Israel: The Land of Promise

Well, as you know, a number of us from Calvary recently went to Israel, the land of promise, and we have some pictures, just a few of our group.

There were 46 of us. We had a tremendous time in that land. And as I was there, and as I was preparing to go, I was reminded of God's promises to Israel. So I thought it would be appropriate as we have finished the subject of the seven deadly sins to the relief of all of you, that our subject today is Israel, the land of promise. Do you know that the key to the future in terms of the world is not the United States, it's not China, it's not Russia, it's not the European Union, it's not the United Nations, but it is the little country of Israel. That tiny country is on land which is still disputed today.

It is surrounded by many enemies, some of whom would like to obliterate the nation and push them right into the Mediterranean Sea. As we read the Old Testament, the Old Testament Scriptures, we learn about the history of Israel and I trust you read the Old Testament. But what about the future? Is there a future for the nation of Israel and if so, what is that future? Let me ask the question another way. Since the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, has the church replaced Israel in such a way that all of the Old Testament promises to Israel find their fulfillment in the New Testament church?

That's the question. Let me answer it very directly. The Scriptures, as we will see today, predict a future for Israel and its land. It is true that Israel and the church share special relationships with God but they are still different entities. There is a distinct future for Israel as we will see according to Scripture. The church, the glorious church of Jesus Christ, which the Lord Jesus Christ is building, has not replaced Israel. Now some of you are sitting here thinking, why on earth is He talking about such a subject?

Because it's totally removed from my daily life. Well, here at Calvary Church we're committed to the Holy Scriptures and in reading your Bible, Old Testament and New Testament, you're going to come across this subject of Israel and we need to understand it. We're going to learn today, and I ask you to open your Bibles to Genesis, the first book of the Bible. We will discover that the central unifying factor in the future of Israel is what is called the Abrahamic Covenant. Now I realize to some of you this is very new, to others of you it's familiar material, but it is to this subject, this wonderful covenant called the Abrahamic Covenant that I want to draw your attention to this morning as we think of the subject, Israel, the land of promise. I want to give a brief overview of this very important covenant made thousands of years ago.

It is true, but still has an impact for us today. Genesis 12, first book in the Bible, the book of beginnings, the book of creation, the book of Noah and the ark, and here we come across this amazing man that we know as Abraham. Let me read the first four verses to you. Abraham, Genesis 12 verse 1, now the Lord said to Abraham, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house, notice this, to the land that I will show you.

He's leaving one country and he's going to another country that the Lord will show him. And I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonours you, I will curse.

And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Verse 4, so Abraham went as the Lord had told him. In the Bible, Abraham is presented as a great man of faith, a great example of what it is to be a person of faith.

Here, amazing thing happens. The Lord calls this man Abraham, later becoming Abraham. He calls him from his home, from his country, from his relatives. He's living in a place called Ur of the Chaldeans. It's in the present country of Iraq, about 220 miles southeast of Baghdad.

If you know world geography, you can picture of it. And here it is. And he trusts God, this man. He hears the call of God.

He's living in the land of the Chaldeans, well away from Israel, and he begins to follow God. The Bible says that he did this by faith. In Hebrews 11, the great chapter on faith, we read that Abraham went out not knowing where he was going.

You think that's really foolish to leave your home and to go and you don't know where you're going. Well, he knew this. His trust was in God. He was a man of faith. His faith was not just theoretical.

It wasn't just something he talked about. This was a demonstration of his obedience. He clearly hears the call of God and he leaves everything he knows and goes into the unknown. He believed God and he acted on that belief. It's called the obedience of faith. If you listen to Sibu as he spoke to the candidates for baptism, he was asking them, is your trust in Jesus Christ? And then he said, are you going to follow the commandments of the Lord for the rest of your life? That is, true faith results in a difference. It's not just what we say. It results in action.

It results in a change of lifestyle. And Abraham is a great example of that. Do you have that kind of faith? Now, now the Abrahamic covenant is going to be made. The Abrahamic covenant is not made in Genesis 12.

The promise is given there, but did you notice the promise? Verse 2, I will make of you a great nation. I will bless you.

I will make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I turn over to chapter 15 of Genesis where the covenant is made, called the Abrahamic covenant. Genesis 15, God takes him outside and shows him all the stars and says, see the stars?

Your descendants are going to be like that. Said to man at that point who doesn't have any children. Verse 6, he believes the Lord and it's counted to him as righteousness. And he said to him, I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans. Notice this, to give you this land, a land of promise, a land of Canaan, this land to possess. Verse 13, the Lord said to Abraham, know for certain that your offspring shall be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there and they will be afflicted for 400 years. Prophecy given to Abraham that is going to have any descendants and for 400 years they're going to be in bondage. We know that from Scripture, that's the land of Egypt where the people of Israel were in bondage to the Egyptians before the great exodus led by the man Moses. Verse 17, when the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. On that day, here it is, the Lord made a covenant with Abraham saying, to your offspring, we're listening to this, to your offspring I will give this land from the river of Egypt, that's the Nile, to the great river, the river Euphrates.

Again if you know your geography you can picture that. To the west boundary is the Nile, away to the east it is the Euphrates. Now, God is making a covenant with Abraham. Another covenants in that culture, both parties walked between the pieces of animals, but in this case only God, not Abraham, passed between the parts of the animal. God was unilaterally ratifying the covenant in this symbolic way, demonstrating that God was solely responsible for the covenant. It was not dependent on the faithfulness of Abraham and his descendants, but rather on the faithfulness of God. The promises of the Abrahamic covenant are guaranteed by God Himself. So the keeping of the covenant is as certain and sure as the living God. Normally if you enter into a contract with someone, there are two parties.

You have your part to play, I have mine. And if one doesn't perform under the responsibilities, the obligations of the covenant, of the contract, it comes to an end. There's a breach of covenant.

This was different. This was a unilateral covenant which is guaranteed by God Himself. That is once the covenant is established, its continuing validity is unconditional. Go over to chapter 17. Now stay with me. I realize some of you, your eyes are getting a little glazed here. Stay with me. It's not that difficult.

Keep your brain engaged. Genesis 17 verse 1, when Abraham was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to Abraham and said, I am God Almighty and walk before me and be blameless that I may make my covenant, here it is again, between me and you and may multiply you greatly. Then Abraham fell on his face and God said to him, well my covenant is with you and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abraham, but your name shall be called Abraham for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful and I will make you into nations and kings shall come from you and I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you and your offspring after you, notice this, the land of your sojourners, all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession and I will be their God. Verse 19, I will establish my covenant with him, that is with Isaac, the child of promise, the son of Abraham and Sarah. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him. Notice the continuation of this covenant doesn't rest on Abraham's descendants faithfully fulfilling certain conditions. The Abrahamic covenant, this is very important, is an everlasting covenant. It's irrevocable and we see the continuation of this covenant throughout Scripture.

I've put some of the references up there for you. For example, Genesis 26 verse 3, Genesis 26 verse 3, sojourn in this land. Here's the promise now to Isaac. After a long, long time, Isaac, the son of promise is born and the covenant is being repeated to Isaac.

Sojourn in this land and I will be with you and will bless you. For to you and your offspring I will give you these lands and I will establish the oath then I swore to Abraham your father. I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and will give to your offspring all these lands and in your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. The covenant is made with Abraham. It is repeated, reinforced with his son Isaac, chapter 28. Now it is being repeated to Isaac's son who is Jacob.

He's in a place called Bethel. Genesis 28 verse 13. It's the story of the angels going up and down on the ladder. We call it Jacob's ladder, sleeping on the stone.

Some of you remember that. Genesis 28 verse 13. Behold the Lord stood above it. Now he's speaking to Jacob. I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac.

The land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring. Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east, to the north and south and in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed. It's repeated to Isaac.

It's repeated to Jacob. Last chapter of Genesis. Genesis chapter 50. Joseph is in Egypt.

He's about to die and he makes a tremendous statement as he is dying. Here it is, Genesis 50, the last words of the first book of the Bible. Genesis 50 verse 24. Joseph, remember the story, he's in Egypt, said to his brothers, I'm about to die but God will visit you and bring you up out of this land, that's Egypt, to the land that he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. Joseph believes, he had heard this, no doubt as a little boy from his father and repeated that God had promised the land and Joseph believes that they are going to go into this land. Verse 25, Joseph made the sons of Israel swear saying, God will surely visit you and you shall carry up my bones from here. So Joseph died being 110 years old. They embalmed him and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.

The man is dying. He's claiming this promise of a land. They're in bondage in Egypt, but he believes that God is going to put them into the land as indeed God does. And when that happens, and we'll read it later in Scripture, that they take the bones of Joseph and they're buried in Israel near Shechem today, claiming the promises of God. This is the making of what we call the Abrahamic covenant. And the sign of the covenant to the Jewish nation was circumcision. When God makes a covenant, He gives us a sign. He made a covenant with Noah and we have the sign of the rainbow. He made a covenant with Moses, we call it the Mosaic covenant, and the sign is the Sabbath and so on. Here, the sign of the Abrahamic covenant is circumcision. It was a daily reminder to Abraham and his descendants that God would not go back on His promises, that God would not reject His people. It was a sign of God's faithfulness. It was also a sign to the nation, to the Israelites, that they should be faithful to God, that they should be separated from the pagan nations. It was a reminder of their need for purity and holiness, the making of the Abrahamic covenant. Now what are the terms of the covenant? Every covenant, every contract has certain terms. What were the terms of the Abrahamic covenant? Well, we've read them.

Let me remind you of them. There are four aspects of them. First of all, there are personal blessings. God said to Abraham, I'm going to make you a great man. Is that true?

Yes. Abraham is one of the best known people in all of history. He's revered today by the Jews, being the father of their nation. He's revered today by Muslims, being the father of Ishmael. He's certainly revered for Christians, because our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, is described – remember how Matthew begins his gospel?

We studied it, began studying it about three years ago. Matthew 1, verse 1, the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Our Lord Jesus Christ is a descendant of Abraham himself. He's a son of Abraham. He's a father of kings.

He's a father of nations. Abraham personally was a great man personally blessed by God. Personal blessings. Secondly, there were national blessings. Through the Abrahamic covenant, the Jewish nation has been blessed.

What was the promise? Genesis 12, verse 2, I will make of you, Abraham, a great nation. Israel, the descendants of this man Abraham, was to be a great nation. They were to have a special relationship with God.

So we read in Deuteronomy chapter 7, for example, God says, Moses says, you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you, Israel, to be a people for his treasured possession out of all of the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all people. There were greater nations. More people in these nations. Why did God choose?

Verse 8, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Isn't that interesting? Do you know anything about world history? In spite of almost continuous persecution, the contribution of the Jewish nation in philosophy, science, Nobel Prize winners, literature, politics, technology, and finance is incalculable. Each year from 2015 to 2020, the University of Pennsylvania has asked 17,000 opinion leaders in 20 countries to rank the world's most powerful countries. Now Israel is only 0.1 percent of the world's population. One-tenth of one percent, a very small nation. But, according to this survey, Israel is consistently ranked as the eighth most powerful country in the world.

Think of that. God has taken this small nation, in spite of all of his persecution, in spite of all that has happened, and made it today, Israel is one of the most influential countries in the world. Under the Abrahamic Covenant there was a promise of national blessings. Personal blessings to Abraham, national blessings to the nation of Israel. Third, there are universal blessings. Genesis 12, verse 3, what was the promise? God promised Abraham that through Abraham, in Abraham, all the families of the earth will be blessed.

What an amazing statement. God takes a man from Ur of the Chaldeans, reveals himself to him, this man of faith, and says to Abraham, I'm going to make you a great man, through you there's going to be a great nation, but furthermore, in you, all of the families of the earth will be blessed. Those who are blessed, those who bless Abraham and his descendants are going to be blessed by God. Those who curse Abraham and his descendants are going to be cursed by God. The Jewish nation has been cursed and persecuted throughout its history. Anti-Semitism continues to this day. There's attacks on synagogues, Jewish people are criticized, slurs against them. Worldwide there are nations still today that hate the Jewish nation, they hate Jews. The Jewish nation has been persecuted over the years by the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Romans, the Third Reich, many others. Six million Jews, yes, six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust of World War Two.

Think of that. But all of these great empires which once persecuted the Jewish nation no longer exists. Where are the Canaanites? Where are the Romans? Where is the Third Reich?

Where are the Byzantines and the Ottomans? All of them who were once in the Promised Land have gone, all gone, but today the Jewish nation is in the land and it is flourishing. The blessings of the Abrahamic Covenant, however, come not only to the Jewish nation, they come to us who are Gentiles. The promise is in you Abraham, all of the families of the earth will be blessed. Now you say, how are we blessed in any sense by Abraham? Most of us here are not Jewish. I'm a Gentile.

In what way then am I blessed? Through Jesus Christ, who is not only the son of David, he is the son of Abraham. Furthermore, he is the mediator of the Abrahamic Covenant. Through him, the universal blessings of the Abrahamic Covenant are available to all of us who believe. Do you understand that I'm a son of Abraham? You say, come on, you're Scottish, you're not a son of Abraham.

I don't think I have any Jewish DNA in me. Well, turn in your Bibles to the New Testament, Galatians. There's 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians. If you don't have a Bible, there's one in the pew in front of you. Galatians chapter 3.

Here is something wonderful. Galatians 3 verse 6. Paul in Galatians is preaching against the legalism of the Judaizers. He's emphasizing that salvation is not based on works. It's not based on the works of the law, but it is by faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Notice his argument. Galatians 3 verse 6. Just as Abraham believed, and it was counted to him as righteousness. Paul takes Abraham as this great example of a man of faith. A man who took God at his word. A man who stepped out in faith.

A great example to us. Verse 7. Know then, here it is, that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham.

Those who are baptized, maybe they didn't know it. They were sons and daughters of Abraham. Verse 8. And the Scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham saying, and we read it from Genesis, in you shall all the nations be blessed. So then, says Paul, verse 9, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. In a wonderful sense the blessings of God under the Abrahamic covenant come to those of us who have faith in the son of Abraham, our Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 14. So that in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles so that we might receive the promised spirit through faith.

Verse 29. And if you're Christ's, then you're Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise. In Jesus Christ, the offspring of Abraham, all of the families and nations of the earth are blessed.

How wonderful. Have you entered into that blessing? Again, I have to ask you, is your faith not in yourself, not in your church, not in your works, not what you do, but is your faith entirely in Christ alone? If so, the blessings of the Abrahamic covenant come to us. We are sons and daughters of Abraham. But, here's the point, these blessings to the Gentiles in Christ don't abrogate, they don't cancel, they don't repeal a future blessing for Israel. Israel is not being replaced by the church.

God will fulfill His promises to Israel. We are Gentiles, Paul tells us in Romans 11, we are grafted into the olive tree. How did the gospel of Jesus Christ come? It came first to the Jews.

That's what Paul says. I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it's the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first, and then to the Gentile. And we are Gentiles, and as a Gentile, I've come to Christ, and I've placed my trust in Christ as my Savior, and I am a son of Abraham. Personal blessings to Abraham, national blessings, universal blessings, finally land blessings.

Did you know this? Genesis 7, Genesis 12 rather, verse 7, that land was promised. Verse 7 of Genesis 12, the Lord appeared to Abraham and said to your offspring, I will give this land. Chapter 15, verse 18, on that day the Lord made a covenant with Abraham saying to your offspring I give this land from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, the land of the Canaanites. God is guaranteeing that the land of Canaan, we call it the promised land will be Israel's land.

What a promise. It's repeated throughout Scripture, for example, in Psalm 105, Psalm 105, verse 7. Here's the Psalmist, he is the Lord our God, his judgments are in all the earth. He remembers his covenant forever, the word that he commanded for a thousand generations. Do you think God ever forgets his word? Do you think God ever forgets a promise that he makes? Does God ever go back on what he has said?

No. Verse 8, the covenant that he made with Abraham, his sworn promise to Isaac, which he confirmed to Jacob as a statute to Israel as an everlasting covenant saying to you, here it is, I will give the land of Canaan as your portion for an inheritance. A promise of the land, and that land, the land of Israel, and we thought of it recently when we were in Israel, is at the strategic center of the world. It's at the hub of three great continents, Europe, Asia, and Africa.

What a tremendous place in the world, right at the center of the world as it were, a tiny country. Americans are amazed how small it is compared with our vast nation, a small country, but strategically positioned, chosen obviously by God as he calls Abraham to that country, and it is land which throughout the history of the world has been disputed and fought over and is still today one of the most disputed parts of the world, still at the center of the Middle East crisis. God promises, however, that he would give the land to Abraham and his offspring forever.

His boundaries from the Nile to the river Euphrates. God has guaranteed the title deed of the land of Israel to the Jewish people, and God will not go back on his promises. We've seen the temple was built with the privilege of actually walking on the temple mount where Solomon's temple was built, then Herod's temple, the second temple, and we remembered the words of our Lord that that mighty temple, that beautiful temple built by Herod was going to be destroyed so that one stone would not be left on top of the other, and it was true.

In AD 70, Jerusalem and the temple are destroyed by the Romans. The Jewish nation is scattered to the four winds of the world, and for over 1900 years the land of Israel was in the possession of the Romans, the Arabs, the Crusaders, the Turks, and the British, although there has always been a remnant of Jews in the land. Perhaps someone asked, I'm sure they did, was there a future for Israel? Had God forgotten his promises under the Abrahamic Covenant?

And then a miracle happened. After 2,000 years without a homeland, scattered, persecuted, the Jewish sovereign state came into being. In 1917, the British Balfour Declaration was made, and the Jews with great difficulty, sadly sometimes opposed by the British, the Jews began to return to Israel. Some of them had come in the late 19th century. And on May 14, 1948, Israel became the homeland of the Jewish nation.

How wonderful. Thousands of years after God's promises to Abraham, Israel today exists as a nation in spite of the many attacks on it and the continuing friction. Israel today stands as one of the most significant nations in the world, tiny although it is.

What about its future? After the rapture of the church and during the tribulation, Israel will again become the focus of God's purposes. Revelation 7 talks of 12,000 from each of the 12 tribes, 144,000 will become as it were evangelists and go throughout the world proclaiming the gospel and Jews and Gentiles will be saved.

At the end of that tribulation period, our glorious Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, the rider on the white horse described in Revelation 19, will return as King of Kings and Lord of Lords and He comes with glory and power. And the Bible says that they will look on Him whom they pierced, that Israel as a nation will look on the Savior and they will mourn with Him, for Him in a time of forgiveness. And the nation of Israel will be saved by confessing that Jesus is Lord and believing that God raised Him from the dead and Israel will be gathered into the land and bow to Jesus the deliverer. Paul says in Romans 11 verse 26, and in this way, all Israel will be saved.

What's going to happen? Our magnificent Lord, where is He going to reign from? Jerusalem, the very center of the earth that God has not forgotten.

The promises He made to Abraham and the covenant that was entered into. Ezekiel chapter 37 is the chapter on the dry bones, them bones, them dry bones. Well here it is, Ezekiel 37, listen to it, verse 11, He said to me, Son of Man, these bones are the whole house of Israel.

Dry bones. Behold, they say, our bones are dried up and our hope is lost. We are indeed cut off, therefore prophesy and say to them, thus says the Lord God, behold I will open your graves and raise you up from your graves, O my people, and I will bring you into the land of Israel and you shall know that I am the Lord when I open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people, and I will put my Spirit within you and you shall live and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the Lord. I have spoken and I will do it, declares the Lord. Verse 24, my servant David shall be king over them, but David has long died.

Oh, he's referring to our Savior who is David's greater son, our Lord Jesus Christ. My servant David shall be king over them and they shall all have one shepherd. They shall walk in my rules and be careful to obey my statutes. They shall dwell in the land that I gave to my servant Jacob where your fathers lived. They and their children and their children's children shall dwell there forever and David my servant shall be their prince forever and I will make a covenant of peace with them. It will be an everlasting covenant with them and I will set them in their land and multiply them and will set my sanctuary and their midst forevermore. My dwelling place shall be with them and I will be their God and they shall be my people. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord who sanctifies Israel when my sanctuary is in their midst forevermore." Prophecy made by Ezekiel, a prophecy which is not yet fully fulfilled. Yes, Israel is in the land, but they're largely by unbelief. They're not possessing all of the land, but in this glorious day when our Savior comes, national Israel will be restored and will enter into the land.

Israel's land is guaranteed in accordance with the unconditional Abrahamic covenant, an irrevocable, everlasting promise that Israel has not been replaced or superseded by the church. Probably not. Now you say, I'm not sure if I follow all of that, John.

What's there for me? Well, I want you to understand this. Do you doubt the truthfulness of the Bible? Do you doubt the reality of a living God? Think of God's promises in the Abrahamic covenant. God, please grasp this, we need to grasp this, that God always keeps His promises, that God is faithful. And I have to ask you again, is your faith and trust in this faithful covenant keeping God?

Some of you have been tremendously hurt by people who made promises to you and made undertakings to you and made vows to you which they broke, and they didn't go, they went back on what they said. God never, ever, ever breaks His Word. It's impossible for God to lie, and God promises today that if you receive His Son, Jesus Christ, as your Lord and Savior, this Son, Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham, the one who came from heaven to earth, as we're going to be celebrating over Christmas, and enters into time and space, and He comes not to condemn us, He comes to redeem us, He comes to forgive us, He comes to change us, to free us from our sin and our self-absorption, and He has promised that He will give us eternal life and we will never perish. That's a promise of God.

I have received that promise. I believe that I have eternal life, not because I'm a pastor, not because I'm a good person, but because of the Word of God. He says, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved. If you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you'll be saved. He's promised that He'll never leave us or forsake us. Your friends and family can forsake you.

You can find yourself terribly alone, but God has promised He never leaves His people. God promises that He will give His people all of the strength, all of the grace they need each day. We find ourselves in circumstances where we think we can't go on. We think we can't live another day. Life is so tough. Here is the promise of God. You feel lonely, you feel bruised, you feel battered, you feel abandoned, you feel misunderstood.

Life has been very difficult for you. I want you to remember this morning the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that God is always true to His promises. And that you can be a son of Abraham.

You can be a daughter of Abraham if you do what millions of people have done down through the years and have kneeled before the Savior, repented of your sin, called upon the name of the Lord, and you will be saved. And you enter into this wonderful growing relationship with the living Christ. We realize that we're not justified by what we do, but by what God has done in Christ for us in the redemptive work of His Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ. And we can have, you can have, and I can have complete confidence in the promises of God that you are to trust God, sometimes in the dark, sometimes in the difficulty, and you are to obey God, yes, when it's difficult to do so.

When those around you may be telling you some other advice. But our confidence is in God, a God who keeps His promises and took this man Abraham and made these promises to Him, which have been fulfilled and which will be fulfilled. This is the living God, the covenant keeping God. Trust and serve this faithful God with all of your heart.

Will you do that? We're going to sing about faith, but before we do so, let me ask you to bow in prayer and rejoice that God always keeps His promises to Abraham, to Israel, but also to you and me. Will you claim these promises? Will you put your trust in the Savior today and live by faith? We bow before you, the great God, the living God, the covenant keeping God, we're amazed at your faithfulness. We thank you that even when we are faithless, you're faithful. Thank you for your faithfulness to Israel. We think of their glorious future, but we think of our glorious future that we who are sons and daughters of Abraham have been granted eternal life and we shall never perish. May we be like Abraham, men and women of faith. May we practice the faith of obedience and claim the promises of Scripture. We thank you for your greatness. We thank you for the gift of salvation and that you offer sinful people like us forgiveness, redemption, a new beginning, cleansing as we come to the Savior we pray even though many will be coming to Him, in Christ's name, amen.