Sunday Night, February 10, 2019 PM

Maybe talking to someone who maybe has a Protestant or Evangelical background and they're asking the same question, we answer the same way. If someone is coming from one of the other monotheistic religions, whether Judaism or Islam, or coming from complete rejection of the idea of God, or maybe coming from a Hindu background with many gods, whoever it is, these words of Jesus will cut through all of that and make it real simple, make it real clear what what he's calling for them to do to become a Christian, okay?

The Gospel of God and the Call to Repent and Believe

So Mark chapter 1 and look at verses 14 and 15. Now after John had been taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee preaching the gospel of God, the good news of God. And what's the good news of God? Well, it's the person and work of Jesus, who Jesus is, what he came to do.

So if we want someone to become a Christian, they have to know the gospel. They have to know the facts about who Jesus is. Jesus is God's Son. Jesus is God and man. Jesus came, he was born of the Virgin Mary, he lived a sinless life in our place and for our sake, and he died on the cross in our place and for our sake.

The reason why he lived was to complete all the righteousness required by God for our salvation. He died on the cross, suffering the judgment of God that was due our sins. And he rose from the dead the third day and is at the right hand of God where he prays for us and represents us before God.

Now we can even make it even simpler, and we're not going to cut those things away forever, but we can make it even simpler in the moment to say the gospel of God is this, that God has sent his son Jesus to die for our sins and be raised to give us eternal life.

You can say it as simply as that, but what you want them to know is the person of Jesus and the work of Jesus, who he is and what he came to do. That's why Jesus came preaching the gospel of God. Now, after we know that the person knows the truth about the gospel, we have said that as clearly as we can make it, and we don't have to go on and on, but we just need to make it clear what the gospel is, then here is the call, the external call.

Verse 15, now Jesus says this, that the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Notice what Jesus says, repent and believe in the gospel. So to put it simply, when Jesus says the time is fulfilled, he's talking about a lot of important things there, but at the very least, here's the truth.

Today is the day of salvation. There's no better time than now to get right with God. There's no better time than now. So some people say, when can I become a Christian? Well, now is the best time. And why is salvation available now?

Well, notice, the kingdom of God is at hand, meaning the kingdom of God has come near to you. You think maybe of a kingdom with its mighty borders and far off in a way. Maybe you think of a kingdom surrounded by a great wall and there's a great gate that you have to go through.

You have to travel a long way to get to that kingdom. Here's the good news, that Jesus came, he brought the kingdom to us. We didn't have to go all the way to heaven, he came to us. So here's the good news, here's who Jesus is, here's what he has done, when can I be saved?

Now is the best time. Why can I be saved now? Because salvation has been brought near to you because of Jesus. So you don't have to go somewhere else to find salvation, you don't have to go climb a mountain, you don't have to go dive in the bottom of the ocean.

Now is a good time to be saved because salvation has been brought near to you. Jesus has come down, he has brought salvation to us. So you're talking to someone who needs to be saved, needs to become a Christian.

Here's the good news, here's what Jesus is, here's what he has done. Now is a great time to be saved because Jesus has brought salvation near. And here is the commands of Christ. He says, repent and believe in the gospel.

Repent and believe in the gospel. That's the external call. Every man, every woman, and child, every human being has a duty, an obligation to repent and believe in the gospel of Christ. And the external call must go out.

So for instance, at the end of Revelation it says, the spirit and the bride say, come. We're the bride, we're the church. We say, come, come to Christ, come to the one who has living water. Now we are not the Holy Spirit.

When the Holy Spirit says, come, it's a done deal. We say, come, we hope that they'll come, but we want them to come. So we can't control whether someone gets saved or not. All we can do is do what we're supposed to and say, come to Jesus.

And we say that by saying, repent and believe in the gospel. So repent and believe in the good news of Jesus, right? The gospel is the person of Jesus and the work of Jesus, who he is and what he has done.

So we want people to repent and believe in the gospel. Now if you have a quarter, it's got two sides to it on the coin, okay? And that's what repentance and belief is like. Repentance and belief are two sides of the same coin.

When we say repent, what does that mean? Turn, right? Metanoia, it means a change of mind, a turning around of the inner person. They're saying, I'm going to completely change. Repentance has to do with, I've been going this way, but now I'm gonna go this way.

I've been believing these things, but now I'm gonna believe these things. So repentance would be like this. If you want to be saved, if you want to be a Christian, you have to give up and give away the way you used to live life and the way you used to think, okay?

I forget who said it, but I've often said it too. You make a pile of all of your good deeds that you think makes me okay with God, and you make a pile of all your bad deeds, you know, the stuff I do, I don't care what God says.

Make a pile of all of your good deeds and your bad deeds, and you flee them all for Christ. So when it comes, and that's really the belief in the gospel, isn't it? Repentance and belief. I'm turning away from and turning to Christ.

So when we desire, we pray for a friend, we want them to become a Christian. We have to tell them the gospel, who Jesus is, what he has done. And then we say, with Jesus, repent and believe in the gospel.

So turn away from everything for Christ and Christ alone. And so the answer to the eternally important question is this, why would God ever forgive you of your sins and bring you to heaven to live with him forever?

If anybody answers, because I asked him to, or I promised I've done good things, they don't understand. If they say, because of his son Jesus Christ, they have repented of what they used to believe in, they are professing Christ.

Do you see the difference? We want them to hold the Christ alone as the only reason why that God would forgive them and love them, and that they would live with him forever. So that's what we have to do, call them to repentance and belief in the gospel.

That's a really good question. Okay, anything else? Yes. Right, so when we have reason, we have to think about, when Jesus says in Matthew 5 that we are to love our enemies, why does this not include Satan?

Obviously he is an enemy. So when we look at in Matthew 5, beginning in verse 43, you have heard that it was said to love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your father who is in heaven, for he causes his son to rise on the evil and the good, and sends his reign on the righteous and the unrighteous.

Now, when Jesus is saying love your enemies, what enemies does he refer to? Mankind, right? Satan doesn't need sunshine and rain. He's a spirit being. He's not made in the image of God. The reason why we are to love our enemies, human enemies, is because, precisely because, they are made in the image of God.

Since we are made in the image of God, we are to love God supremely, love others rightly, and steward the creation responsibly. But just as we are not called to love gorillas rightly, we are not called to love angels rightly, righteous or fallen.

Our calling, made in the image of God, is to love God supremely, to love other human beings rightly, and then steward the creation responsibly. We do not have the same relationship with the animals that we do with fellow mankind.

That's definitional to who we are as the image of God. There is a distinction between how we deal with human beings and how we deal with animals. God put that distinction in the very beginning, and in the same essence, we do not have the same relationship with human beings as we do with other created beings, like angels.

We just don't. So when Jesus gives his illustration, his words, we can tell he's talking about human beings upon whom God shows his providence. So we have no call to love angels, fallen, or otherwise.

That's not part of who he designed us to be. Yes, but the norm. Right. So when God made the world, we see that he centered the creation of all the universe, the animals, and everything around his supreme creation, which was mankind.

The animals were made for man, not man for the animals. And so it is a good thing for us to domesticate, train, and put animals to work and to labor. They also can be a comfort, as a blessing from God.

How are we to understand the mourning their loss? Well, obviously, whenever there's a blessing from God that is taken away from us, we feel the loss of it. And anytime we feel the loss of any blessing, we should again and again turn our eyes to our Heavenly Father who provides for us, and that we recognize that the good that we understood in that temporary blessing, we will know many times that good in the new creation.

We're gonna have animals in the new creation. I mean, we're not gonna stop stewarding the creation in the hereafter. We'll still have that. And it's just an appetizer of all the good that we'll have in the hereafter.

Some of us gardeners mourn a dead garden. All the hopes and dreams are gone. But we'll get to do that in the new creation, too. There's all sorts of wonderful things to do in the new creation. The things that we know the joy of here, but they'll all be sanctified in glory to the glory of God.

Everything that we do, whether we're training animals, or gardening, or making banquets, or whatever we're doing, it's all going to be the glory of Christ forever and ever and ever. So it's a little appetizer, and when we lose it, we know the sorrow, but we know there's a day when we won't have sorrow.

Yeah, yes. I was not able to go to Tecumseh. We do need to pray. We pray for Dayla Grissom, and write down her name. Dayla Grissom, D-A-L-A, Grissom, two S's. She is the volunteer coordinator for the Central Oklahoma Juvenile Center, and they had a tragedy at the beginning of last month.

A girl committed suicide out there, and it's just one of those things where the staff has a very thankless job. Anything bad happens, the staff is always blamed, but most of the time, honestly, their hands are completely tied the whole time that they can't do anything to protect themselves, despite whatever abuses that they endure.

Very few people would want to keep working in those situations, and so they don't have enough staff. They have barely enough staff to function. They have enough money for more staff, but they need more staff if they're gonna get the volunteers in, and they just don't have it.

They don't have it, and so the unfortunate consequence is that the young men and women there who need to hear the gospel and need Christian influences in their lives in a regular, concentrated form, they're not gonna get it.

It's the fallout from that. So Dayla is very burdened about that, so we just pray for her. She doesn't need to be under stress. She's recovering from cancer. She doesn't really need the stress at all.

She really wants to make a positive impact in the lives of these kids, but it's finding it increasingly difficult to make any headway. Thank you for the question. Let's go ahead and turn over to Genesis.

Genesis 25, and we're gonna look at verses 1 through 18. Genesis chapter 25, verses 1 through 18. This is the word of the Lord. Now Abraham took another wife whose name was Keturah. She bore to him Zimron, and Jochshon, and Midan, and Midian, and Ishbak, and Shua.

Jochshon became the father of Sheba and Dedan, and the sons of Dedan were Asherim, Lethushim, and Lumimim. The sons of Midian were Ephah and Ephor, and Hanok, and Abadah, and Eldah. All these were the sons of Keturah.

Now Abraham gave all that he had to Isaac. But to the sons of his concubines, Abraham gave gifts while he was still living, and sent them away from his son Isaac eastward to the land of the east. These are all the years of Abraham's life that he lived, 175 years.

Abraham breathed his last and died in a ripe old age, an old man and satisfied with life, and he was gathered to his people. Then his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah in the field of Ephron, the son of Zohar, the Hittite facing Mamre, the field which Abraham purchased from the sons of Heth.

There Abraham was buried with Sarah, his wife. It came about after the death of Abraham that God blessed his son Isaac, and Isaac lived by Be 'er L 'chai R 'ui. Now these are the records of the generations of Ishmael, Abraham's son, whom Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah's maid, bore to Abraham.

And these are the names of the sons of Ishmael by their names in the order of their birth. Nebaioth, the firstborn of Ishmael, and Kedar, and Abdeel, and Midsum, and Mishma, and Duma, and Massa, Hedad, and Tima, Jetur, Nafish, and Kedema.

These are the sons of Ishmael, and these are their names by their villages and by their camps, twelve princes according to their tribes. These are the years of the life of Ishmael, 137 years, and he breathed his last and died, and was gathered to his people.

They settled from Havilah to Shur, which is east of Egypt, as one goes to Assyria. He settled in defiance of all his relatives. I've entitled this lesson, Abraham R .I .P. Rest in Peace. I want us to notice two things.

Abraham's Will and His Obituary

First of all, Abraham's will, and then Abraham's obituary. This chapter holds both of them. First of all, Abraham's will. We find that he gave gifts to seven of his eight sons. Verse six, to the sons of his concubines, let's name them.

He had two of them, Hagar and Keturah. To the sons of his concubines, Abraham gave gifts while he was still living. While he had the influence and the opportunity, he had the chance to say something definite.

While he was still living, he sent them away from his son, singular Isaac. He sent them away eastward to the land of the east. They went away. So he gave gifts to his seven other sons while he was still living.

And so we see the list of the names of the sons of Keturah. But what about Hagar and Ishmael? Did he give them gifts? Yes, he did. He sent them away east. You can read about that in Genesis chapter 16, verse 12.

God promised that Hagar and Ishmael would settle to the east. Also in chapter 21, verse 14, when he sent Hagar and Ishmael away, he bestowed upon Hagar gifts for her and her son as they left. So Ishmael was treated the very same way as the sons of Keturah was treated.

Gifts were given and they were sent away to the east, sent away from his son, Isaac. You see, he gave gifts to his seven sons, but the inheritance went to his only heir. He had one heir. He had eight sons, but only one was the heir.

And while he was still living, he made that clear. If we back up just one chapter, in verses 35 and 36 of chapter 24, while Abraham was still alive, this was the testimony of his servant to Laban. And I forget the father's name of Laban and Rebekah.

Bethuel. This was the servant's testimony about the situation. So notice in verse 35, the Lord has greatly blessed my master so that he has become rich. And he has given to him flocks and herds and silver and gold and servants and maids and camels and donkeys.

Abraham was a great rich man. Now, verse 36, now Sarah, my master's wife, bore a son to my master in her old age, and he has given him all that he has. So when you meditate on that for a while, it's just a beautiful analogy.

The father has given the son all that he has. When we see that, while Abraham was still alive, he made it clear who was the heir. He made it clear who was the seed, where the attention was supposed to be.

He sent this other seven sons away with gifts. So he was generous with them, but he sent them away and gave everything he had to his heir, Isaac. And when that's, and you notice that verse 5, now Abraham gave all that he had to Isaac.

His will signified his faith in the gospel. Now in chapter 15, if you go back to chapter 15, we see where Abraham was justified by his faith in the gospel. In verse 4, then behold, the word of the Lord came to him saying, this man will not be your heir, but one who will come forth from your own body, he shall be your heir.

God saying, you're going to have a son and that will be your heir. And he took him outside and said, now look toward the heavens and count the stars. If you were able to count them, and he said to him, so shall your descendants be.

Then he believed in the Lord and reckoned it to him as righteousness. So God tells Abraham, you're going to have a seed, you're going to have a son, your descendant, your offspring. This is the, and he tells him this, this is the progression of what God has been saying about the promised one to come, the seed of the woman who will defeat the serpent.

Abraham believed this promise, and Paul says in Galatians that he, this was the gospel preached beforehand to Abraham, and when Abraham heard this promise, he believed upon Christ and he was justified by his faith.

When he leaves everything to Isaac, this is an, this is the obedience of faith, this is the act of faith. He believed it, so here he's acting upon it, and he did not see, he did not live to see God confirm this, but God did confirm it.

Verse 11, now it came about after the death of Abraham that God blessed his son Isaac, and Isaac lived. So, God's blessing of Isaac after Abraham's death is the verification. Now, Abraham had faith that he was the promised one, the promised seed, and God just confirmed it after Abraham's death, but such is the life of faith.

So, when we look at Abraham's will, we see that that seven sons were sent away, but this one son, he was the heir. Now, the one son, even though the other was sent away, the one son is actually the hope of the other sons.

The one son who was blessed, the one son who was made prominent, he's the hope of the other sons that were not qualified. Even as we recognize that the fulfillment of the seed of Abraham is indeed Jesus Christ, the one son, he's the hope of all of us who are not qualified, right?

By the exaltation and by the isolation, by the privileging of the one son comes our hope of salvation, and all the inheritance is his. Everything that the father has is given to the son, and we are co-heirs with Christ by faith, co-heirs.

We share in that inheritance. So, this is good news. Abraham's will was one that is made in faith. Now, secondly, Abraham's obituary. We find reference to his wives, his sons, and his days. His wives, his sons, and his days.

Sarah was his wife. Hagar and Keturah were also, he was also married to them, but they were called as concubines. He sinned in polygamy by marrying Hagar while he was married to Sarah. That always, he turned out bad.

It always turns out bad in the Old Testament when we see that. When there's polygamy, it always turns out bad. When Hagar is gone and Sarah is dead, he marries Keturah, remarriage, after your spouse dies.

That's good. That's not bad if it's in the will of God. And this was in the will of God, in that God had promised to bring many nations, many nations from Abraham, and indeed he did. These many sons produced many nations.

Notable, we see Midian, as we run into the Midianites later on, but many nations came from Abraham. So, we have three wives in Abraham's history. We also have many sons, eight sons, and we recognize that Ishmael, even his lineage and what happened to him, that's all listed.

Now, we hear that Ishmael had 12 sons, 12 princes, and this is in fulfillment of what God said he would do. God promised he would do this. He would make Ishmael into a great nation. He promised he would have 12 princes that he would be, you know, a force to be reckoned with, and that remains true today.

Now, Isaac, of course, is the emphasis. If when you read through, when you read about in Abraham's life, Isaac is the focus again and again and again. Even when he wasn't there, they were, where is the son?

Where's the heir? And then you have, for instance, a 67-verse chapter on how Isaac got his wife. I mean, that's, there's just such an emphasis on Isaac being the heir, and so this son is privileged above all the others.

We've already said that, but I want you to notice about his days. In his obituary, we have his wives, his sons, and his days. Verses 7 through 10, we read about the days of Abraham. These are all the years of Abraham's life that he lived, 175 years.

Abraham breathed his last and died in a ripe old age. An old man is satisfied with life. Okay, so after many, so he lived until he was ripe. We were talking about this earlier among the elders. He was ripe, which means he was ready, and he was also satisfied, satisfied with many years of God's grace in his life.

And so we might write his obituary this way. After living many happy years, at the last, he was with family, and we noticed that he was flanked by his two sons as he was buried next to his wife. And we have the two sons, Isaac and Ishmael, next to each other, but we know which one is which, and that's made very clear time and again.

But in some sense, we see that both Isaac and Ishmael came together to honor their father, even though they were very different. So let me continue his obituary. After living many happy years, at the last, he was with family, and he died in Christ.

Abraham died in Christ. How do we know that? Notice it says he was gathered to his people, verse 8. He was gathered to his people. What does that mean to be gathered? I mean, where'd Abraham go? Where'd he go?

There was a hymn at the back of the hymnal that we didn't sing, we shall gather at the river. Abraham was gathered in death to his people. Now you might say, well, that was because he's buried next to Sarah, but that's, you know, it's a person, that's not a people.

He's not, he's no longer really with Isaac and Ishmael. They're alive, but he is dead. He's passed beyond the veil. He's not buried with his people, his ancestors. He's not buried with Terah, his father, and Haran, his brother, who had already died.

He's not gathered with them. He's not buried with them. What does it mean that he was gathered to his people? Well, certain liberals call this a colloquialism and dismiss it as having no apparent meaning, just that he died.

But I think we should give it full reckoning. Who were Abraham's people? I mean, he had a people? I thought he was the head of a new people. I mean, I didn't even know he had people, but he was gathered to his people.

How do we know who the people of Abraham were? All the way back in Genesis 4, verse 26, we hear about a man named Enosh. To Seth, to him also a son was born, and he called his name Enosh. Then men began to call upon the name of the Lord.

Now Enosh was one of Abraham's people. How do we know that? Because in Genesis 13, in verse 4, we read that Abraham came up from the Negev, from Egypt in the Negev, and he came to the place of the altar which he had made there formerly, and there Abraham called on the name of the Lord.

Enosh was one of his people. Enoch, who walked with God, was one of Abraham's people, as Abraham walked with God. Methuselah and Lamech, who named his son in hope, was one of the people of Abraham. Noah was one of the people of Abraham.

Shem was one of the people of Abraham. Eber, from which we get the name the Hebrews, was one of Abraham's people. And when Abraham was gathered to his people, we can recognize that the halls of the saints were not so crowded as they are now, but indeed they were his people.

And he was gathered to them, a people of faith in the sea, the people of faith in Christ. Let me highlight something for you. Those who call upon the name of the Lord, in Joel, in Joel chapter 2, in verse 32, it says, "...and it will come about that whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be delivered.

For on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be those who escape, as the Lord has said, even among the survivors whom the Lord calls.". So Abraham, who called upon the name of the Lord and was looking for a city which has foundations, who was built by God, Joel reflects upon this, and he says, "...whoever will call upon the name of the Lord," that's who's of Abraham's people, "...and the rescue and the salvation is found in the city of God.".

This is what Romans 10 verse 13 says, "...and whoever will call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.". That expression, "...who will call upon the name of the Lord," goes all the way back to Enosh.

This is why, when we read it in Galatians 3, that when we are of faith in Christ, we're of the people of Abraham. He's our people, we're his people. Those who call upon the name of the Lord, those who have faith in Christ, we're all of the same people.

Additionally, this is, I think, why when Christ's so-called people came for him, his mother and his brothers, you know, you're kind of out of your mind, you need to come on home, you're doing too much.

He said, who's my family? Who are my people? Right? So when we read that Abraham was gathered to his people, we should not be thinking, we should not be thinking in terms of genetics, we should not be thinking in terms of ethnicity, we should be thinking in terms of faith.

Ishmael settled in defiance against his relatives, defiance against Abraham, defiance against Isaac, defiance of those who worship God. He was gathered to his people. This is an we're going to be gathered to our people, but of what people are we?

People of the Lord? And that's, I mean, that's ultimately our hope. We'll be gathered to our people, the people of Christ. That's where we're headed, that's where Abraham is, and those of us who have faith in Christ, we've got a whole lot of people waiting on us, and we'll be gathered to them, gathered to them when we die.

Well, any questions or thoughts before we close? All right, well let's close by singing the doxology.