McNeil, William: Persons From The Word 37 ~ Abraham Believed God

Uh, couldn't compare with a hymn like that, could it? That's one of the grand old hymns. I think it's been, um, popular now for nearly sixty years, at least. I heard it when I was a teenager, and that wasn't yesterday. First time I heard it, I thought it was a beautiful hymn, and I still think the same. I love that hymn. Now, last week at the eleven o'clock service, I read to you a verse from the Old Testament, and then we turned over and found that verse quoted twice in the New Testament, which seemed to give emphasis to the fact that it was as applicable to us today as it was in the days when Isaiah quoted it. I want to follow through the same principle today and take another text from the Old Testament. I want you to open your Bibles, the book of Genesis chapter fifteen. The book of Genesis chapter fifteen. verse one. After these things, the word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram, I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward. And Abram said, Lord God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless? The steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus. Abram said, behold, to me there was given no seed, and lo, one born in my house is mine heir. And behold, the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, this shall not be thine heir. He that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine. And he brought him forth abroad and said, look now toward heaven and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them. He said unto him, so shall thy seed be. And he believed in the Lord, and he counted it to him for righteousness. Now that's our text for today. And he, that's Abraham, believed in the Lord. He, that's the Lord, counted it to him for righteousness. Now I'll admit that what is said here concerning Abraham may appeal to some people as if it was just simply a kind of historical record, with no application to them, until you come over to the New Testament. And I want you to turn over now to the book of Romans, Epistle to the Romans. Chapter four, verse one. Romans chapter four, verse one. What shall we say then that Abraham our father, pertaining to the flesh, has found? For if Abraham were justified by works, he has whereof the glory, but not before God. For what says the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted or reckoned unto him for righteousness. Now look again at Paul's letter to the Galatians, the Epistle to the Galatians. Chapter three, Galatians chapter three verse six. Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham. And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, in thee shall all nations be blessed. So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham. Now for our last reading, turn over to the Epistle of James. James, just after the Epistle to the Hebrews, then you come to James, chapter two. James chapter two verse twenty three. And the scripture was fulfilled, which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness, and he was called the friend of God. Sure the Lord will bless to us the reading of these scriptures. Let us bow for a moment of prayer. Our Father, again we bow our hearts before thee, thanking thee for thy kindness to us, allowing us to gather together like this in peace and in quietness, being able to read thy word publicly, no one daring to stop us. But we do ask that by thy Holy Spirit, thou shalt now deal with each of us and impress upon our hearts and minds today the things we have read from the inspired scriptures. Bring glory to thy son. Exalt his name in our midst today, through some sinner coming to trust him. We ask it now, giving thanks in his precious name. Amen. And Abraham believed God. It was counted to him for righteousness. It's very interesting when you come to chapter fifteen, the book of Genesis, how it starts. So this was a particular crisis, it would appear, in the life of this great man, Abraham. Yet the first three words of the chapter cause us to stop and think and ask a few questions. After these things. You see, this particular incident in the life of Abraham is marked out historically as a point of time in his life. It was after the, not before these things, but after these things. And when you read such words as these, you stop and you say to yourself, well, after what things? What are these things? And what effect did these things have upon Abraham? Now, let me remind each of you again, and I remind myself of this great principle, that God does move in the circumstances of the lives of men and women. We don't just live unto ourselves. There are times when God can break into the circumstances of a person's life. And you and I have got to be sensitive enough to these things when God's dealing with us. You can't just afford to bury your head down in the sand and say, no God for me. This has nothing to do with God. If God's been moving in the circumstances of one's life, we ought to stop and ask why. What is the lesson God is seeking to teach us? What can be my responsibility towards God and towards my fellow man after these things. Now, I suppose that it can take you back to chapter twelve and you can read on from chapter twelve through chapter thirteen and chapter fourteen. read those three chapters, and you pick out the things that are recorded for us in these chapters after these things. But in particular, no doubt it's referring to the things that are recorded for us in the chapter immediately preceding this one, that is chapter fourteen. Now, it's an amazing thing that in chapter fourteen we have the record of the first war in the Bible. First battle, great battle. So many kings against so many kings, and this side is victorious, and as a result, the sort of final thing is that notice comes to Abraham that his own nephew Lot has been taken prisoner. It seems to be the kind of final triumph of those kings and their great triumphal march and overthrowing their enemies. They come down to Sodom and Gomorrah, and they beat the forces of these cities. And here, poor Lot, Abraham's nephew, has been taken captive. He's lost everything. He's a prisoner. And Abraham wasn't given to war. He had no war machine really ready. He had so many servants. He trained them, and off he went. And God was with him, and God blessed Abraham. They had a very special way in which they attacked the enemy, a surprise attack, and he delivered Lot, and he delivered all the goods and shackles that had been taken away when these kings came and overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. He got all that booty, and he brought it back. Now, a strange thing happened on the way back. We're introduced to a great personality there called Melchizedek, priest of the Most High God, who met Abraham when he was coming back after that great victory, and he blessed him. And then out came another king, the king of Sodom. He tries to make friends with Abraham. Now remember, Sodom was a wicked, sinful area. And the king of Sodom must have agreed with what was going on. And Lot himself, who is now taken prisoner and then delivered by his uncle Abraham, Lot himself had vexed his righteous soul by what was going on in Sodom. Out comes the king of Sodom, and in effect he's saying, oh, Abraham, you're such a great man. Y- you've done a wonderful thing. Now I'll tell you what we'll do. Just let me have the people, all those prisoners you brought, let me have the people, and you can have all the goods. Abraham says, look, I wouldn't even take a shoelace from you. You can have the people, and you can have all the goods as well. I wouldn't take a piece of string from you, in case you would go away and say that you had made Abraham rich. Keep them, I don't want them. After these things, strange experiences, where he had to go along there and engage himself in battle for the sake of delivering, delivering his, his nephew. And remember, Lot hadn't treated him very well. Lot had quarreled with him. Abraham gave him the first choice. He says, you make your choice, Lot. If you go to the right, I'll go to the left. If you go to the left, I'll go to the right, but you have the first choice. And I'll take whatever's left. It was only after that God said to him, now, Abraham, I want you to go up to that mountain top. I want you to look to the north, the south, east, west, as far as your eye can see. He said, I'm going to give that to you someday. I promise you that's the land you'll get. He left the choice with God. But now, in spite of the fact that Lot had treated him in such a shabby manner, he goes out to deliver him, and he's still going to pray for him later on. But now look, after these things, after these things. The word of the Lord came to Abraham. Now, this is us introduced here to a theme that you'll find throughout the whole of the scriptures. The word of the Lord came unto Abraham. My friend, I suppose you have a Bible in the house. If you haven't, there's something wrong. Yet it's amazing the number of people, even in this country, with all its blessings, it's amazing the number of people who don't have a Bible. I think I've told you from this desk before that one of my brothers, one day was sitting in a workshop with a man, and they were discussing things, and the man turned to him, he says, John, do you ever read your Bible? He looked at him, he says, well, Bobby, he said, I'll, I'll be frank with you. He said, I haven't read it for a long time since I left Sunday school. He says, I don't know if we have a Bible in the house. That was after he was married, you see, there were plenty in the house where he was raised. I was married. He went home and he said to his wife, he said, Mary, do we have a Bible in the house? She says, we ought to. She says, somebody gave me one as a present when we got married. I'm not sure where it is, but I'll search for it if you want it. And she had to search to find. Now, he knew where he could get one, so my mother told me he was coming down when I wasn't there, and he was going into my bookcase, and he was taking them out there and looking at them. But could you imagine anybody being raised in a house where the Bible lay around all the time, in fact, two or three of them, and then getting married, being in their own house and not having a Bible? Something wrong there, isn't there? I'm gonna tell you this, it wasn't long until he got one. Because when he found the Savior, that the first thing he wanted, a new Bible. And he has read it well since then. The word of the Lord came unto Abram, the word of the... Even if you have a Bible in the house, my friend, have you ever sat down and said to yourself, now what is written in there is the word of the Lord. Now don't argue with it. Don't say, oh, I don't believe that. My friend, this is the word of the Lord. All scripture is given by inspiration of God. This is God's word. But perhaps it's never come to you. It may never have struck your heart. Even yet, it may not have reached your conscience, that God speaks. It's God's word. And if it's God's word, we ought to give attention to it. The word of the Lord came unto Abraham. Now, it may be you're saying, but didn't the word of the Lord come to Abraham before this? No. Well, what happened when he was down in Arap the Chaldees? Didn't the word of the Lord come to him? No. Didn't. It was the God of glory who appeared to Abraham. God himself broke into his life. We're not told how. We're simply told it was the God of glory appeared to him. But now here he's on the pilgrim highway, and the word of the Lord came unto Abraham. Again, we read in verse four, and behold, the word of the Lord came unto him, saying. You see, Abraham at this point, after these things, he comes face to face with the word of the Lord after these things. Now, you know, the pathway of faith is not always an easy pathway. It may lead us along through winding paths, or we may come through difficult days. The history of Abraham proves that. Or if you've never taken time to read John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, you should. To see how this man, from the day he left the city of destruction until the day that he went into the celestial city, think of that pathway he traveled. There was uphill climbs. There was down through the valley of humiliation, there was thunderings and lightnings, there was bypass meadows, there was giant despair, and so on. All these things he had to face even before he got across the river. There may be difficulties. There are problems. Abraham had problems after these things. Now, here are some of the problems then he had to face. Indicating now what we have in chapter fourteen, I want you to put yourself right in the position that Abraham was in when you come to chapter fifteen, thinking of the background. He had to face the problem of safety. Again, I indicate he did not have a war machine. How was he going to protect himself against those enemies? A surprise attack had given him the victory, but remember this, these were powerful enemies. All they had to do was get together again, reassemble, and who would they make for? The man that defeated them. What could he do? Don't you think that there would be a measure of fear there? Perhaps they would attack him in the night and take away all that he possessed. They might take away his cattle and his herds. They may take his servants. They may take all that he had. What then would happen? Where would God's promises be? Oh, there was that, that problem, the problem of safety. Would these enemies that surrounded him, would they attack him? Uh, the word of the Lord came unto him saying, fear not, Abraham. Don't be afraid. I am thy shield. You see, God is providing the fact that he'll be there to protect him. You may be surrounded with those enemies, but Abraham, fear not. I am thy shield. The word of the Lord brings the promise of protection. Again, what about the problem of supply? You see, he might have been well off if he had, uh, agreed to enter into a covenant with the king of Sodom, but he didn't. He turned it down. He says, I don't need your support. I don't need your help. I wouldn't take a shoe latch it from you. Keep what you've got. In plain words, they didn't want anything that pertained to Sodom. All right, says God, fear not, Abraham, I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward. You see, the whole thing is this. He's going to find in all his problems that God is his refuge. Oh, the psalmist also knew that God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. He learned that God was his refuge. He also learned that God is his resource. His resources were not found down in Sodom and Gomorrah, that sinful place. No, no, his resources were in God, and he could trust God. Not only so, he said, fear not, Abraham, I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward. God would be his reward. He would wait God's time, and if he wouldn't take a shoelace from the king of Sodom, he would wait and take what God had for him. The word of the Lord came unto. But now again, he had that problem of safety, the problem of supply, but he's faced with something else, and this is what leads to the vital thing in this passage. He's saying, that's all right, you're going to protect me, you'll be my shield, and you'll supply me, you'll be my ro- but, but, what about the promises? Uh, you've never given me an heir yet. You've never given me any seed. You've never given me a son. Now, if I'm to inherit something, then who's going to come into the good of it? You haven't given me a child. I go childless. And remember, at this time, Abraham was about eighty five years of age. And Sarah was old. And so far as Sarah was concerned, and so far as Abraham was concerned, it was actually impossible from the human point of view for him to have an heir, somebody to come into the good of the promises that God had given to him. And he's saying, oh, I- I'm puzzled. Here's my problem. You haven't given me a son. And if I don't get a son, then it means that this Eleazar of Damascus that served my house, he's going to come in and claim everything. So the promises you've given to me are going to go to him. Now, says God, behold, the word of the Lord came unto him and said, this shall not be thine heir, but he that shall come forth out of thine own bow shall be thine heir. They brought him forth abroad and said, Look now towards heaven and tell the stars. Look up there, Abraham. Could you tell me about those stars? How many stars can you count? Now, Abraham be looking up at the starry sky with the naked eye. Now, you know, we go out starry night and you can see all those stars twinkling up there, you could count them. But suppose we went along and saw that great big telescope, and and we looked through a telescope now, and we saw the stars through that. My, they'd be multiplied a hundred times over and more. Abraham didn't have a telescope. He was simply looking at them with the naked eye, and he couldn't tell them there were so many. All right, says God, I'll give you seed, all right, and they'll be more plentiful than the stars of heaven. He's already told them that they would be like the sand of the earth, the dust of the earth. Now he said, they shall be like the stars of heaven for multitude. God made- gives them the promise, and when God speaks to them, the word of the Lord comes direct. Behold, the word of the Lord came unto him, to Abraham, say, and my friend, you and I have got to face this. When we come to the word of God, it's direct. You see, it's not for that fellow that lives in the next town, or the next street, or the next house, or the next pew. See, the word of the Lord came to him. It comes to me. If I'm reading this, what is God saying to me? And if the preacher's preaching, what is he saying to you? Not the person over the other side, to you. The word of the Lord comes direct. It's for us. And he speaks to him not only directly, but it's very definite. This shall not be thine heir, but he that shall come forth out of thine own bow shall be thine heir. That- that's very definite. And he didn't have a son at this time, but God says you'll have one. So far as Abraham was concerned, from the human point of view, that was impossible. Now, this is what we want to come to when you come to the text, you see, he's facing a human impossibility. But while it's a human impossibility, God says it, and God gives the details of it. And he says, out of the seed I'll give to you, be more numerous than the stars of heaven. Then you come to the famous text, and he believed in the Lord, and he counted it to him for righteousness. Here is the principle of acceptance with God, introduced to us here with those three great words, and he believed. He believed in the Lord. And he, that's God, counted it or reckoned it to him for righteousness. In plain words, here's Abraham brought to the condition and the position where he has a perfect acceptance with God. Didn't he have that before? No. Abraham was no more righteous than you are. Abraham was no more righteous than his father was. He was no more righteous than his nephew was. Abraham was an idolater down in Ur of the Chaldees when the God of glory appeared to him. He had no more claim upon God than anyone else. And I wish that men and women could learn this today. You're no better, my friend, than anyone else. For the Bible brings us all to the same common platform. We're put on the same level for all of sin. There is none righteous, none. That included Abraham. It includes you, it includes me. There is none righteous. Oh, you're saying, Mr. Man, you don't know me. Do you know the good things I've done? Do you know my- how much I have contributed to charities? My friend, I don't care what you've contributed to charities, that doesn't make you righteous. You can't buy your way into God's heaven. You can't buy righteousness. You cannot buy salvation. The Bible distinctly says, and this is the word of the Lord, there is none righteous, no, not one. And when you come over to Paul's letter to the Romans, that great thesis on salvation, the thesis on how a man or a woman has a- an acceptance with God, how we can be justified with God, then he throws back on this very passage here, and he tells us that Abraham believed in the Lord, and it was counted to him for righteousness. What did he believe? He trusted himself entirely to what God says, and humanly it was impossible for God to carry, for Abraham to carry that out, but it was possible for God to carry it out. And when God says, that's what it will be, Abraham, Abraham couldn't understand how that could be, but he believed it. He believed it. Now, later on, when you take the passage from Romans and the passage from the Galatian letter and the passage I read to you from James, here is what you find. That when he's laying down that thesis in Romans, he's showing that the great thing is here, that the emphasis is laid on the fact that he believed. He believed. When you come to the nun, he, God counted it to him for righteousness. But when you come to James, James swings it round a little, and James says, yes, but there was evidence of it. And James says, here is the work that came out of it. He believed, and he proved it. When did he prove it? Here it simply says he believed. But when you come to Genesis chapter twenty two, when his faith is put to the test, certainly he believed God, for he took his son, and God asked him to lay his son on the altar. He says, there he is, you've given him to me, I'll give him back. He laid his son on the altar, believing this, according to Hebrews chapter eleven, that God would have to raise him again from the dead in order for God to keep his promises. And if God had given him already as from the dead when he gave him in birth, because it wasn't possible for Sarah to conceive and have the child, except there was divine intervention. Now he said, a God that can do that, and he's asked me to put him on the altar, he'll raise him up again. You see, he proved by his works that he believed God. But you see, when Paul is writing in the Epistle to the Romans and in the Epistle to the Galatians, he's showing us that you're not saved through your works. You're saved by faith in what God has said and what God has done. Now, Abraham believed God, and this points to the fact that there's a seed that's promised, and it's in that seed that the promise will be fulfilled. Look, my friend, you and I cannot be justified with God. We cannot have an acceptance with God apart from the son of Abraham. That's where your New Testament begins. This is the book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Salvation is not bound up in Isaac, although Isaac was the son of promise, but salvation is bound up in the Lord Jesus Christ, who came of the line of Abraham. He was the seed in whom all the countries, all the nations, all the peoples of the earth would be blessed. God made his promise. God will keep his promise. Abraham didn't understand how that could be, but if the Lord said it, Abraham said, that's good enough for me. Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Here then he stands, counted by God as being righteous. Not that he had any righteousness in his own, but God reckons it to him, makes him righteous. If you and I are going to have a standing with God, it will only be in the righteousness that God imputes to us, and that righteousness is found in Christ. If you have to have an acceptance with God, that acceptance can only be in the person of Jesus. It's a mutual acceptation, see? The Lord Jesus Christ finished the work at Calvary. He gave complete satisfaction to the claims of God's holy throne. God accepts his son in the perfection of his work, the sacrifice of the cross. You and I accept Christ. It's a mutual acceptation, and God accepts us in the person of his son. That being so, my friend, I ask you, have you ever accepted Jesus Christ as your savior? Have you believed in the Lord, and it's been counted unto you for righteousness. If you haven't accepted Christ, then you've got no acceptance with God. You're still unrighteous. You're still unsaved. And to die in that state means to be lost, and lost forever. Abraham believed in the Lord, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Let us pray. Father, we bow our hearts before thee, and very quietly we ask that by thy Holy Spirit there shall bring conviction to every one of us. May we see ourselves as thou dost see us, and grant that some heart shall be yielded today, that someone will lay down the arms of rebellion and be willing to submit, as Abraham did, that they may believe in the Lord and have it reckoned to them for righteousness. Hear us in these things for the Lord Jesus' sake. Amen. Will you sing two verses of a hymn in closing? Just two verses. Number two hundred and twenty eight. We'll sing verses one and three. Brother Bobby will come and lead us in the singing of those two verses. My faith has found a resting place, not in device nor creed. I trust the ever-living one, his wounds for me shall plead. Look at verse three. My heart is leaning on the word, the written word of God, salvation by my Savior's name, salvation through his blood. I need no other argument. I need no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died and that he died for me. We'll just keep seated and we'll sing verses one and three, after which this meeting is entirely over. But my friend, if you're not saved, and the word of the Lord has got home to you, and you'd like to talk to someone about it, don't run away, and we'll not run away. If you have a friend with you, tell your friend, say, look, I'm not saved, but I'd like to be. The friend might be able to sit down and help you, or come and see us. We'll be at the front. We'll be glad to sit down and help you if we can help you further to understand the way of salvation. Verses one and three of number two twenty eight. My faith has found a resting place, not in divide nor creed. I trust the ever-living One, His ones for me shall flee. I need no other argument, I need no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died and that he died for me. My heart is leaning on the word, the written word of God. Salvation by my Savior's name, salvation through his blood. I need no other argument. I need no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died and that he died for me.