I don't know how many of you keep up with the news.
I would venture to conjecture that this crowd keeps up with it
maybe a little bit more than the general population.
Anybody ever get stressed out by the news?
You're a little worried about what is happening all over the world.
The last 48 hours if you've been paying attention,
the nation of Israel is being attacked.
The nation of Israel is being attacked.
Some of you don't know that.
This is going on right now.
Thousands of rockets flying in from the terrorist group Hamas
attacking Israel.
Rocket fire raining down on them.
And it's an atrocious thing.
But it's not the first time it's happened.
But it's a big deal.
And so I believe that the Bible teaches us to pray for the peace of Israel.
And we're going to learn today that God says I will bless those that bless you
and curse those that curse you.
That's what we told Abraham.
And God's not through with Israel.
He's not.
While the nation of Israel is by no means perfect,
they deserve our support and our prayers.
And I believe we got to pray for the peace of Israel.
So can we do that today?
God, we know that you have a heart for the nation of Israel.
That you're chosen people.
You're not through with them.
And you've called us to call for the peace of Israel.
And we call for that today.
God, as we examine Father Abraham today,
I pray that you'd help us.
This wouldn't just be something that we pray about,
but God, it will impact us and that we would be different
as a result of all that we're learning.
And so I pray that you do that today.
We love you.
In Jesus' name, amen.
I also believe, here's what else I know about us,
other than just knowing that we know these news reports and stuff.
While we can and should pray for these things,
we can't control such things.
Anybody realize you can't control what's happening in our country right now?
There's a lot of different things we could talk about that are problems.
And when you examine all that's going on in the world
and you focus on those things, a lot of times can be wasted
if the same amount of effort is and also aimed at self-examination as well.
And so we may not be able to change what's happening this week in Israel,
but we know someone who can, right?
And we can more directly, we can affect more directly what happens
in our relationship with God and our marriage and our families
with our kids and our church and our city and our school.
You guys with me?
We can impact that, can't we?
More directly than these other things.
And so I'm here today wanting all of us to be different
as a result of studying God's Word today.
And I want us to have stronger families, amen.
And stronger neighborhoods.
And if we can affect our neighborhood, maybe we can affect the nation
and the nations.
Ironically, the issues we're seeing play out in Israel right now
indirectly go back to the people we're studying in this book of Hebrews.
Abraham messed up in doubting God's promise on the one hand
and marrying his wife's handmaid.
And now there are offspring of the two families that are fighting today.
The good news is that you don't have to be perfect to be someone who lives by faith.
The just shall live by faith.
And we can live by faith and not be perfect at the same time.
Are you with me?
Who's glad that the people in the Bible, largely most of them messed up.
They messed up a lot, right?
A lot of the people in the very text we're reading, this Hebrews 11,
if you're, if it's your first time with us, Hebrews chapter number 11
is an accounting or a recounting to Jewish people about their forefathers
and how that they lived, not just by works, they lived by faith.
They were justified and walked by faith.
And it's an example to us to live by faith.
And last week we began to study the story of Abraham and Sarah.
God had told Abraham to leave his family and his homeland
and go to a country that the invisible Jehovah God would show him.
Abraham was told that God had chosen him to be the father of an incredible nation.
The issue at that time was that Abraham and Sarah were old.
And they had no kids.
So if you can't father one, you're not going to father a nation.
Who agrees with me?
If you can't have one kid, you can't have a nation.
And so God gave them a promise.
And that promise will show up here in Hebrews 11, chapter 11 verse 8.
Go back with me if you will and look at that in your Bible.
If you don't have it, you can see it on the screen.
Hebrews 11, 8, it says this, by faith Abraham, when he was called
to go out into a place which he should after receive for an errand
and obeyed.
I love that.
Don't you?
You can't be disobedient and say that you have faith in God, right?
You're not exhibiting a faith if you don't have obedience.
And so he says, he obeyed and went out not knowing whether he went
by faith he sojourned in the land of promise as in a strange country
dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, theirs of the same promise.
For he looked for a city which has foundations whose builder and
maker is God.
Through faith also Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed
and was delivered of a child when she was past age, over 100 years old.
And all the ladies said, oh me, not amen, right?
Because, how did it happen?
Because she judged him God faithful who had promised.
We have a promise keeping God, don't we?
Therefore spring there even of one, there spring from Sarah's room,
a child even of one Abraham and him as good as dead.
Why?
Because he's pretty old too.
So many as the stars of the sky and the multitude and as a sand which is by
the seashore innumerable.
The promise that Hebrew 11 refers to and will refer to in today's text
was expressed by God very clearly in Genesis chapter 12 verse 1 and 3.
So as I talk about the promise today, here's the promise.
Genesis 12, 1 it will be on your screen.
You can also go back there because it will be in Genesis a lot today.
And it says, now the Lord had said to Abraham, back then Abram,
Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred and from thy father's
house unto a land I will show thee, and I will make of thee a great
nation, and I will bless thee and make thy name great, and now shall be a
blessing, and I will bless them that bless thee and curse him that
curseeth thee, and in thee all the families of the earth shall be
blessed.
So what was the promise?
The promise was that he would be a father of a great nation.
The promise was that everyone in the world would be best blessed by
his kids.
You want that for your kids?
For my kids to make the world a better place?
Who wants that?
Are you desiring that for your kids?
Man, what an incredible thing to tell a between 90 and 100 year old
couple, hey, you're going to have kids.
What?
I'm going to need help, right?
And your kids are going to impact the world.
They're going to be a blessing.
In fact, every nation that ever lives, every family in the earth,
every tribe, nation and tongue are going to be blessed by your kids.
Who votes for that?
That's a great thing, right?
When you don't have any kids at the time the promise is made and
you're 100 years old, this is a big promise.
And Abraham later called Abraham probably thought before this,
that fathering was something that wouldn't have been for him.
Once you get to that age and you don't have kids, you're like,
okay, I guess I'm not having kids.
He probably thought that at 100 with no kids, that's not even in the
picture.
Then God came through.
And Abraham had a son.
It was his only son through Sarah that got a promise that would
happen.
Anybody have any grandkids in here?
Are your grandkids precious to you?
Like, I can't wait to have grandkids.
It's going to be awesome.
I don't want them too soon.
Yeah, he's the age of a grandparent and he has this child and it's the
child of promise.
It's a big deal.
All his hopes and dreams were connected to his son, Isaac, laughter.
It's that this season of Abraham's life that then God comes to him
again.
I'm looking at a daddy right now with a little daughter.
We think these things are precious, these kids.
And I said that season that God showed up again to Abraham.
But this time we find that God puts Abraham to the test.
He wanted to reveal Abraham's heart.
And I believe he wanted to reveal Abraham's faith both to Abraham
and Abraham to us.
We have already said that we want this message to impact us today.
Who wants this message to impact you?
Who wants to be different as you leave?
Here's the real questions for people who believe in God and receive his
promises that still affect us today.
These are the kind of questions this text brings up.
Are you ready?
Are we more in love with God himself or what God gives us?
Am I more loyal to God than I am God's blessings?
Do I only love God because God has been so good to me?
Do we trust more in the person of God than we do in the provision of God?
What scares you more?
God's office throne or you have no money in your bank account?
If you don't have money in your bank account, God's on his throne.
Do we love the created thing more than our creator?
What should faith in God compel us to do?
And will we trust and obey God even when doing so may not seem to make sense to us.
Have you ever had a situation where being obedient was hard?
Was difficult?
Where I had to choose between God and some other relationship?
Today I want to plead with you to examine your own heart and being faithful to God who is the source of the promises.
God is the promise giver.
And every good gift and every good perfect gift comes from above James says,
from the Father of lights and who is no variableness neither shadow of turning.
And so I want you to know this, that we ought to trust and love and be loyal to the promise giver.
A promise is only as good as the person who makes the promise.
Have you ever heard any politicians make a promise?
And some of them follow through with their promises and some of them don't.
It's a lot more in the don't category lately.
The text here points to the example of Abraham and the character of God to help us have the courage to answer these questions with faith in God even when it's difficult.
Here's why that's so critical.
Things that are created make horrible gods.
Serving the true promise keeping God brings blessings and when we make idols out of God's provision, it brings us pain.
When we make idols out of what God's given to us, if we make the created thing the thing that we worship more than we worship God, it will always end in pain.
God cannot bless this.
When we make God's provision the object of our worship, we will always, always, always lose in the end.
Our God is a promise keeping God who always keeps his promises and is deserving of our faithful obedience even when that obedience seems difficult.
We can exhibit faith in our promise making God through three intentional responses that are exemplified here by Abraham.
The first one being this.
Faith believes the promise keeper's word.
Faith believes the promise giver's word.
He is a promise keeper too.
Look at verse 17 in our text.
By faith Abraham when he was tried offered up Isaac.
And he that received the promises offered up his only begotten son of whom it was said that in Isaac shall thy seed be called.
How many of you in the room today have heard this story about Abraham offering up Isaac?
How many of you have heard it?
Maybe some of you have never heard it.
A lot of you have.
The danger when you read or hear familiar stories is that if we are not careful we lose its power because it is familiar to us.
We know what happens.
But I want you to know this is a shocking story.
I want you to think about it that way.
Put yourself in Abraham and Sarah's shoes.
It is my desire to help us feel the way Adam felt when he experienced the circumstance.
We are given something about the faith of Abraham.
It says he was tried or tested the King James and Genesis 22 talks about being tempted.
How did it happen?
He offered up Isaac.
More on that as we look.
He received the promises.
What I had read.
You are the father of a great nation and you the nations of the earth will be blessed.
What did that look like?
If you go back to Genesis 22.
This is where we will be a lot.
Genesis 22 is the first book of the Bible.
Chapter 22.
Here is the account of what happened in the narrative.
This is a true story.
Really happened.
Given to us through Moses and the Holy Spirit.
It came to pass after these things that God did tempt Abraham.
The word here for tempt is a Hebrew word that speaks to testing.
James tells us God does not tempt men to do evil things.
No way does God leave Abraham to do something evil here.
He said to Abraham, what did he say?
He said to him in verse 1, Abraham and he said, behold here I am.
What a great response.
Availability.
Are you available to the Lord?
Are you available to him?
Are you listening to his voice as he speaks to you through his word?
He says, take now thy son, thine only son, Isaac.
Whom thou, what is the next word?
Lovest.
Is it God's testimony that Isaac was precious to Abraham?
Does Abraham love Isaac?
He loves Isaac.
He says it's his only son.
Isaac was not the only son of Abraham.
There was also Ishmael through Hagar.
The first is someone here who is unique, one of a kind.
This is one who was begotten, fathered through the line that God was wanting to bless.
The line of Abraham.
Isaac was the only son born according to God's promise and was the only heir of that promise.
If you look back one chapter in Genesis 21.12, it says about Isaac, Genesis 21.12, that in Isaac,
and it's going to get quoted here in just a minute, it says, I have to get there myself,
21 verse 12, and God said, let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad and because of thy bond with him.
And there is a son that Sarah has said unto thee, he was his only son and this was the son of promise.
This is the one through which the promise would come through.
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jacob becomes Israel.
He has 12 sons.
Abraham, father, Abraham had many sons.
I am going to quote it every time.
Many sons have.
There is an old Sunday school song, but I am not going to do it.
When God was telling Abraham to take his son, this was the only son that his identity was wrapped up in.
This is the son that pointed to the promise of God for Abraham, Sarah, his family and for the blessing of the whole world.
What was he to do?
Look at verse 2, the second part.
And get thee into the land of, what is it?
What land is it?
Say it real loud.
Get thee into the land of, Moriah, more on that later.
And offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell the of.
What was the command?
I want you to take your only begotten son of promise and offer him as a human burnt sacrifice to me at a mountain that I will show thee.
I will tell Abraham to go somewhere and tell him I will show you where.
Just the next step.
You all have to vote.
Are you ready?
Was this a heavy thing or no big deal?
Who votes heavy thing?
Almost everybody voted.
One day I will do a vote and everyone will vote.
It is a heavy thing.
This is a big deal.
I want you to offer not a sheep, not a lamb, not a goat, not a bull.
I want you to offer your kid.
And not just any kid, your only kid.
And not just your only kid, the kid that I gave to you as a promise of my goodness to you and blessing the whole entire earth.
This is your legacy and you are going to take him and I want you to give him back to me.
Now God had already made the impossible to happen.
This old man had fathered a son.
He knew that this was supernatural.
So how would Abraham obey?
The just shall live by faith.
Abraham at the most basic level had to believe that what God said and promised he would do.
What had God promised?
Not just that he would have a great nation.
He promised that in Isaac, this little kid, this specific little kid, this son, in Isaac shall thy seed be called.
Did Isaac have kids yet?
Did he want him to offer him now?
Abraham had to believe God's word.
He had to believe the promise givers word.
For him to honor God, he had to believe God's promise and obey in light of it.
Now here's, we're going to make this about us too.
It's about God, it's about Abraham, but we got to apply this.
Some of us experience times where obeying God seems to be difficult.
Sometimes obeying God may seem illogical.
God, everyone else would retaliate in this situation.
God, everyone else would retaliate.
I think I ought to retaliate, but you're telling me I should not retaliate.
God, they're smearing me on the Internet.
They're saying things that aren't true, and I think I should just smear back.
God, I know you hate me breaking my promises, but everyone else would leave this marriage at this point.
So God, I'm going to do that, and I want you to bless me.
God, I know you want me to give proportionally and sacrificially,
but I think I can do more with my 100% that you've given me than I can with less.
God, why would I leave this awesome career and leave my family and plant churches in the land where I don't even know their language,
much less anyone there?
God, why would you call me to do that?
It doesn't make sense.
Faith means taking our promise, keeping God at His word.
And when He asks us to do something that doesn't make sense, being willing to do it.
Abraham believed what God said he would do that he would do.
So look at what happened.
Verse 3, this is Genesis 22.
And Abraham rose up early in the morning and saddled his ass and took two of his young men with him
and Isaac his son and claved the wood for the burnt offering and rose up and he went onto the place of which God had told him.
It's interesting here.
He rose up early.
I think that's an interesting detail.
I think it speaks to his obedience.
If that was my task that God had given me for the day, I think I'd be tempted to take my time.
Who thinks you want to sleep in on that day?
But he doesn't.
He gets up early.
I think I would be tempted to delay, but delayed obedience is disobedience.
Verse 4, then on the third day, Abraham lifted up his offer.
Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place of far off.
And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass, and I in the lad will go yonder and worship and come again unto you.
I think the construction there is that he's saying we will come again.
I think he believed that in Isaac the sea, which we call it, I think he believed that Isaac was going to make it.
Verse 6, and Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it upon his Isaac his son.
And he took the fire in his hand and a knife and both of them went together.
Can you imagine this walk up the mountain?
He's with his only son.
Do they love each other?
They're walking up it.
His son is holding the wood for the fire.
He's holding the fire.
He's got the knife.
They're walking up the mountain.
Now here's where your heart rips out.
Verse 7, and Isaac spake unto Abraham his father and said, My father.
And he said, Here am I, my son.
And he said, Behold the fire in the wood.
But where is the lamb for a burnt offering?
You know what this tells me?
Abraham had seen Isaac and Isaac had seen Abraham worship him before, worship God before.
Abraham understood what it took to do a burnt offering.
Isaac understood what it took to do a burnt offering.
And so he's walking up this mountain and he's going, How are we going?
I've seen sacrifices in the past and there's always been a lamb.
Where is the lamb?
Isaac, who is commanded to be offered, is looking at his dad and saying, Where's the lamb?
And Abraham said, Verse 8, My son, God will, what's the next word?
God will what?
Say it again.
God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering.
So that they went both of them together.
We can exhibit faith in our promise making God through three intentional responses exemplified by Abraham.
Number one, faith believes the promise giver's word.
Number two, faith believes the promise giver's power.
His power.
What did Abraham believe that he would tell Isaac that God would provide the lamb?
I believe that Abraham believed that God would provide a means by which he would still receive his promise
and that Isaac would still be the heir of the promise.
For in Isaac shall thy seed be called.
We're told by the Holy Spirit what Abraham was thinking in our text in Hebrews 11 19.
So back to Hebrews.
If you want to stay in Genesis, we'll be right there again.
I'll put it on the screen.
What does it say?
Verse 19, talking about Abraham, Abraham accounting that God was able to raise him up, raise who up?
Isaac, even from the dead, from whence he also had received him in a figure.
Abraham believed in the power of God.
He believed God's word that he would receive the promise.
He believed God's power that God would be able to perform what he had promised.
And what I want to tell you is this, God is not slack concerning his promises.
As Peter tells us, God has the integrity to keep his promises.
He also has the ability to keep them.
God who cannot lie will do what he tells you he's going to do.
God has the integrity and the ability.
Some of us do not live a life of faith because at the end of the day we don't believe that God's ways are best.
We don't believe that if we would be obedient to what he says that it's going to work out for us.
We believe that we know best.
And I want you to know this, God knows best.
And when God says don't, what he's really saying is don't hurt yourself.
When God says do, he wants to say, he's like this is going to bring you blessing and help.
I'm not saying that there isn't hardship.
We studied in Mark today, Mark chapter 8, if any man come to me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
He also said, what will a prophet a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul?
We believe that we can live out of our own power instead of his and everything is going to work out.
And for the person that's here today that's thinking that it's a bad plan.
Your plans are not better than God's plans.
And you can't directly disobey God and think that it's going to work out.
Sometimes it works out by this thing called God's grace.
But we ought to be obedient and repentant and follow him.
Abraham believed that God would do what he promised and that he believed that God could do and would do what he promised.
So what happened?
Well, we're going to see the third response of Abraham.
Faith receives the promise givers provision.
Look at what happened. This is amazing.
Verse 9, Genesis 22, 9.
And they came to the place which God had told him of.
And Abraham built and altered there.
Can you imagine this?
Taking the wood off of your son.
Taking the stones and making the altar and placing the wood on the altar.
And bound his son Isaac.
And lay them on the altar upon the wood.
And standing there by faith, God said that this son would be the son of promise that through him,
my seed is going to be called, what's going to happen?
He puts them there bound.
Abraham stretched forth his hand, verse 10, and took the knife to slay his son.
Got all the way up to it.
And the angel called unto him out of heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham.
And he said, what did he say?
Does that sound familiar?
Here am I, my son?
God called him in verse 1, Abraham, here am I?
It's the same initial response back in verse 1, availability, listening.
Verse 12, and he said, lay not thine hand upon the lad.
Neither do anything unto him, for now I know that thou fearst God,
seeing that thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.
And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind them a ram caught in the thicket by his horns.
And Abraham went and took of the ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.
What happened?
God came through.
God provided.
God sustained Isaac as the son of promise, and God gave an incredible picture to Abraham,
to the sons of Abraham, and to us today.
Look at verse 14.
And Abraham called that place, the name of that place, Jehovah Jireh.
As it is said to this day, in the mount of the Lord it shall be seen.
The word Jehovah Jireh means the God who provides.
God provides.
What did God provide?
Exactly what Abraham said in this text.
The Lord will provide himself a lamb.
That spot, that mountain, Mount Moriah, as it was called early in the chapter, is an interesting place.
J. Vernon McGee said this about Moriah, this mountain.
It is the belief of a great many that Moriah, that is this particular part, is the place where the temple was built centuries earlier, centuries later.
Now pause the quote.
I'm going to keep quoting for the McGee.
He says, many people believe, and I believe this too, that Moriah is where the temple would be built later.
What happened in the temple?
Millions upon millions of bulls and goats and sheep were slain in the temple as substitutes for the people.
Who agrees?
There is no remission of sins.
Those sacrifices could not make the comers there unto perfect.
They were a picture of something else that was coming.
Are you with me?
The temple was a place where Christ's coming sacrifice was a shadow of the good things to come.
McGee continues and says this, it is also the place where the Lord Jesus was sacrificed right outside the city walls.
He said, when I was in Jerusalem, I had the feeling that Galgotha and the temple area were not very far apart.
They belonged to the same ridge.
The street has been cut through there and the ridge has been breached.
But it is the same ridge and it is called Moriah.
Let's not say that the Lord Jesus died in that exact spot.
We don't know, but certainly he died on the same ridge, the same mountain on which Abraham offered Isaac.
Why did God, back to my part, why did God ask this of Abraham?
He wanted Abraham and us to see the way of faith.
To see the provision of God for a substitute.
And the shedding of blood that brings remission of sins.
In verse 15, Genesis 22.
Let me start over.
And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed because thou hast obeyed my voice.
God would provide that promised land, God would provide that promised seed, the people, the nation.
And the nation would be a blessing through the whole world because there would be another father who would not have his hand stayed.
Do you get the picture?
Abraham was the father who didn't go through it.
There was a substitute, but there's another father who didn't stop.
And when it came time to sacrifice his only begotten son, he did.
Isaiah 53.10. You might say Pastor Ben.
That's heavy. I thought the Romans killed Jesus.
I thought the Jews, the Pharisees killed Jesus.
I even thought maybe I did.
Isaiah 53.10 says this.
Talking about a servant, Isaiah 700 years before Jesus ever came.
Gave predictions about a servant that was coming. This is very clear it's going to be the Messiah.
And in Isaiah 52 and into 53, he talks about the servant who's going to rule the nations at some point being suffering.
And it says about this suffering servant who we all know to be Jesus.
Not everybody agrees with that. The Jews today don't believe that.
Many do.
It says this in verse 10.
Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him.
He, the Lord, the Father, hath put him, the servant, Jesus, to grief.
When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he, the servant, Jesus, you got to get this. This is so good.
Shall see his seed.
What is he talking about?
He's talking. He shall prolong his days. How does that happen? After he's put to grief, after he's sacrificed, after he's made an offering for sin, he's going to see his seed and prolong his days.
That's resurrection.
That's resurrection. And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see the travail of his soul.
He, the Father, shall see the travail of his soul, Jesus, and shall be satisfied. By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities.
What is he saying?
There's going to be a sacrifice.
That sacrifice, Jesus, will happen because the wrath of God for your sin and mine will be placed on Jesus. That's what happened at the crucifixion.
He would die for our sins. He would be buried. And guess what would happen? He would rise again.
He will see his seed. He'll prolong his days. And it says in verse 12, therefore will I divide him a portion with the great and he shall divide the spoil with the strong.
Because he has poured out his soul unto death and he was numbered with the transgressors and he bear the sins of many and made intercession for the transgressors.
Jesus Christ, the suffering servant, the seed of Abraham will see his seed.
When his days are prolonged, how? It's by resurrection. I love it. It says, and by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many.
What did Abraham believe? Back to our text, Hebrews 11, 19. Abraham believed, he accounted. That's a term. It's an accounting term.
It's talking about he did a conjecture. How is this going to work out? He believed that God was able to raise him, Isaac, up, even from the dead.
And when he didn't die and he came back off of that altar, it was like he was back from the dead because he was as good as dead. God provided a substitute.
Abraham believed that God would raise. Abraham's only be gotten from the dead if it came to it. Here's what you need to hear and I do too.
God did put his son to grief. Jesus became a propitiation, a wrath bearing sacrifice to bear the punishment for your sin and mine on the cross.
And then three days later, he did rise from the dead, not in a figure like Isaac, but mightily, bodily and eternally.
And so, what shall we say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He, here it is, he that spared not his own son.
But delivered him up for us all. How shall he not with him also freely give us all good things?
Do you see the picture? If we would believe God and we would put our faith in Christ, he would give us eternal life.
And if you can trust him with your salvation and you can trust him with your eternity, then you can trust him with your business.
You can trust him with your money. You can trust him with your marriage. You can trust him with your relationship. You know how you do that?
There's an old song, trust and obey. For there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.
If you get on the path of mistrust and disobedience, it will not be good for you. Trust and obey.
So here's three application questions. You want to be different? Let's apply this to our life. Number one.
Do you know the promises of God made to you in his word? Do you know the promises of God?
There's this old song, every promise in the book is mine. Have you heard that song? Every chapter, every verse. It's a bad song. It's not true.
It's a song in our hymnal that's not good. Because not every promise in the Bible is for you. Not every promise.
I know the sentiment of what they are trying to say. If God says it, then you can trust it. But not every promise in the Bible is for you.
There are some promises made to Israel that are for Israel, not for us as Gentiles. We haven't replaced Israel.
But God has made some promises to you. Do you know them? Do you live by them?
Just shall live by faith in the promises of God, our promise keeping God. You can trust him.
You can trust him not just for your salvation but how to live. So do you know the promises of God?
Here's another question. Number two. Whose power are you trusting in for living today? Whose power are you trusting in?
Are you trusting in your own ability? Are you trusting in your own intellect?
Your job? Your kids? Your husband? Your wife? You know what I found to be the case? People will let you down.
At some point if we do life long enough together, it probably won't take very long. I'll let you down.
You'll let me down. Welcome to the human race. I know somebody who won't let you down. Jesus will never let you down.
Whose power are you trusting in today to live? Here's another question. Whose power are you trusting in for eternity?
That leads to this third question. God has provided his only begotten son for you. He did not spare his only son.
He poured out his wrath for your sin and mine on his son. Jesus died on the cross for your sins. He was buried.
He rose again for the third day for your sins. And if God did that, and you're trying to get to heaven based on your good works,
based on your ancestry, based on what church you go to, based on anything other than Jesus,
him crucified, buried, and risen again, if you're trying to trust in anything else, you're going to be ashamed on the last day.
God loves you and he offered his son to die for you. Will you put your faith in him for salvation?
He gave what was most precious so that we could be called the children of God. Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us,
that we could be called the children of God. Would you bow your heads and close your eyes with me today?