had a wee torch. And, of course, it's a man who comes to read the meter, to see how much electricity he had used. That's his job. Because we know that cookers and fridges, freezers, all these things, the tellies, the lights, they all use up electricity.
[0:59] So that meter measures how much electricity we use. But there's lots of different meters to measure different things. For instance, if you're not well and you had to go to the hospital or you had to go to the doctor, the doctor might take out this little thing and put it in your ear or put it under your tongue.
[1:23] And that's a thermometer or a thermometer. We'll call them meters. And it'll measure your temperature to see whether you're hot or cold. And if you're not well, your temperature tends to go up a wee bit and you get a wee bit hot.
[1:39] Again, when you go into a car, behind the steering wheel, there's loads of dials. And there's one dial there will tell you how fast the car is going.
[1:51] That's a, well, we'll call it a speedometer. A speedometer, we call it. But it's another meter. And it's telling us what speed we're doing. And tell us if we try and keep in the 30 mile an hour limit or 40 mile an hour limit.
[2:05] And it shows us the kind of speed we're going. If you go up in a plane, it can tell you how high you're going. Because there, there's another meter.
[2:17] An altitude, we'll call it again an altimeter. And it tells you, the altitude tells you how high up you've gone. So it's quite amazing that there's all these kind of different meters.
[2:30] There's loads of other ones. So it can tell you how fast you're going, how hot you are, how cold you are, how hot the day is, how high you are, all these kind of things.
[2:43] But there's another kind of meter. It's a different kind of meter. And it can tell you how good you are or how bad you are. And we say to ourselves, well, what kind of meter is that?
[2:56] Well, if I can use reverently, it's the Bible. Because there's been only one perfect man who has ever walked this world, who has been perfect, who was perfect all his life, and that is Jesus.
[3:11] And we have to measure our lives against Jesus. And the only way we can do that is by measuring ourselves against what the Bible tells us.
[3:24] That will tell us how we're living. The first thing that Jesus wants us to do is asks us and say, he says to us, I want to be king.
[3:37] I want to be the chief in your heart, in your life. And then when I become the chief, when I become the king, when you come to really believe in me, then I want you to live like me.
[3:52] Isn't that amazing? And we'll only know if we're beginning to live like Jesus as we look at the Bible, as we measure ourselves against the Bible.
[4:05] So let's remember that. We can measure how hot we are, how cold we are. We can measure how fast we're going, how high we go. We can measure all kinds of things, but we can even measure ourselves against Jesus by studying the Bible.
[4:21] Let's sing again, again from Sing Psalms in Psalm number 18. Psalm number 18. We're going to sing from verse 27 to 36 and the tune is Duke Street.
[4:34] This is on page 21. Psalm 18, verse 27. You save the humble and the meek, but bring the proud down from their height.
[4:49] You, Lord, will keep my lamp aflame. God turns my darkness into light. With help from God, I can advance against a troop and rout them all.
[5:00] And with the aid my God will give, I can leap over any wall. For perfect is the way of God. No flaw is found within his word. To all who put their trust in him, a shield and refuge is the Lord.
[5:15] For who is God except the Lord? Besides our God who is the rock, he is the God who gives me strength, and he perfects the path I walk. So on to the end of verse 36.
[5:27] Psalm 18, verses 27 to 36, and the tune is Duke Street. You save the humble and the meek, but bring the proud down from their height.
[5:53] You, Lord, will keep my lamp aflame. God turns my darkness into night.
[6:06] With help from God, I can advance against a troop and rout them all.
[6:21] And with the aid my God will give, I can leap over any wall.
[6:37] For perfect is the way of God. No flaw is found within his word.
[6:50] To all who put their trust in him, a shield and refuge is the Lord.
[7:06] For whose God except the Lord, besides the God who is the rock, he is the God who gives me strength, and he perfects the path I walk.
[7:35] He makes my feet like feet of deer. Upon the heights he makes me shine.
[7:49] My arms can bend a bow of bronze. In scales of war, he trains my hand.
[8:04] Your right hand gives me victory. You stood down low to make me great, so that my footsteps do not trip.
[8:26] You smooth the pathway for my feet. Let's turn to read Genesis chapter 15.
[8:43] Genesis chapter 15. Chapter 15.
[8:59] After these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision. Fear not, Abram. I am your shield. Your reward shall be very great.
[9:10] But Abram said, O Lord God, what will you give me? For I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus. And Abram said, Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.
[9:28] And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, This man shall not be your heir. Your very own son shall be your heir. And he brought him outside and said, Look toward heaven, and number the stars.
[9:44] If you are able to number them. Then he said to him, So shall your offspring be. And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.
[9:55] And he said to him, I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess. But he said, O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?
[10:11] He said to him, Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtle dove, and a young pigeon.
[10:21] And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half.
[10:33] And when the birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away. As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him.
[10:46] Then the Lord said to Abram, Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs, and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years.
[11:02] But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterwards they shall come out with great possessions. As for yourself, you shall go to your fathers in peace.
[11:13] You shall be buried in a good old age, and they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.
[11:25] When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, To your offspring I give this land from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadamanites, the Hittites, the Perisites, the Rephiam, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgisites, and the Jebusites.
[12:00] Amen, and may God bless to us this reading of his holy word. I'm going to sing from Psalm 26 in the Scottish Psalter, Psalm number 26. Psalm 26. It's on page 235.
[12:20] From verse 6 to the end, the tune is Huddersfield. Mine hands and innocence, O Lord, I'll wash and purify. So to thine holy altar go, and compass it will I, that I with voice of thanksgiving may publish and declare, and tell of all thy mighty works that great and wondrous are.
[12:41] The habitation of thy house, Lord, I have loved well. Yea, in that place I do delight, where doth thine honour dwell. With sinners gather not my soul, and such as blood would spill, whose hands mischievous plots, right hand corrupting bribes do fill.
[12:59] But as for me, I will walk on in mine integrity. Do thou redeem me, and, O Lord, be merciful to me. My foot upon an even place doth stand with steadfastness.
[13:13] Within the congregations, the eternal, I will bless. Psalm 26, verses 6 to the end, to Junus Huddersfield, mine hands and innocence, O Lord. Mine hands in it, no sense, O Lord, I'll wash and pure it, so to thine holy altar, go and compass it will I, that I with voice of thanksgiving may publish and declare and tell of all thy mighty words that great and wondrous heart.
[14:30] The habitation of thy house, Lord, I have loved it well.
[14:47] In that place I do delight with the fight on and well.
[15:02] With sin as can, O Lord, my soul, and such as blood would spill, whose hands mischievous Lord's right hand, Lord, corrupting brides to fill.
[15:33] But as for me, I will walk on in my integrity to thou redeem me, and, O Lord, be merciful to me.
[16:03] my foot upon an even place to stand with steadfastness within the congregation, eternal I will bless.
[16:35] Let's turn again to the chapter we read, Genesis chapter 15. I just want us to briefly look at this chapter.
[16:48] Maybe we'll read the first verse after these things. The word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision. Fear not, Abram. I am your shield. Your reward shall be very great, and so on.
[17:02] Remember how at the end of the previous chapter, chapter 14, Abram had met with two kings. He had met with Melchizedek, who was the priest king, and Melchizedek had blessed Abram.
[17:16] And then he had met with the king of Sodom. And remember, the king of Sodom had been captured, and, of course, Abram had gone to fight against this gathering of kings that had come up to fight.
[17:32] A large gathering had come up to fight against the kings of the plain. And, of course, Lot had been captured. And the king of Sodom was so thankful to have got everything back that he offered Abram everything.
[17:47] He said, just give me the people, but you keep all the possessions yourselves. And remember, Abram wouldn't take anything. He said, I won't even take a thread. Because he didn't want anyone to say that the king of Sodom had made him rich.
[18:04] Abraham, by and large, his choices were spiritual. Every choice he made wasn't always the right choice. But the vast majority of his choices were the right choices.
[18:18] And when he made the right choices, he did so by looking to the Lord. They were spiritual choices. Lot, on the other hand, although he was a believer, was always making the wrong choice.
[18:31] And he was making his choices not based upon anything spiritual, but his choices were based upon how he felt and what he saw.
[18:43] In other words, his choices were based on the temporal. They were based on the flesh. They were based not on the spiritual or on what God would want.
[18:54] And in these chapters in Genesis, Lot comes out in a really bad light. Abraham comes out in a tremendous light.
[19:06] He really is a frontiersman of faith. Yes, he had his wobbles and he had his moments, but we all do. But when you look at the life of Abraham, by and large, he really is a giant in the faith.
[19:22] And Abraham, he made his choices, as we said, based upon what the Lord had shown him and what the Lord wanted.
[19:33] Lot, unfortunately, didn't. Lot had just been delivered from Sodom. He was in a place that was ripe for judgment. And I notice how it tells us that God seems to have a time for judgment.
[19:48] It says in verse 16 regarding the Amorites, who were living in the land of Canaan, and they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.
[20:01] And it would almost seem that there's a two-fold thing happening. One is that God is giving a people or a nation an opportunity to repent and to turn back to himself.
[20:13] And the other is that when they don't, that they're building up and building up and building up sin so that the judgment of God is inevitably going to come.
[20:27] There's going to come a point where God will have to come in judgment, where the iniquity becomes full. That is obviously what happened with Sodom and Gomorrah.
[20:40] And that's what happened in the land that Abraham is in. Because in the vision later on in this chapter that God showed him, he showed how his people, Abraham's people, were going to be taken, they were going to be in captivity for a long, long time.
[21:02] There's going to be 400 years was going to lapse until Abraham's descendants would come back into this land. And of course that was the captivity in Egypt when the children of Israel were in Egypt.
[21:16] but God tells them they're going to come out with great possessions. And you remember how the Egyptians handed over their wealth and a lot of their possessions to the Israelites as they made their way out.
[21:27] Just one of the wonderful things when you come to the Bible, the Lord shows, the Lord knows the ends from the beginning. He's telling, this is how it's going to be. This is what's going to unfold.
[21:39] He knows the ends from the beginning. That's why we should always trust him. He has a plan for your life, for my life, even although sometimes it doesn't seem to make sense. There is no point when the Lord doesn't know exactly what is happening, where he's going with your life, what he is actually doing.
[22:00] So he said, Abraham comes out while Lot doesn't. Lot, who had been rescued from Sodom, you would think he would say to Abraham, oh, thanks Uncle Abraham. You really saved my skin, Neah.
[22:13] can I come back with you? That's not what Lot does. He goes straight back into Sodom. And sometimes mature Christians can have a lot of disappointments with weak Christians.
[22:29] Sometimes you can invest a lot of time with certain people and they just disappoint you. Well, there's nothing new under the sun. That's exactly what was happening here. Abraham must have felt really, really, really disappointed in Lot when he says, you're going back there, but back into Sodom he went.
[22:51] Anyway, we have to recognize that the choices that we do make sometimes are very difficult. And it wasn't easy for Abraham.
[23:02] I don't think for one moment that we can, sometimes we look at these things and we say, oh, well, that's what they did. But sometimes their decisions came at a cost. You imagine Abraham had all this wealth, all the possessions of Sodom.
[23:18] And the king of Sodom is saying, look, take it all. Abraham says, no, I won't even take a thread. Because Abraham knew the kind of man and the kind of place Sodom was and he didn't want anything to do with it.
[23:33] And that was a difficult decision. from a human point of view, you put yourself in that situation where all of a sudden you are given all this but it's by somebody who is the king of a really immoral, corrupt, unjust, brutal regime.
[23:54] Because that's the kind of place it was. We read about that the last time we were looking about it from Ezekiel. It was a place of severe injustice. It was a place where there was no system of order or where the poor were trampled upon, they were marginalized.
[24:15] It was a place where there was real oppression of those who were in need along with all the immorality and the cup of God's judgment was filling up against them.
[24:27] So Abraham says, no, I'm not taking anything. Sometimes you and I have to make decisions that aren't easy. Decisions based upon God's word that go against the grain.
[24:39] It's not easy sometimes to be faithful to God's word. But that's one of the reasons why Abraham was called the father of the faithful because he was continuing to be faithful.
[24:51] So it's against this backdrop where Abraham has refused to take the wealth of Sodom that God comes to him with a great assurance and he says to Abraham, fear not Abraham.
[25:09] And I love how personal this is because throughout the Bible the Lord is often throwing in these fear nots to us to encourage us. But it's not, he doesn't just say fear not, he says fear not Abraham.
[25:23] It's personal. He said it to Mary, fear not Mary. He said it to Paul, fear not Paul. And he's actually saying the same to you and to me as well.
[25:35] So the Lord is speaking in his word to us. Fear not. Just the same as he said to the disciples when he came walking to them on the water. It is I. Be not afraid, be a good cheer.
[25:48] And so the Lord says to Abraham, I am your shield. Now that's quite a wonderful statement because the Lord isn't saying to Abraham, I will shield you.
[26:00] If the Lord had said that to Abraham, that in itself would be a wonderful thing. That he would shield him, that he would protect him. That would be a great thing.
[26:11] But that's not what he says. He says, I am your shield. Not just I will shield you, but I myself, I, the God of heaven, am your shield.
[26:24] In other words, Abraham, anything that comes against you has to come through me first. And that's a wonderful thing.
[26:36] And you know, the Lord is saying the same to you and to me. The psalm we're going to sing at the end, psalm 84 says, the Lord of God is a sun and shield. That's what he is to his people. Part of his covenant commitment to his people is that he is both sun and shield.
[26:52] shield. So we see how passion the Lord is dealing with his people here. I am, he's saying, I am your shield.
[27:04] It's the same as the Lord sometimes says, not just I will give you peace, but I am your peace. I am your righteousness. Not just I will give you righteousness, I am your righteousness.
[27:17] It's passion, it's powerful. And so these words must have been music to Abraham's ears. And that meant that when the Lord says, I am your shield, the very language says, I was your shield in the past.
[27:35] Abraham's just come out of a battle, and quite an amazing battle. Abraham had a 300 plus, I can't remember exactly the number of men he had, was it 385 or 375?
[27:47] He had a small group of people, but with the Lord, 318 it says on the previous chapter, 318. We don't know how many were in the armies that he fought against, but it reminds us, takes us back, we think about Gideon, where he defeated this massive army of the Midianites with just 300 men.
[28:13] But you see with the Lord on your side, having the Lord on your side, even if you're on your own as a majority, you must never forget that. Sometimes we maybe don't feel it that way, but that's actually how it is.
[28:28] When the Lord is with you and on your side, no matter how many are against you, it is still a majority. And that's really what the Lord is saying and demonstrated to Abraham.
[28:42] You, Abraham, defeated a much larger army because I was your shield. And what I was then, I still am.
[28:53] So day and night the Lord is a sun and shield to us. So past Abraham, I was your shield. Present Abraham, I am your shield.
[29:04] And future Abraham, I am your shield. I will continue to be your shield every single day. And what a comfort that is to us. You know, we live in an increasingly uncertain world.
[29:17] world. And there are times you look around and you look out and you think, what's going to happen? What kind of future are we going to have? Where's it all going to end?
[29:29] It's just day by day, week by week. It's kind of a bubbling sense of uncertainty in the world that we're living in. But the Lord says, I am your shield.
[29:43] What a sense of peace that brings. peace. A sense of comfort to our troubled souls, which sometimes we have. And so Abraham was able to look out where he was.
[29:59] Because remember, he's a stranger in a strange land. And he has just fought against a gathering together of five different kings. What if they go away and regroup?
[30:13] What if they come back and charge against him sometime? The Lord is saying, no, Abraham, what I was in the past, I am in the present, and I will be in the future.
[30:24] And then he says, your reward shall be very great. Isn't that wonderful? Your reward shall be very great. Yes, Abraham, you refused the reward from Sodom, but I am your reward, and your reward shall be very great.
[30:42] And when the Lord rewards us on what the Lord is a reward, it is a reward that satisfies. You know, sometimes you can get a reward or a prize.
[30:55] You look back over your life and maybe some of the prizes you got you're a bit disappointed with. But the Lord will never disappoint you. Times you won't understand, but when you see the big picture, and when eventually it all unfolds, you will discover that he will not disappoint you.
[31:17] The hungry soul he satisfies. This is what he does. He has all sufficiency, but he's also a beautiful reward. And you know, when we're given an insight into who the Lord is, and when we're given this an awareness that the Lord is with you, and he is for you, and he loves you, and he protects you, and that you're special to him.
[31:42] How often do you think of that, that you, as a believer, are special to the Lord of glory? It's one of the most humbling things, but it's true.
[31:55] Because out of all this whole wide world, the only, we've said it often before, the only thing that he is going to take out of this world to take for himself are his people, the church, nothing else.
[32:14] Everything else is going to be burnt up, because the earth is going to melt with a fervent heat. Everything is going to be destroyed. His people are his portion in this world.
[32:26] You, he says often, are my possession. That's all out of this whole world, all its glamour, all its glitz, all its incredible wealth, and the Lord says, there's only one thing that really matters to me, my people.
[32:43] You, you are my possession. You are special to me. So I think it's important that there are times we stop, we reflect, we think upon it, and then we've got to ask the Lord and say to the Lord, Lord, help me to understand what that really means.
[33:01] Come into my heart, give me to know it, to experience it, to understand it, to feel it, to really know that you love me in this way.
[33:15] And the Lord is not only a satisfying reward and a beautiful reward, he's also an everlasting reward. Because the reward that the Lord gives is forever.
[33:28] you look back over your life and maybe many of the things that you achieved and you got along the way, you haven't a clue where they are today. They've gone.
[33:41] But what the Lord gives you is forever. Because it's himself he gives. This is the amazing thing, that he gives himself.
[33:52] And we will discover the fullness of that when we get to glory. So we're looking at the prayer meeting on Thursday night that Paul is talking about that he is present in the body but absent from the Lord.
[34:04] And people are saying, how can you be absent from the Lord when the Lord says that he is present, that he is with us? Well, the Lord Jesus is with us through the Holy Spirit.
[34:17] The Holy Spirit has come to live within us. And the Holy Spirit reveals to us, shows to us, the things of Christ. He's making that known to us so that we know it and enjoy it and experience it.
[34:32] But the second passion of the Godhead, the Lord Jesus Christ, in his passion, is still in glory. And it is when we get to glory that we will no longer be absent from him.
[34:45] Here, although the Spirit conveys to us the things of Christ and the third passion of the Godhead lives within us, we are absent from the passion of Christ. Although he is in our midst to bless through the Spirit, we will be passionately present with him, there with him, in his presence, forever and ever and ever.
[35:11] So the reward that the Lord gives begins here and now, but we will receive its fullness in the glory to come. And then the Lord begins to talk to Abraham about what the future is.
[35:29] And of course, Abraham brings before the Lord his great problem, and that is that there is no family. It's becoming a huge concern for Abraham, because when the Lord brought Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldees, it was all tied in to the giving of a land and the giving of a family.
[35:53] These two things were that Abraham was going to go to a land, the Lord was to give him, and to his offspring. And Abraham is saying to the Lord, Lord, the time is passing, I'm getting old, Sarah's getting old, and we've no children.
[36:10] Is Eliezer the chief of my household? Is he the one who is to be the heir of all things? This is what the Lord is asking.
[36:23] And the Lord is saying to him, your very own son shall be your heir. You know, what I love about Abraham here is, when you look at the life of Abraham, is his honesty with God.
[36:39] Abraham speaks to God, just like you as a son would speak to a father, or you would speak to a friend. It's heart to heart.
[36:51] And he shares with the Lord his fears, his worries about what things are going to be. And that's why Abraham is termed the friend of God.
[37:02] Beautiful description. That's what the Bible tells us. You know, you could put over Abraham's gravestone, a friend hand of God. Beautiful.
[37:13] And that's why it's so important that we too get into the way, into the habit, of just talking to the Lord about everything, about our worries, our fears, our hopes. Not just going to the Lord confessing our sin, which we must do.
[37:28] Not just going to the Lord asking him to guide us and to lead us, but going to him about everything. all the little things, the things you talk to yourself about, talk to the Lord about them as well.
[37:42] This is where the fellowship and the communion and the dialogue between heaven and earth. And do you know something? The more you talk to the Lord, the more he will talk to you. The more the word of God will become real and relevant and powerful and meaningful.
[37:57] And you'll be saying to yourself, I'm really getting so much out of the word today. That is because the Lord is speaking to you in the word because you have been speaking to him. So be in the habit of speaking to him.
[38:08] That's one of the great things about Abraham's life. He was always speaking to the Lord about issues and things. So the Lord reassures Abraham and he says to him, your very own son shall be your heir.
[38:24] And he took him outside and said, look toward heaven and number the stars if you're able to number them. So shall your offspring be. That would have been a quite extraordinary moment for Abraham.
[38:36] Standing below the night sky and where there no street lights or anything and there would be an open night sky and just the millions of stars there.
[38:51] Of course Abraham couldn't count them. And the Lord is saying to him, your generations are going to be like that. Millions and millions and millions and millions. What an amazing moment.
[39:04] You know, it's good for us sometimes to stop and look up to the sky, look up at the stars, look up at the moon and stop and think, you know, every single star in the sky God made and he names them.
[39:20] He counts the number of the stars and he names them one by one. The God who does that is my God. God. The God who is keeping all these stars and has placed them all there, he is the God who's looking after me.
[39:34] He is the God who's directing my life. He's in charge, he's in control. It's not that we're looking at the stars to get inspiration from them but looking beyond the stars to the God who formed the heavens and the earth, who are the possessor of heaven and earth.
[39:50] the possessor of your life as well. And so the Lord gives great promises to Abraham and Abraham believed it. This is the great thing about Abraham.
[40:02] He believes the word of the Lord and it's counted to Abraham as righteousness. And Abraham is here trusting the Lord implicitly. Do you? Do I?
[40:14] Do you know far too often when we go through life, we say we trust the Lord. But we have a hand on the wheel as well. In case, just in case, in case what, in case why?
[40:30] In case the Lord has forgotten? In case the Lord can't work it out properly? You know sometimes when you analyse it our lack of trust is terrible.
[40:41] What does the Lord think of us so often? As we're trying to help him out, as if we're thinking that he's not able to do, as if he hasn't enough resources, as if he's forgotten.
[40:52] No. He is in control. He is in command. And just because it's not maybe working the way we expected or thought, that doesn't mean he's forgotten, or that he somehow can't do.
[41:07] He's in total and absolute control. And then the Lord gives Abraham a great moment, moment.
[41:17] Because see when Abraham asks in verse 8, some people think it's a lack of faith, but Abraham asks in verse 8, O Lord, how am I to know that I shall possess it?
[41:28] That is talking about the land. This is not asking the Lord in a sense, well I suppose the psalmist also said, confirm to me your gracious word.
[41:39] This is in keeping with the day, because in that day when a promise was made, a covenant was cut. People cut a covenant.
[41:52] It was a very solemn thing when promises were made. And that's why the Lord tells Abraham to take these particular animals and the birds, and he was to cut them.
[42:04] And what happened was that when the animals were divided, they were cut. those who made the covenant, made the promise, walked between the cut animals.
[42:16] And they were really saying, this is what they would be saying, if I fail to keep the promise that I have made, may what has happened to these animals happen to me.
[42:28] May I be cut asunder, may I be split in two. It was a very serious thing. So they cut a covenant. That's what the Lord asks Abraham to do, to cut the animals.
[42:41] And then Abraham waited and waited and waited and waited. And it was a real trial and a test to Abraham's faith. But eventually we find this manifestation of the Lord coming.
[42:52] And when the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire put and a flaming torch passed between the pieces. Notice what happens. It's God himself who is going between the pieces.
[43:05] This is the covenant that God is making. It's a covenant that of grace. It has come from the heart of God. God is doing this all on his own.
[43:18] And you know, there's so much we could say here, but it reminds us of another covenant that God has made, an even greater one. It is one that he has made with us, and he has cut his son in pieces.
[43:33] isn't that an incredible thought? His only beloved son, he made the covenant to save you and me, and his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, is the basis of that covenant, and he was cut in order that you and I may live.
[43:56] and the fact that the Lord, the Father, has cut his son and made him to bear our sin, it means that we are absolutely free.
[44:08] God has staked his integrity, his being, his everything in what he has done. Our salvation is guaranteed and assured.
[44:21] Isn't that wonderful? God has done it all. It was a great moment for Abraham that day or that night.
[44:33] And it's a great moment for you and for me when we look back to Calvary. Because again, God has done it. Nothing that you and I can do. All we can do is believe and accept.
[44:45] It's not much, is it? When God is saying, I'll give you eternal life. I'll give you a new life. I'll take you to glory. I'll fill your life with blessing.
[44:56] I will bring you to walk with me forever. And I will feed you throughout an endless eternity with me. All I'm asking you to do is to believe.
[45:07] I've done it. The covenant is made. It is cut. All you have to do is accept my son Jesus as your Lord and your Savior.
[45:19] Let us pray. Lord our God, we pray that we may be able to give you proper thanks for all that you've done. Lord, still us in your presence.
[45:31] Help us to see, help us to believe, help us to understand that you are God. We pray that you will bless us as we part one from another. May our parting be in peace.
[45:43] We pray to bless every home and every family connected. We pray for those in our homes maybe who have no real interest in the gospel. Pray, Lord, for some who might never come out.
[45:55] We ask, Lord, that you will work in their hearts. We pray that you will be our refuge and our strength. Bless a cup of tea, coffee in the hall afterwards and do us good, we pray, for giving us their sin in Jesus' name.
[46:09] Amen. We're going to conclude singing in Psalm 84, the 84th Psalm. We're going to sing from verse 8 to 12, the tune is Tamsin Hawker, Psalm 84, from verse 8, Lord God of hosts my prayer here, O Jacob's God, give ear, see God our shield, and look on the face of thine anointed dear.
[46:37] For in thy courts one day excels a thousand, rather in my God's house will I keep a door than dwell in tents of sin. For God the Lord's a sun and shield, he'll grace and glory give, and will withhold no good from them that uprightly do live.
[46:54] So on, Psalm 84, from verse 8 to the end. It's on page 339. Amen. Lord God of hosts my prayer here, O Jacob's God, give ear, see God our shield, look on the face of thine anointed dear.
[47:27] For in thy courts one day excels a thousand, rather in my God's house will I keep adorned and dwell in tents of sin.
[47:51] For God the lords a sun and shield, he'll grace and glory give, and will withhold no good from them that uprightly do live.
[48:13] O thou that art the Lord of hosts, that man is truly blessed, who by assured confidence on thee alone doth rest.
[48:37] Now may the grace, mercy, and peace of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit rest and abide upon each one of you now and forevermore. Amen.