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Bro. Bill Nichols
Okay, what we just did is summed up where we were yesterday with, I'm just going to go ahead and re-read Hebrews 11 again. By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out to a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed.
And he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in a land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles or tents, with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise.
For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. And what we talked about is this, the significance of the comment, by faith and living in tents, going from living in a safe and secure place with permanent homes among family and friends, to going out into a place and not even know where you're going.
And Hebrews talks about that as a significant faith. He uproots everything to go to a strange place, a place he'll be told about after he leaves. Now we're at Galatians 3 verse 15. Brethren, I speak after the matter of men.
Though it be a man's covenant, yet if it be confirmed, no man disanuleth or addeth thereunto. Now here's the problem. Paul anticipated the possible objection to his use of Abraham to prove the doctrine of justification by faith.
Not only did he anticipate it, but he refuteates it. He said, what they're going to say is the giving of the law at Sinai to Moses, after Abraham brought about a change and a better method of salvation.
That was going to be the argument that the Judaizers or the law followers were going to say. Yes, okay, we had the Abrahamic covenant, but this covenant came later. This covenant supersedes, improves the original and it is better.
And of course that's incorrect. The law did come after the covenant with Moses. That only makes it more recent. That doesn't make it better. The apostle dismissed that argument by showing the superiority of the Abrahamic covenant.
He'll do that in verses 15 through 18. And that's the passage we're going to really deal with this morning and the inferiority of the law. And we'll deal with that next time, God willing. So again, brethren, I speak after the matter of men, though it be but a man's covenant, yet if it be confirmed, no man disanulleth or added thereunto.
Even human covenants, even covenants with men among men are considered irrevocable and unchangeable. Ron, if you and I agree to something and we form a covenant relationship, I can't change it and you can't change it.
We have to renegotiate a whole new covenant if we're going to change it. It's not something one party can change. Even human covenants are considered irrevocable and unchangeable. And how much more so a covenant made between man and an unchanging God.
See God doesn't change at all. You might change your mind, but He won't change His. As Brother Ogis used to say, God never made up His mind about anything. God never decided to do anything. He always knew what He was going to do.
So the covenant that He made with Abraham was always the covenant He had in mind. And the covenant He made with Moses was always the covenant He had in mind. There was never a change in His mind. James put it this way, James 1 16,.
Do not err, my beloved brethren. Every good and perfect gift is from above. And cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. What does that mean? That it is an unchanging God that we're talking about.
It is an all-powerful, unchanging God that we're in a covenant relationship with. Verse 16,. Now to Abraham and his seeds were the promises made. I really misspoke that one bad. I'm going to redo it.
Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not to seeds as of many, but as of one. And to thy seed, which is Christ. Now here's the thing. Sometimes the singular form of the Hebrew word for seed, that's sperma, like its English and Greek counterparts, can be used in the collective sense.
Like if you have a bushel of wheat seed. That's more than one seed. But not here. Paul's point is that in some Old Testament passages referring to Abraham's descendants, seed speaks of a multitude of descendants.
But sometimes only to the greatest of his descendants. And who is that? Jesus Christ. And we can only tell by context except, I guess, here too. I should probably say except here. But here too the context tells us clearly.
In this passage, Paul makes the determination much easier. We don't have to try to figure out whether it's one or many. He tells us it only refers to Jesus Christ. He is the father to all of the biological descendants of Abraham.
That would be the Arabic descendants from Ishmael, as well as the Israeli descendants through Isaac. He is the biological father to all of those. He is the spiritual father to some of those. And to some more that he referred to as sheep not in this flock.
Other sheep have I. And we'll get into that this morning also. That answers lots of questions. And this I say, that the covenant that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was 430 years after, cannot disannul.
That it should make the promise of none effect. So nothing in the law can make the promise to Abraham of no effect. We talked about this a little couple of weeks ago. The land that was granted to the Israelis.
Was that an Abrahamic promise or was that a promise of the law? That was an Abrahamic promise that was unconditional. That belongs to them and it will always belong to them. Now there's another promise concerning the land.
You remember what that was? That's probably not fair. To prosper in the land. To prosper in the land depends upon what you do. That is conditional to how you perform. And that's something else that can be carried over into us today.
It's my belief and I'm going to go ahead and say this right up front. That this is my belief and I may be totally wrong. And if Brother David stands up on the back pew and yells at me, I am totally wrong.
But I think the Lord knew who he was going to select from before time began. And when it came time to select us, we were selected. And we were notified that we were his. And it was no surprise to him.
I don't think we have any question there. But it also says that the selection was a gift of God. Not of works lest any man should boast. And then it goes on to say in Ephesians, But I was created unto good works that were ordained for me to do.
Now that part has to do with prospering in the land. Not the salvation itself. But prospering in your salvation. You can be saved and not prosper in your salvation. You can rebel like, what was it? I want to say Job, but it's not Job.
No, the one that was swallowed up. Jonah. Like Jonah. Jonah ran away from his command. And was thrown overboard. And was swallowed by the great fish. And was spit up on dry land and wound up going to where he was running away from.
Doing what he was assigned to do. Accomplishing the task that he was assigned to do. The city of Nineveh repented like God wanted them to. And Jonah pouted. The greatest revival of all times. The whole city repents.
Jonah is totally successful and he pouts. He had no joy in that part of his life. No joy. And I say that, that the covenant that was confirmed cannot disannul. That it should make the promise of none effect.
Now, interestingly enough, the word confirmed is procuraro. And it means to sanction, to ratify, or to establish beforehand. And I thought that was interesting. That this confirmation, that this covenant that was confirmed before of God in Christ, was established beforehand.
How much beforehand? So there was like an established beforehand, but it was confirmed when? It was confirmed when it was given to Abraham in Genesis 15. And we're going to go there in just a minute. But once God had ratified the covenant, it had lasting authority.
And nothing and no one could annul it. So let's go quickly to Genesis 15 verse 1. Abraham has rescued Lot and he has destroyed the kingdoms, the kings. And he's coming back and I guess he's kind of worrying about what retaliation they might have.
And the Lord said, after these things the word of the Lord came into Abraham in a vision saying, Fear not, Abram, I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward. Don't worry about these kings and what they might do.
I will protect you. And Abram said, Lord God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless? And the steward of my house is gone and I have nobody to leave it to. I have no heirs. The only heir I have is this guy Eliezer, my steward.
Not even my blood. And Abram said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed. And lo, one born in my house is mine heir. And behold, the word of the Lord came into him saying, This shall not be thine heir, but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir.
And he brought him forth abroad and said, Look now toward heaven and tell the stars if thou be able to number them. And he said unto them, So shall I. Many. You're comparing them to the stars in the sky.
And he believed in the Lord and he counted it to him for righteousness. So the Lord counted his belief as if he were just, as if he was righteous. Was he righteous? No, he was a man like all men. He was not righteous.
All of his righteousness is as filth as rags. But that doesn't mean that God couldn't see him as righteous. And he did. And he said unto him, I am the Lord that brought thee out of the counties to give you a heritage.
And he said, Take me an heifer of three years old, and a she-goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a she-goat of three years old, and a turtle of three years old, and a young pigeon.
And he took all of these and divided them in the midst, and laid each piece one against the other, but the birds he divided not. And when the fowls came down upon the carcass, Abram drove them away. And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and lo, a horror of great darkness fell upon him.
And he, that is God, said to Abram, Know of a surety of all of his descendants, his whole host of descendants, that would be the Jews and the Ishmaelites, shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them, and they shall afflict them for four hundred years.
I guess that's just the Jews. And also, that nation whom they shall serve, will I judge, and afterwards they shall come out with great substance. And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace, and thou shalt be buried in a good old age.
But in the fourth generation, they shall come hither again, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet. Behold, a smoking furnace, a burning lamp that passed between those pieces. In the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying unto thy seed, Have I given this land from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates.
The Kenites, the Kenzite knights, the Katamites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, and the Raffians, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Gergesites, and the Jebusites. The land granted in the Abrahamic covenant extended from Egypt northward, Turkey, including Turkey, and it went from the Mediterranean Sea on the east to the Euphrates River.
Now that was the covenant of the land given to the Jews, and never has had. Now why do you think that is? They did not prosper in the land because they did not follow the entire law. And do you think the Lord expected them to have it and prosper in all the land?
Do you think they ever would? There would be a time when the land of Israel is ruled by Jesus Christ Himself with a rod of iron in the millennial kingdom and the kingdom will run from Egypt to Turkey, from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates, and they will occupy and prosper in all of the land.
Now that hasn't happened yet. Now let's look at this covenant. The covenant was unilateral. The Abrahamic covenant was a promise that God made to Himself. Brother Myron had this sermon that he gave a while ago, and he says, in effect, it was God the Father dealing with God the Son.
But it was God with God. It was a covenant that God made with God. A covenant God made to Himself. It's eternal. It provided for an everlasting blessing. It was irrevocable. It will never cease. But its complete fulfillment awaits the salvation of Israel and the millennial kingdom of Jesus Christ.
So that's where the covenant is going. This is a question that just occurred to me in the last five seconds. Do you think that everybody in the millennial kingdom will fully obey the law? Well, yes and no.
They'll be required to obey the law, but they won't obey it pleasantly because the Lord is made of iron. And there will be punishment upon those that do not obey. Okay, verse 18. For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more a promise.
But God gave it to Abraham by promise. Paul is again emphasizing that there is no middle ground between law, that is to say works, and promise, that is grace. There can be grace and there can be law, but the two are not connected in the sense of they are two different things.
One is obtaining the inheritance and the other one is attaining prosperity in the land. The two principles are mutually exclusive ways are not mutually exclusive ways of salvation. And inheritance, by definition, is something granted, not worked for.
Paul says in Romans 4 .4,. Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that faith is counted for righteousness. So now Paul gets ready to broaden his argument from Abraham to all men.
He makes it clear that the act of declaring a man righteous is completely apart from any kind of human work. If salvation were on the basis of one's own effort, God would owe salvation as a debt. But salvation is always a sovereignly granted gift of God's grace to those who believe.
Not because they believe, but because they were chosen. They weren't chosen because they believe. They believe because they were chosen. And Brother David had a whole passage on cause and effect. Cause and effect.
The cause is God. God is the cause. God chooses. God selects. God declares you righteous. You are righteous. And there's an effect. Therefore you do your works. God is indebted to anyone for two reasons.
Number one, no one has anything for God to give to God that God could be... It's like a six-year-old child that goes to their mom and gets a $50 bill to go buy their dad a tie for Father's Day. Did the money come from the child?
It came from the family. And that's one reason. And I forgot the other reason. And he did nothing wrong. He could. He could. Babylon maybe, but not Nineveh. Oregon maybe, but not California. Nimrod was the first king.
Nimrod was the first king of Nineveh. I think that's right. I may be wrong. Jonah didn't think they deserved it. And if we looked at it, we'd think they didn't deserve it. But God wanted them to have an opportunity to repent.
And they did. Now, that king was not Nimrod. The first king way long ago, that was Nimrod. This one was a different one. Yes, sir. And it's interesting that the Lord even used Isis once. All we know is he was sitting up on the hill waiting for the destruction.
And he was offended when God didn't destroy them. And he pouted.
And I do too.
I don't think in the world there has never been a single incidence where God was surprised by anything. And I think it all... And I don't know how that works. Except to know that God is God and we're not.
And we won't understand it all, ever. Even after we have millions and millions and millions and millions of years after the Millennial Kingdom is over to study, that we still won't understand the infinite mind of God.
Because he's God and we're not. He is aware of all things and we're certainly not. That's absolutely true. But salvation, if salvation were on the basis of one's own effort, God would owe salvation as a debt.
But salvation is always a sovereignly granted gift of God's grace to those who believe. And that's what the gospel is all about. Romans 1, 16 says, For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith as it is written, the just shall live by faith. Since faith is contrasted with work, faith must mean that the end of it, faith must mean the end of any attempt to earn God's favor through personal merit.
So I'm not going to live, I'm not going to obey the commandments of God to make God like me better or to win his favor or to get him to do something for me. I'm just going to accept the fact that he loves me as flawed as I am.
And I'm going to try to conform myself as much to the likeness of his son as I can. And I will not be successful, but as successful as I am, it doesn't really matter. God has already viewed me as totally conformed to him.
And that's the greatness of it. He views you as like Christ even though you are not even close to being like Christ. But it's only to those who relinquish all claims of goodness and acknowledge that they are ungodly that are candidates for justification.
You're not going to be a candidate for justification as long as you think of yourself as righteous. Jesus says, I come not to call the righteous but the sinners to repentance. And in Romans 4 also, chapter 6, as David described the blessedness of a man to whom God imputeth righteousness without works, saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered.
Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. Now, this psalm that Paul's talking about was written by David right after his episode with Bathsheba and his adultery and his murder of her husband.
That was an enormous sin. But despite the enormity of his sin and the utter absence of personal merit, David knew the blessing of imputed righteousness. Was he righteous? No, but he was viewed as righteous.
Now, Paul anticipated what his Jewish believers would be thinking. If Abraham was justified by faith alone, why did God command him and his descendants to be circumcised? To save those concerned with circumcision, but to the millions of people who still cling to some other kind of religious ceremony or activity as the basis of their righteousness.
Something else you have to do like get baptized or like come down to the altar and pray the prayer or be sprinkled when you're a baby or whatever other things that you have to do. None of those things matter.
Here's what he says in Romans. Cometh this blessing then upon the circumcision only or upon the uncircumcised also? For we say that faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness. How was it then reckoned?
When he was in circumcision or in uncircumcision? Before he was circumcised, before he was set apart, he was chosen. The blessedness came when he was yet a Gentile. Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision.
It's not the cause. It's just a sign. Romans 4 .11. And he received the sign he had yet being uncircumcised. So the circumcision was a sign, a seal to indicate that he had been chosen, that he had been saved.
And it happened before it was a sign only. It was not a cause. That he might be the father of all them that believed, though they be not circumcised, that righteousness might be imputed unto them also.
So not just the Gentiles, also. And the father of circumcision to whom are not of the circumcision only, but who also walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham, which he had yet being uncircumcised.
It's a sin. It indicates man's need for spiritual cleansing and a covenant relationship between God and his people. It's an outward demonstration of the righteousness God had credited to him by his faith.
So racially, Abraham is the father of all Jews. That's the circumcised Jews. Not all of the Jews. The believing Jews. And the believing Gentiles. For the promise that he should be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.
It's the faith of Jesus. For if they which are of the law be heirs, if only those that keep the law perfectly, and that's an impossibility, receive the promise, then faith has no value. Making a promise contingent upon an impossible condition nullifies the promise.
There's no such promise. But the justification is God's great grace, not man's faith. As I have written, I have made thee the father of many nations before him whom he believed, even God who quickeneth the dead and call those things which were not as though they were.
God can declare sinners righteous even though. Or declare Jesus sin and punished him though he was not a sinner. Those whom he justifies, he will conform to the image of his sons. And that's what the works is all about.
Conforming yourself to an image like the son. And Abraham's experience is no exception. If Abraham were justified by faith, then all others are justified on the same basis. But for us also to whom it shall be imputed or given to us or counted to us, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus, our Lord from the dead, who was delivered for our offenses and was raised again for our justification, the resurrection proves that God had accepted the sacrifice of his son and would be able to be just, we would have no chance.
Most gracious Heavenly Father, thank you for this day and thank you for all our many blessings. Bless us and keep us and go through the service this afternoon.