Audio restored with Diffio. Diffio processed the original archive recording to reduce noise and produce a cleaner listening version; the original stays available.
Speech quality score (model-estimated, SCOREQ): before 1.93 → restored 4.55
Use the player's Original switch to compare.How Diffio restores old speech recordings
And when we left off before lunch, we were thinking about the three major periods, or at least what I have called the three major periods in Abram's life that are put before you on your sheet of notes. We had thought about Abram and his si- significance and the significance of the nation that sprang from him. We have thought of that historically, in the history of the world. And then we thought of the patterning of the last three major parts of Genesis, each concerned with the patriarch and the promised seed.
And we looked at them not only historically, but prototypically. That is, historical events that were in themselves an early form of the fulfillment of God's purpose, but that early form being a foreshadowing of the final fulfillment at the highest possible level. Then we turned to thinking of Abraham's life biographically and doctrinally. We observed that in his life, in these three major periods, in each period he behaved wrongly with regard to his wife.
And as a result, in those passages, not only does God graciously correct him, but there is enunciated a basic doctrine that still holds good to this present day. So we saw in the first major period from chapter twelve onward, where Abraham denied Sarah to save his own life, and also by that means he obtained a vast amount of goods. And in the subsequent stories, we see God at work beginning to train Abraham.
If Abraham is to be heir and his seed of the great inheritance, and wealth unimaginable come to his seed in that inheritance, then first Abraham must be taught comparative values. But in the end, important as goods are and necessary, life is more than goods, and people more than things. That we have to learn. We too, before God introduces us finally to our glorious inheritance, incorruptible and undefiled, and it fades not away, and we inherit fabulous and immeasurable wealth.
God has to treat us, train us in this veil of tears to get our proportions right and to learn to value life beyond goods. That said, the great doctrine that was enunciated, we found, was not only justification by faith that forms the Old Testament case law, a legal precedent, because if Abraham was justified by faith, it sets the precedent everybody else, if they're going to be justified, can be and must be justified the same way as Abraham was justified.
That isn't a type or a parable. Abraham was a real man that walked on two legs, and he was literally justified by faith before God. It creates the legal precedent for everybody else that follows. If we would be justified before God, it must be as Abraham was, on the principle of faith. But not only was he justified, but on that same occasion he received the promise of the inheritance guaranteed to him by God through the covenant that God made with him and his seed, guaranteeing to give them the inheritance eventually. That inheritance too was given, not as a conditional promise, but an unconditional covenant, so that Abraham could be sure of its eventual fulfillment.
And Paul reminds us of those twin doctrines in the epistles to Romans and Galatians. In Galatians, he proves once yet again that Abraham was justified by faith, but not only justified, by faith also he received the promises of the inheritance and the covenant. And then Paul proceeds to apply the lesson to all believers in Jesus Christ, our Lord. We're not only justified by faith and not by the works of the law, but thank God we too receive the promises of Abraham. We receive the inheritance because it is guaranteed to us by that very same covenant as God made with Abraham.
Because the covenant was made with Abraham and his seed. And as Paul remarks, the seed God intended to name when he formed the covenant and said, to thee and to thy seed have I given it. That seed was Christ. That is not Paul inventing ideas out of the blue. For as God told Abram at the time the covenant was made, your descendants will not come into the inheritance for the next four hundred years. Abram himself didn't inherit it, actually, nor did his descendants for four hundred years. They spent the most of that time in Egypt. Then they came again under Joshua and inherited it for a while.
Though at the, uh, Assyrian invasion, the ten tribes were taken away from Canaan, and at the Babylonian invasion, the two tribes went into captivity in exile. Many of them, perhaps most of them, never came back. A minority came back under Ezra and then under Nehemiah, and the state of Israel was set up generally as a vassal state, first under the, uh, Persians, then under the Greek Ptolemies and Seleucids, and finally under Rome. A small part of the nation, the rest still among the Gentiles. And after AD seventy began the long process, made faster by Hadrian in the hundred and thirties onwards, when Israel was scattered among the nations.
Only a tiny proportion of Abraham's descendants, therefore, to this present day, have inherited the land. Does that mean that the promise was all in vain? No, indeed, says Paul. When God said, to thee and to thy seed have I given it, he meant by the seed, the promised seed, the promised seed, that is Christ, and Christ shall inherit it. Some of my brethren in times past are a little bit disturbed about me. They say, why are you interested in any earthly inheritance? That's for the Jews. You ought to be more spiritually minded and be content with heaven. Well, the Lord knows I should be glad to get to heaven.
But is it worldly to be interested in an earthly inheritance? I rather think not. Tell me, is Christ going to inherit it? And is that rather unspiritually minded of the Lord Jesus? I thought in Psalm two God invited him to ask of me, and I will give thee the uttermost parts of the earth as thy possession. Ha ha, he shall have it one day. Jesus shall reign wherever the sun doth his successive journeys run. He is the son of the creator, Lord for whom it was made. He shall inherit, and not just this planet either, but the whole earth.
And the marvelous thing is when he inherits, we shall inherit it too, shall we? Marvelous. You are multi-millionaires, to tell the truth. And we come into it, to the terms of the covenant, because we have been baptized into Christ. We are in Christ, have put on Christ. And if you are Christ's, then are you Abram's seed? Because you're in Christ, and he is the promised seed of Abraham, and therefore you are heirs according to that promise. Shout hallelujah to. But we come on to the second major period of Abraham's life, where again he misbehaves with Sarah, and at her suggestion takes the slave girl Hagar and on her father's Ishmael.
I suggest that the main issue at stake in this second period is the issue, the works of the flesh or the life of faith. It is easy in the chapters in this section that deal with the story of Lot, to see the works of the flesh all too evident. Lot eventually took up residence in Sodom, largely lost his influence, whatever influence he had, and was involved in the disgraceful happenings when the two angels came to rescue him and his family from Sodom before the judgment fell.
Barely escaped with his life. Was saved so as by fire. Saved he was. And the Holy Spirit, with the generosity typical of him, says in two Peter chapter two, the Lord knows how to deliver the righteous out of temptation. For he was a righteous man, in the sense he was justified by faith as Abraham was. But he sowed to the flesh, and of the flesh he reaped corruption, ended up in a cave living like a caveman, and it's best to draw a veil over what happened in that cave.
Not so easy to see that in this period of Abram's life, there was likewise a manifestation of the flesh. Though it might escape us when we first read the story, because it is done in the context, what you might call religion, in the context even of the promise of God. When Abram and Sarah, believing the promise of God that God would give them a seed, fell into a misunderstanding of what was meant by the term promise, when God gave them the promise that he was going to give them a son.
It was, I have to admit, at Sarah's suggestion that Abram did it. That happens often with married couples. I don't know if it exactly went like that, but one morning, or was it an afternoon, that Sarah started talking to Abram, and she said, Abram, dear, I've been thinking. You have, said he. Very good. And what might you have been thinking about, my dear? She said, about this promise that God made us, that he's going to give us a son. Yes, said Abram, isn't that marvelous? Going to give us a son. Well, I don't know about that, says Sarah. I think it isn't quite so marvelous as you might think.
You see, the Lord has forgotten something. Oh, really, Sarah? Yes, he's overlooked the fact that I'm barren. Can't have a son. And what's more, he's, you know, he's acted a bit contradictiously. First of all, he says we're going to have a son, and then he shut up my womb, so I can't have a son. Oh, said Abram. Ah, there's a point. Well, what shall we do? Well, says Sarah, I think this myself, that when God promised he was going to give us a son, he didn't mean it just like that, I'm going to give you a son. He meant that we should use our own resources to the best we know how to do it, you see. And God helps those that help themselves.
Oh, said Abram, but my dear, we haven't got any resources, have we? Yes, we have, she said. Well, what? Well, we've got, uh, my slave girl, Hagar. Oh, said Abram. Ah. Because in those days, it was customary amongst the nations around that a man would have a chief wife and then many slave girls. And if the chief wife was infertile, the chief wife could decide to give one of the slave girls to her husband, as Sarah now put it, that you shall have a child by her, and I shall be built up by her. The slave girl's son would be counted the son of the chief wife.
And Sarah was going according to local custom and the ethics and traditions of that t- time in history, using their own resources to fulfill the promise. So, Abram took Hagar, and Ishmael was born. Didn't turn qu- out quite like ha- uh, uh, uh, Sarah expected, because when Hagar saw she was with child, of course he began to put on airs and graces. And when Sarah says, put the kettle on for tea, she said, I can't.
I'm carrying Abram's child, you know. You make the tea. Sarah wasn't hearing that kind of talk from a slave girl. Who did she think she was? Rather bitter experience for Sarah, but then it had been Sarah's suggestion, wasn't it? And so she made life so hard for Hagar that Hagar ran off. And an angel of the Lord found her in the desert and said to her, my dear, this is no place for you to be in your condition. You better go back to Abram's house and home. You'll have a son, and I will bless him.
Then added, realistically, and he will be a wild ass of a man, his hand against everybody and everybody's hand against him. But God himself put the girl back into Abram's home. There followed some uncomfortable years. Oh, you can imagine the brat, wild ass of a boy. Don't think Sarah was very pleased. And it wouldn't have been so bad if Abram had, had the same view of it as Sarah, but Abram rather grew fond of him. And in the end pleaded with God to accept him as the promised seed. I don't know what Sarah thought of that either.
And God said, no, Abram, no, not Ishmael. You see, Abram, OK, I shall bless him. It'll be a big nation, but that's not what I meant by the promised seed, Abram. You see, Abram, when I gave you a promise, it was a promise. It was an unconditional promise about what I was going to do for you. It wasn't a covered suggestion that you should do your best and by your own resources have a child and thus fulfill my promise. You've done your best using your resources and you've produced Ishmael. That's not what I meant by my promise. And to press the lesson home upon Abram, he now left Abram.
You see, originally Sarah was barren, but Abram was still virile. Now God left him for thirteen years, until, so far as fathering a child was concerned, he was beyond it. Now there was no question of their own resources. Now, if that promise was to be fulfilled, it must be by the direct intervention of God and bringing life virtually out of their dead bodies. That's what I meant, says God. That's what promise means. When I made the promise, and eventually Isaac was born by the intervention of God, bringing life out of their dead bodies.
You will be aware how Paul expounds the significance of these things, both in the epistle to the Romans and in the epistle to the Galatians. Abraham was justified by faith. You might well ask the question, because when Abraham was justified by faith, the thing that God asked him to exercise that faith about was this. Genesis fifteen, I will give you seed. Uh, uh, give you a son, in other words, and descendants.
And Abram believed the Lord, and his faith was counted for righteousness. When we are asked to believe God to be justified, we don't have to believe that God is going to give us a child, do we? So how can there be a parallel between Abram and us, so to speak? Paul in chapter four of Romans does, of course, the logical thing. He's just proved that we have to be justified by faith, like Abraham was justified by faith. But then if you put the question to Paul, but what do you mean by faith? How is there any parallel between Abraham's faith and ours? Paul will bring out the implication of the Genesis story.
That is, God promised to give Abraham a son and left him. And Abram, being a sensible chap, considered his body now as good as dead. Don't follow those old, uh, those manuscripts which put in he didn't consider his body. Of course he did, he wasn't an ignor- ignoramus. He could see exactly what the situation was, considered his body now as good as dead. And came to the realization that if ever he were have to a child, it would be a miracle of God's gift to bring life out of death.
Faith means utter dependence upon God. How is that in any way parallel to us? Well, righteousness shall be imputed to us if we believe on God that raised our Lord Jesus from the dead, says Paul, end of chapter four. Jesus who was delivered for our offenses and raised again for our justification. We believe our faith is in God that raised Jesus from the dead. What kind of faith is that? And what part does our faith have to do with it? Well, allow me a little thought experiment, if you will. Suppose you and I were standing around the sepulcher in which the body of the Lord Jesus was lying in the three days, and we had come to see that if Jesus didn't rise from the dead, there would be no salvation for us.
If he's not risen, you're yet in your sins. If he's not risen, then God has not accepted his sacrifice. There is no forgiveness. And coming to realize that, we're standing around the grave of Christ saying, well, well, we hope he does rise. Now, what can we do? We have to believe. What does that mean then? Well, let's join hands and start believing. And say, you know, I believe, I believe, I believe, I believe. And if we can believe so enough, his body will come out of the grave. Well, absolute nonsense, isn't it? What is faith?
It's not an expression of our power that produces the result. Like Abraham, who could see the thing must be an interposition of God's power. And we have learned to put our faith for justification, not in us, nor in the strength of our faith, but in the power of God that raised our Lord Jesus from the dead, at which you should shout hallelujah again. Because there are some people, dear believers, and in times of affliction, perhaps in times of depression, wonder if they are really saved after all.
And then they try to remember, well, when I, when I first believed, was it, did I believe the right way round? And was it the kind, right kind of faith? Oh, I can't remember. Then they fall to thinking, well, perhaps, ooh, perhaps it wasn't the right kind of faith. That means, that means I'm not saved and never have been. Oh, dear me. And you may think that's extreme, but I have known people come privately to talk to me in terrible, nervous conflict over that issue. Have they believed the right way? And not being aware of it, what they have got into their heads is the idea that faith is a work we do.
And we have to do it, well, at least seventy five percent correct, else it isn't valid. And they're desperately hard, tar- trying hard to believe with the right kind of faith. For what a lifting of the burden it is when people see what true faith is. It's abandoning trust in myself or my effort and relying absolutely and totally on what God does, the God that raised the Lord Jesus from the dead. For when he died, my dear brother, my dear sister, he died bearing your sin in his body. All of it. And paid the price. He was delivered for our offenses, and God raised him from the dead to show to all and sundry, and to you in particular, God had accepted his sacrifice.
God had done it. And done it to demonstrate to you that your account has been cleared before God. It's not your faith that did it, it was the power of God that did it. Marvelous, isn't it? Are you not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, says Paul. Therefore, in this part of Genesis chapter seventeen, God institutes the right of circumcision. A go- good and godly right it was, though it wasn't a condition for being justified, for Abraham was justified by faith thirteen years at least before he was circumcised, as Paul comments in Romans chapter four.
He received it as the seal and the sign of the righteousness which he had by faith. His descendants were asked to be circumcised, first as a token that they were physically descended from Abraham, not as a means of their being justified, as a token of their willingness to keep God's law, but not as a token that they were going to keep the law in order to be justified. Circumcision, as the New Testament would interpret it, Philippians chapter three, was also a symbol.
We are the circumcision, says Paul, who worship God in the spirit and have no confidence in the flesh. What does he mean by confidence in the flesh? Philippians three, he said, well, I could have confidence in the flesh, you know, looked at it from a worldly point of view. For I, let me remind you, was a Hebrew of the Hebrews, a Pharisee of the strictest kind, touching the righteousness which comes by the practice of the law and all its rituals, found blameless, not sinless, but blameless. Came behind him no one in the Judaism of his day, sincerely trying to keep God's law for salvation, until he met Christ.
And found that all that religious attainment by his own effort was what God calls trust in the flesh. And he says, I booted it out and count it as worthlessness, that I might gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness which is of my own, which is by the law, but that which is through faith in Jesus Christ. That is good Christian gospel, that is. True circumcision, then, at its deepest level of meaning, is the same thing. Giving up trust in the flesh, that is in my own religious effort, and receiving from God the righteousness, which is the righteousness of God, notice, not the righteousness of Christ, the righteousness of God, which is through faith by Jesus Christ.
So Abram was eventually taught that lesson. But that only brings us back to old, but she wasn't so old, really, excuse me, Hagar and her son, now grown up. And do you remember? It was the angel of the Lord that had sent Hagar back, and Ishmael was brought up in Abram's home. And, uh, I can't imagine what kind of trouble he was. That was a sore lesson inflicted upon Hagar, I tell you, on on on Sarah, I tell you, to have the same girls.
Oh dear. Uh, Abram, however, pleaded with God, please accept Ishmael. No, no, says God. No, I meant what I said. I'm going to give you a son. He's the promised seed. And in chapter twenty one of the book of Genesis, the promised seed, Isaac, is born of Sarah, the free woman, a freeborn son, not of the slave girl, but of the free woman. Huh? Isaac began to grow up to a toddler, and Ishmael began a little rough horseplay with Isaac, and Sarah saw her darling Isaac being thus roughly handled by Ishmael, and Sarah, with all the protect- protective, uh, uh, i- instincts of a woman, she wasn't gonna have that.
Ha! She went to Abram in the imperative mood that sometimes Sarah adopted, you see. She said, Abram, you will cast out that slave woman and her son. Son of the bondwoman will not inherit along with my, my darling Isaac. Abram didn't altogether agree, but this time God told him to listen to Hagar, and out went the bondwoman and her son, and God looked after them and gave him a good future. But it was to protect, said Sarah, Isaac's inheritance. What does that show us? That the heir to the inheritance was not to be the child produced by the slave woman, by Abraham and Sarah using their own resources.
The heir to the inheritance was to be the freeborn son of the free woman. And Paul expounds the story, doesn't he, as a figurative prototype. He says, my dear brethren, don't you listen to those false teachers who tell you it's enough to believe in Christ to start with, but thereafter your inheritance depends on your own efforts, and you must keep the law and be circumcised and all that. Listen not to them, he says, for we are not sons of the slave woman, but the sons of the free. Stand fast in the freedom for which Christ has made you free.
Marvelous. Justification by faith. Faith is faith in the power of God, not in my effort. And the inheritance given to the freeborn sons, justified by faith, born of God's spirit, not by the efforts of the religious to keep God's law. Good. The lesson that Abraham had to learn. While we're at it, there's just a little thing, says Paul. Would you notice that? Abraham was justified by faith, looking forward to the birth of the promised seed. But until the promised seed came, which was a number of years, long years, God put Hagar and Ishmael back into his home until the promised seed, Isaac, came.
Huh. Then what happened, you say? Well, the next thing in Genesis twenty one is when the promised seed came, the slave woman and her son got thrown out. Says Paul, would you see a certain correspondence in that? Start with Abraham again, and that lovely covenant Go- of God, covenanting to give the inheritance to Abraham and to his seed. But there followed an interval of centuries until the promised seed, our Lord, actually came. And in between, what did God do? He interposed the law from Sinai as a temporary measure until the promised seed should come.
Huh. Never intended as a means of salvation, of course, but as a form of discipline for God's people. But when the promised seed came and our blessed Lord was born and offered the sacrifice on the altar, like Isaac was bound upon the altar, and finished the work of redemption. Then the slave woman was cast out, and the freeborn sons of God, through faith in Christ, are brought into their inheritance.
Um, it's still safe to listen with your eyes shut. Shouldn't be calling out your names just yet. Because you'll see we have now a third period in Abram's life to think about. In that third period, starting in chapter twenty, Abram denies his wife Sarah once more. And the Philistine king Abimelech to- took her because Abraham said she was his, uh, sister, do you see? And thus he imperiled the paternity of the promised seed.
God revealed it to to the Philistine, and he came in disgust and rebuked Abraham, verse nine of chapter twenty: Why did you do it? He said to Abraham. And Abraham said, because I thought surely the fear of God is not in this place, and they will slay me for my wife's sake. For Abraham was a pilgrim, a resident alien, a nomad, to quote the official technical term. Whereas the Philistines were living in cities, garrison cities with walls, Abram, though a powerful sheikh, was a nomad, wandering from place to place.
And though a believer himself and feared God, he seriously worried whether God could possibly protect him when he came amongst people like Philistines. They might slit his throat, uh, you know, before they fought in order to get this beautiful woman. And he thought that God wasn't in this place. It's a feeling I get sometimes. I think it's fairly easy to live, as I showed, amongst believers, because they fear God. But out in the big world, where they'd slit your throat economically, soon as they'd look at you, or academically. Can you afford to be right open?
Is God in this place as well? Abram wasn't quite so sure about his security if God's fear wasn't in this place. And so he took things into his own hands once more to try and guarantee security, and had to be rebuked by a Gentile king. Security, therefore. We shall find secure runs through this part of Genesis. We have already touched on the opening story of twenty one, where when the promised seed Isaac was born, Ha- Sarah, with her maternal instincts, looked to re- to secure the security of the inheritance for her son Isaac, that it should not be shared with the son of the slave woman.
Natural, isn't it, when parents have children, that mum should be concerned for the security of her darling son and his future, and his inheritance. Well, of course, so. Ha. And after that comes the story of the Philistine king once more. And he came to Abram, and he said, now look here, Abram, I got a proposition to make to you. Because he was king of a city, and Abram, a nomad, but Abram was a very powerful, uh, sheikh. He had enough servants to make an army, as we read in chapter fourteen. With a loose cannon like that, roaming around a place, the Philistine king feared that when he died, this powerful sheik Abram might attack his son and do him damage.
How could the king secure the future for his son? So he came to Abram and said, now look here, old fellow, make a covenant with me that you will be loyal to my son when I'm gone. You know, fathers are like that, aren't they? In fact, you were, you fathers. Irresponsible as, not well, no, no, no, but you know, thinking of other things when you were youngsters, then you got married and you had a son, that altered things, didn't it? But now, what about the security for my son and his future? Natural to want security, isn't it? And Abram expansively said, yes, my dear man, I, I swear you an oath in the name of God.
I'll not injure your son. I will be loyal to him. And then said Abram, as a matter of fact, your servants have stolen my wells. Oh, have they? Said he. So then they made a covenant to guarantee and secure the water supply, which is an absolutely number one necessity if you lived in a desert like that, you see. Ah. And they swore an oath, and they called the name of the place Beersheva, which is Hebrew for the well of the oath. And Abraham dwelt at Beersheva, the well of the oath. Security. And then God came to Abraham. And he said, Abraham, what about your son?
And what about your future, Abram? What about security for your future, Abram? And Abram said, well, Lord, thank you very much. You see, you have given me Isaac, haven't you? Oh, you promised me all these marvelous future blessings in Isaac, you see. I see, said God. So tell me, Abram, where is your faith for security for the future? Where does your faith lie? In me or in Isaac? O- o- o- well, of course in you, Lord.
Really? In me, Abram? Oh, yes, Lord. Righto, shall we just demonstrate that, Abram? Please, will you give me your son? And as the writer to the Hebrews points out, there was Abram... with Isaac. And all the promises of God, you say, centered, vested in Isaac. And Abraham, now an elderly man without any hope of future sons. All his future now depends on Isaac.
And God has asked the man to give up Isaac. And they left with nothing, but God. Yes, but you see, in the training through which God puts his people, ultimately it is important that our faith be tested as we think of the future, and the question of security arises.
Where is my faith for security? Where is my faith for security? It is vastly important, faith painful though the process might be, that we be taught practically to put our faith for the future and for security in God and God alone. When Abraham offered up Isaac, he that had received the promises, to whom it had been said, in Isaac shall thy seed be called, and he was offering him up to God and was left, so to speak, with God alone.
Abram found the biggest security that a man can ever possess for time or eternity, and celebrated it. Called the name of the place Jehovah Jireh, the Lord will provide, and in the mount of the Lord it shall be seen. Well, look at it from the eternal point of view. When you get home to heaven, man, you see all the riches and you say to yourself, now, can I be sure about my eternal future? Oh, I mean, eternity is a long while, isn't it? Shall I find myself turned out of these riches one of these days?
How can I feel secure about my future? What will your answer be? Oh, by the time you get home to glory, God will have taught the lesson beyond this group, that our security depends on God, and God. But the doctrinal point that is now raised is the important point of justification by works. A doctrine not quite so popular in evangelical circles as the first doctrine, justification by faith.
But when Abraham offered his son Isaac on the altar at God's command, says James, was not our father Abraham justified by his works when he offered up his son upon the altar? You see how faith worked along with his works, and by works was faith made perfect or matured. And the scripture was fulfilled, which says, and Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. Justification by works. We should stop just a moment before we end this session to ponder the significance of justification by works.
Let's make an initial distinction so that we do not get ourselves confused. Let's think by way of a thought model of the birth of an infant. I am told by the experts that when a baby is born, the midwife or the doctor hauls the poor unfortunate infant, i- i- infant up by its heels upside down and delivers a sharp smack on that part of the anatomy that is built for the purpose. You see. And the babe lets out an enormous yell. And everybody is pleased.
You say, why is that? To hear a baby cry, how could they be pleased? Ah, but you see, the fact that it cries is the evidence that it is alive. Yes? But now do praise make a distinction. The crying is the evidence that it's alive. It isn't the way it means by which it got life. Got life, not by crying. It got life. When the seed and the egg came together and the zygote was formed. As a gift. We make a distinction then, the, uh, for the condition of getting life, between that and when life is now there, the evidence that you've got life.
Yes? Abram believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. He was a true believer. Genesis fifteen, justified by faith. And that wasn't just a promise, Abram, you believe today, and I promise you, if you go on behaving a lot very well, you might possibly be justified at the end. Nonsense. He was justified there and then by faith. If he died then, he would gone to glory, like a dying thief. Ah, but God didn't take him home just then. And being justified by faith, Abram was asked to justify his profession of faith by his works.
And James makes the point very clearly. He says, you know, you'll say to somebody or other, I've got faith, you've got works, but I've got faith with me. And your friend has the right to reply, okay, you've got faith and I've got works. Oh, lovely. Now you show me your faith. Go on, show me faith. Without works, you'll have a job of doing it. Faith is invisible, isn't it? And people have a right to ask us for the evidence that our faith is genuinely there and is real. We get salvation by faith, but wait a minute.
God will require us that presently we give evidence that the faith is real faith. To justify our profession of faith by our works. When I was a boy in the dim and distant ages past, Queen Victoria was dead. I was taught a neat little rhyme by my superiors, explaining these matters, and it went like this: We are justified by faith before God. We're justified by works before the world. That sounded eminently sensible to me.
It was only partly right, wasn't it? It's true the world has a right to ask for works as the evidence of our faith, but in the story of Abraham, who was it that asked for the evidence? Wasn't Sarah, was it? Or it wasn't the Philistines, and it wasn't Abraham's servants. They left the whole lot behind. And at God's command, he's r- r- t- climbed the mountain, put his son upon the altar, and raised a knife to slay his son. At which dramatic point, the angel of the Lord called out of heaven, don't lay your hand upon the child.
For, now listen, what the angel of the Lord said, second person of the Trinity indeed. Now, don't, don't kill the lad, for now I know that thou fearest me. Oh, do check that in the actual text of Genesis. I'm quoting Genesis. Now I know, says the Lord, that thou fearest me, seeing you have not withheld your only son from me. It was God himself that was asking for the evidence. And you say, oh, but that's silly, because God must have known from the start that Abram was a true believer.
Well, so he did, of course. Well, you say, how can God then ask evidence? Now I know, didn't he know it all the way along the line? Ah, yes. But there are two kinds of knowledge, you know. Standing here, I know it is mighty cold down in the Antarctic. You say, how do you know that, old chap? Well, I read it in a book, and I can work it out, you know, uh, the little knowledge of climates and things, that it must be freezingly cold at the South Pole. That's one kind of knowledge. I've never known it by personal experience. What it is to shiver in the cold of the Antarctic.
God, you know, knew that I, Gooding, would one day exist. He knew that with his foreknowledge. I'm glad he wasn't content with that. Well, perhaps you're not, but I am. I'm glad he didn't say, I, I foresee that gooding is going to exist, so he doesn't need to exist after all. So God insisted not on knowing it in advance, but knowing it by actual experience, and what it is for the divine patience to have to put up with such a gooding. And what it is to bring that man to repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus. I know the practical experience of having a son by that name, Gooding.
God knows our heart, to be sure he knows our heart. But God asks, demands to know. By experience of our works, that we demonstrate to him that our faith is genuine. You say, what kind of works was Abram asked to do in order to be justified by his works? Well, God didn't say, Abram, look, if you're really believer, be kind, a bit kinder to those Philistines do man, and look after the poor.
I suspect Abram was kind to the poor. However, it was a bigger test than that. For he that had received the promises, now being asked by God to deliver up Isaac, in whom the promises were all invested, what was it demonstrating? It was demonstrating that Abram's faith was in God, and only in God. God asked him to surrender Isaac, therefore.
That all Abram's hope and confidence for the future should be in God. And sometimes God will lead us as believers to that same kind of mountaintop, where all he has given us seems now to be taken from us, and we be left with God alone. Painful, but a blessed phase. Because to find yourself bereft of all, save God, is to be made conscious of his promise, because thou hast done this thing and not withheld thine only son from me.
In blessing I will bless thee, in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven and the sand on the she- seashore. And the writer to the Hebrews emphasizes the point that James is making, having endured and come through the test and shown by his works that his faith was genuine. Faith in God, Abraham received the promise, and on that occasion God not only gave the promise, but he interposed with an oath, saying, by myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, that in blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee. That by two unchangeable things, says the writer to the Hebrews, we may have strong encouragement who fled for refuge to take hold of the hope set before us, which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and that entereth into that which is within the veil.
There is security for you. And if our faith be like an anchor in God himself, then let the world collapse. Let the whole universe collapse and the galaxies go to nothing. And what are you left with? God. And God's unbreakable word, enforced by his oath in the name of a God who cannot lie, that we might have strong encouragement and a hope, like an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast for now and eternity.
The three periods of Abram's life, the three mistreatments of his wife, but the wonderful lessons that God taught him in God's course of education, justification by faith, then the trials of faith, explaining to Abram what faith really is. And finally, the challenge to demonstrate his faith by his works, that his faith was in God, painful but blessed, preparing Abram for the great eternity that lies ahead.
