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[0:00] Genesis 15 Genesis 15 at verse 17.

[0:33] And it came to pass that when the sun went down and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces.

[0:48] Behold a smoking furnace and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces. And the pieces there refer to the pieces of the animals that Abraham had cut asunder.

[1:03] So the smoking furnace and the burning lamp passed between those pieces. Now this chapter opens with Abraham in a state of fear and to some extent a state of confusion too.

[1:20] And the reason for that I think lies in this that he had made himself a considerable number of enemies due to the fact that he had just been at war.

[1:30] And he had been at war to rescue his own nephew Lot. And when the war was over, no doubt Abraham felt tired and he felt a measure perhaps even of exhaustion.

[1:44] And if he felt lonely before in the land of Canaan, no doubt he felt more lonely now. And he felt more exposed to danger than he had been before.

[1:54] Not only that, after the war, the king of Sodom had come to him. And as a reward for Abraham's help, he offered him all the goods that Abraham could take.

[2:06] Abraham refused it all. And he refused it all as an act of faith. He said, I have lifted up my hand, he said, to the Lord, the Most High God, that I will not take from a thread to a shoe latchet.

[2:18] And I will not take anything that is thine, lest you should say, I have made Abraham rich. Abraham was a witness to God in that place. And he was going to witness to the fact that God was going to look after him.

[2:32] And that God was going to take care of him. And he wasn't going to take the wealth of Sodom, especially, and the wealth of the king of Sodom. He was going to show that his hope and his reliance was upon God.

[2:45] So Abraham went away to his own place. And he had just refused that reward. And he felt an element of fear, tiredness, and exhaustion. And perhaps one night when things were worst, certainly it was during the night, God came to him and came to him in a vision.

[3:05] In the opening words of chapter 15, if you just look at the verse, After these things, the word of the Lord came unto Abraham in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abraham, I am thy shield.

[3:22] Notice, don't be afraid of your enemies. Don't be afraid of darkness. Don't be afraid of powers of wickedness. I am your shield.

[3:33] I am your defense, in other words. I am your protector. And thy exceeding great reward. You have already lost the fertile lands and you gave them to Lot.

[3:45] And now you have refused the vast wealth of the king of Sodom. But God says, I know why you have done that. And you shall be rewarded for it all. For I am your exceeding great reward.

[3:58] And the believer often comes to a place where he knows that. That God is his reward. That we have so much spiritual wealth, enrichment, and nourishment in the Lord our God.

[4:10] And when others find their reward in corn and wine, and the abundance of this world's goods, the believer finds his reward in God. And whenever you make a sacrifice for God, God gives himself to you.

[4:24] That is the law of the kingdom. That is a spiritual law. You give for God in any way at all. And God will come particularly near to you. And that's exactly what you find here.

[4:35] And in fact, if you read over Abraham's life, you constantly find this pattern. Test, obedience, reward. You find that constantly in Abraham's life.

[4:48] Test, he obeys, and there is a reward. Now, and again, there is a disobedience, and there is a chastisement. But usually, it is this pattern.

[4:59] Test, obedience, and reward. And that's what you have here. God tests him. Will you take this wealth? Abraham says no. And God then comes near to him in a vision, a vision of the night, and says to him powerfully in his soul, I am thy shield, and I am thy exceeding great reward.

[5:20] Now, this was a remarkable vision that Abraham got here. He was no doubt most of the time in a state in which we would call a trance, or ecstasy, when God revealed himself to him in a state of trance, a vision.

[5:37] And you'll notice that this began at night time, and it continued right through to the evening of the following day. Now, that's not immediately obvious, but if you look carefully here, notice in verse 5, God tells Abraham to go outside.

[5:54] And he brought him forth abroad and said, Look now toward heaven and tell the stars if thou be able to number them. Now, that tells us that when God came to him in a vision, it was a vision of the night.

[6:10] Already, it was dark. He could look at the stars and he could see them in their multitude. And if you look right down the chapter to verse 12, to another part of the proceedings, we're told this.

[6:23] In verse 12, When the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abraham. So that has immediately put us into the following day and into the following evening.

[6:35] When he gets the vision, it is dark. And by the time the whole thing is finished, a day has passed and the following evening is coming upon Abraham. So he spends a whole day with God in the most remarkable way.

[6:50] And God gives him a most remarkable sign and a most remarkable blessing. Throughout the period of one day, can we say it was the Sabbath? When John, the apostle, was in Patmos for his faith, suffering there for his faith, we're told that he was in the spirit on the Lord's day.

[7:10] And on the Lord's day of rest, Christ revealed himself to John in his glory and showed him what was about to come to pass. And that's exactly what you have here.

[7:21] God draws near to this man for a whole day and he opens the scroll of providence to some degree and he shows Abraham what is to come to pass. For a whole day, Abraham has close and blessed fellowship with God.

[7:35] Isn't it always well worth doing what the Lord requires? Now, interestingly, when God comes near to Abraham and says, I am your shield and your reward, this works in a strange way on Abraham.

[7:52] What it makes him do, and I have no doubt that this is God's intention, what it makes him do is it makes him pour out his heart to God because something is troubling him. And what Abraham says in essence to God is this, he says, what reward can be meaningful to me when I am still childless?

[8:13] And not only that, I am on the verge of making my steward, Eliezer of Damascus, my heir, to be heir of all my property and all my possessions.

[8:26] Verse 3, Abraham said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed and lo, one born in my house is my heir. Now, for Abraham, what mattered wasn't material possessions, it wasn't rewards of that kind, it was just one thing and that was the fulfillment of God's spiritual promises.

[8:52] Abraham wanted a son, a son of blessing, a godly son that would himself be the father of a godly seed that would one day bring the Messiah the savior of the world into the world.

[9:06] That's what Abraham wanted. He looked for spiritual things from his spiritual God and that was the reward that he had an eye to. And he pours out his heart before God.

[9:18] He's been waiting years for this son and this son still hasn't appeared. Now, it's interesting that he doesn't pour out his disillusionment to other people.

[9:28] he doesn't try and infect other people with his own disillusionment about the promises of God as we are sometimes prone to do. What he does is he pours out his heart to God himself.

[9:41] Now, don't you forget that God wants to hear that. I know there's a way in which it is not right to complain, but there is another way in which you absolutely must take your complaints before God.

[9:53] The Lord wants to hear your feelings and your thoughts as they are. What time my heart is overwhelmed and in perplexity do thou me lead unto the rock that higher is than I.

[10:07] Abraham goes with his perplexity to God. Where is my son? Where is the seed? And where is the blessing? For years I've wandered a stranger and a pilgrim in this place.

[10:19] I've fought wars. I've done this and that, but where is the seed? Where is the blessing? And where is the promise? And just to emphasize his own promise, God says to him, No, not Eliezer, he will not be your heir, but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels or really out of your own inward parts or if you like from your own loins, he that shall come forth out of your own inward parts, he shall be thine heir.

[10:53] In other words, Abraham, what I said, I said. I mean what I say and I say what I mean. And he takes Abraham out of his house. Now Abraham must have had this vision inside his tent.

[11:06] God takes him out and in verse 5 he says, Look towards heaven and tell the stars if you are able to number them. And he said to him, So shall your seed be.

[11:17] And you can imagine the wonder of that in a clear Middle Eastern sky through the night looking up and seeing the brightness of the stars.

[11:29] You know, it's something that's very often lost in the modern world. I think I mentioned this some time ago. When we're surrounded with street lighting on all sides, you sometimes forget what glory actually belongs to the stars when you see them against the backdrop of the pitch blackness all around.

[11:45] You see it still of course in country areas and things of that kind. Very often in cities this is lost. But when you look up in blackness and you see the wonder and the glory of the stars and as the psalmist tells us, God created them.

[11:59] He called them forth and he named them one by one. He knows them. Every one of them. From one vast expanse to the other, the Lord who brought them forth named them and he knows them.

[12:11] Everything about them so he says, shall your seed be. In other words, I have called them forth too. I know your children and I know your seed. And of course it refers to spiritual children, spiritual seed.

[12:24] I have named them even now one by one. They are in my covenant, all of them, and they shall be born and they shall be saved and they shall all be taken to glory. No, Abraham, the sun shall come forth out of your own bowels.

[12:40] And we're told gloriously in verse 6, that Abraham believed in the Lord and the Lord counted it to him for righteousness. Now that's a very important verse.

[12:51] I'll come back to it later on. Abraham just believed God and that was counted to him as his righteousness.

[13:02] That made him a good man. That made him an upright man. That made him a man justified with God that he just believed what God said. Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness.

[13:16] But you know, it wasn't finished at that. It wasn't finished at that. God wasn't finished with Abraham there. because what the Lord does is he gives Abraham a sign that all this is going to come to pass.

[13:33] And the sign is one of the most remarkable signs that we have anywhere in the whole of the scriptures. And I think when we fully understand what is happening in this sign with the animals being cut up and so on, we get an insight, a great insight into what God has done for ourselves in his son because that is really what it is all about.

[13:55] God gives him a sign and the sign is this, that he enters into a special relationship with him that is based upon the cutting up of animals.

[14:09] Now I want to look at this with you more closely and may the Lord bless it to our hearts. We'll look first at the preparation that Abraham had to make. Secondly, the strange interval in darkness.

[14:24] And then thirdly and especially the way that this covenant is sealed and that's the words of our text in verse 17. This is the sealing or the ratification of the covenant. It came to pass when the sun went down and it was dark, behold, a smoking furnace and a burning lamp that passed between the pieces.

[14:44] Now, let's take first the preparation God asks Abraham to do something or he commands him to do something. Verse 9.

[14:56] Now listen. God said to him, take me a heifer of three years old and a she goat of three years old and a ram of three years old a turtle dove and a young pigeon.

[15:13] Now for Abraham, that's it. He doesn't have to be told anymore because he knows exactly what he has to do. This is nothing unusual. He knows that when God asks him to take these animals, he knows that God is expecting him to cut up these animals, to cut them lengthways and to place one part of the animal over here and the other half of the animal over here.

[15:40] That is what God requires of Abraham to do. In other words, this is what was called cutting a covenant. Now a covenant is an agreement.

[15:51] Simply that, it is an agreement. And when people in the ancient world, in the ancient eastern world, when they were entering into a special relationship that was very significant, it involved some substantial thing, when they were entering into an important agreement, they would make a covenant or literally, they would cut a covenant.

[16:11] And the idea of cutting a covenant comes from this action of dividing the animal in two. When they made this relationship, when they were sealing it, they would cut an animal in two, place one half on one side and one half on the other.

[16:28] Now, when that was done, what would happen was this. Both people, the people who were making the agreement, would walk in between the pieces of the animal.

[16:41] They would walk back and forth. And when they walked like that, through the pieces of the animal, in between the pieces, they were making a statement.

[16:53] And the statement that they were making was simply this. Let the fate of these animals befall me. May I be slain, even as they are slain, if I do not keep my covenant.

[17:08] If I do not fulfill my obligations and do my side of it, then may I be slain, may I be devoured, or may I be destroyed.

[17:19] And that's what always happened. The pieces were set apart and the two parties walked in the midst of them. Let it be me if I don't fulfill it.

[17:32] Now, this is an awful thing. And that reminds us that it was a sacred covenant. Something that you are committing your life to, as it were, when you are entering into it. It was an oath.

[17:44] Now, the strange thing about it, when Abraham does all that here, is this, that nobody walks in between the pieces. Or, you could put it this way, that for a whole day, at least, nobody walks through the pieces.

[18:02] Abraham does this, we believe, at the beginning of the day. We believe he saw the stars in the sky late on in the night.

[18:13] But in the morning, he would have gathered the animals, and he would have cut them up. And then he waits, and he waits, nothing happens. God doesn't tell him to walk through the pieces of the animal, and neither does God himself walk between the pieces of the animal.

[18:32] The only thing that happens is this, that some birds come down from heaven to try to devour the sacrifice. Now, of course, if these birds are interested in the meat of a heifer, and of a ram, and a goat, that tells us that it is not an ordinary bird.

[18:51] It is a vulture. It is a bird of carrier. It is a bird of prey. And so Abraham has a difficult time, somewhere on his own, in the heat of the day, when it becomes searing hot, he has difficulty keeping the vultures away from the pieces of the covenant that God has put to the side.

[19:11] And that is a figure, perhaps, for the way in which the enemies of the gospel try to destroy the covenant relation between God and his people. Because Satan comes in many forms as a bird of prey and as a vulture to devour and to destroy.

[19:26] And it tries to destroy yourselves and to destroy birds and he keeps them at bay and he does it until he's absolutely exhausted.

[19:37] He does it until the evening comes. And then when the evening comes, God causes him to fall into a deep sleep or a deep slumber.

[19:50] You'll notice in verse 12, we'll read verses 11 and 12, And when the fowls came down upon the carcasses, Abraham drove them away.

[20:00] And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abraham and lo, a horror of great darkness fell upon him.

[20:13] And when this horror came upon him, it was a strange thing. Abraham was brought into a deep sleep and he felt terror. He felt a sense of terror. And when he felt that sense of terror, God said to him, you people, your spiritual children are going to be strangers for 400 years in a strange land.

[20:36] But afterwards, I'll bring them out. You yourself will die in peace, but for four come out again, because the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.

[20:51] There's an interesting thing there, and I think we should look at it. what's God telling Abraham here? Well, it's the same old truth, and it's still new. The truth is this, that all God's people enter blessing through tribulation.

[21:07] It was going to be true for Abraham, it was going to be true for his children, it's true for ourselves that through much tribulation we must enter into the kingdom of God.

[21:18] Look friends, the Christian life is just not promised to be a smooth easy one. No, it involves the vultures, it involves Satan, it involves principalities and powers.

[21:31] And I say that because it's one of the most misleading things in the world to tell people whether from the pulpit or from anywhere else that if you become a Christian it's all plain sailing. For some reason that idea always persists and it's not right.

[21:44] It's not right. And very many people say that the Christian life is a kind of cop out. It's for people who wish to escape the reality of the world. They call it escapism. As though Christianity was escaping the real life with all its difficulties and problems.

[21:59] Well, not so. Not so. The Christian life is just not like that. It gives you a new set of problems, a different set of problems. Praise God that it gives you the God who knows the solution to the problems.

[22:11] And it gives you Christ who strengthens you to face them. But it just doesn't promise you an easy path. It does not. It requires putting a cross on your back. It requires taking footsteps behind the Lord Jesus Christ.

[22:23] It requires going out beyond the camp and suffering the reproach of Christ there. I'll tell you friends that is a blessed thing because whatever is in your cup and however hard it is however the terror that takes hold of you or the great darkness that comes upon you God comes near in such a way as to compensate for all that.

[22:47] And you Christian friend who are passing through a dark time let me tell you that God will come near you in it and he'll come near you in it in such a way as to more than compensate for the darkness that has come upon you.

[23:05] The greater the darkness of your providence the brighter God shines when he comes. Remember that. You seek him and he will show himself to you just like that.

[23:16] God says to Abraham 400 years they'll be enslaved in Egypt. Why? Well there's two reasons for that. The first reason is this.

[23:30] I speak sometimes about killing two birds with one stone. We use that expression I killed two birds with one stone. Well God is always doing that. With one event he's accomplishing many different things.

[23:45] That's what he's doing here too. First this 400 years was going to teach his own people. It was going to prepare them. It was going to shape them and it was going to teach them.

[23:57] And that's the way God brings us. It's not an easy matter to make us better people or to sanctify us. God has to bring us through strange paths and strange providences.

[24:08] And he has to put us through hardship just to teach us. To bend us and shape us. He's going to put you as a stone into his temple. He takes on you that will enable you to take your place in this temple.

[24:28] And God will chip away until he has the stone that he wants. He will perfect you. And this bondage was to teach his church to bring them through a path that they would learn dependence upon God because that's the big lesson we always have to learn.

[24:45] Not to rely on yourself but to rely on God. And many paths you have to take before you are weaned off yourself and weaned off people until you are just put on solidly the Lord Jesus Christ.

[24:59] The other reason for this 400 years is a profound one. It's a solemn one. He says the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.

[25:12] The Amorites were one of the Canaanite people. The most notorious for their wickedness. And God was going to give them time and he was going to give them space.

[25:25] Why? Because God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. God knew that they would only get worse but only after 400 years were the Canaanites ready to be destroyed.

[25:42] And until they had reached that pitch God would leave them give them time and give them space. That my friend is the grace and the mercy of God.

[25:54] That is a long long time to bear with a people who were evil, who were depraved, given over to every kind of licentiousness, every kind of idolatry, and every kind of evil.

[26:07] God gave them space to repent and he gave them time. Put that to yourself as an individual. have you ever thought that God is giving you time? You conclude, well, I'm doing this and that and there's no punishment.

[26:22] In fact, it doesn't matter how much I live my life against the way the Bible tells me, I'm prospering and things are going all right with me. Have you ever thought of it the other way? Have you ever thought that God is good to you to lead you to repentance?

[26:36] The scriptures tell us that the goodness of God leads us, or as it means in the Greek, is designed to lead you. The goodness of God to you is designed to lead you to repentance.

[26:48] But what do you do with it? You spurn it, you abuse it, you treat it lightly, you think nothing of it. When God is good to you, when God is merciful to you, he's calling you to himself in the midst of all that, and you still resist him.

[27:02] Friend, when the cup is full, and when your iniquity is full, God will cut you down. And as I said before, when his hand is trembling over you, it's as though he didn't know how to smite.

[27:16] But once he smites, it's as though he never knew how to be gracious. It is like that with God. And make sure before your iniquity is full that you rather come to the Lord Jesus Christ confessing your sins and finding the blessedness and the forgiveness that there is in him.

[27:37] He says here in the fourth generation they will come back out because the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. When it is they shall be destroyed and you shall inherit the land.

[27:52] God gives promises like this and they do good for his people for years to come. I was talking recently to someone who said that he had heard promises when he was just a young Christian and only now was he feeding on them.

[28:07] And that's something like 30 to 40 years since he first heard them. Only now is he feeding on these things. See when God said this they shall come back in the fourth generation.

[28:18] Did that do Abraham good? Well I suppose it did. But who did it do the most good for? Well you go into that hut in Egypt. Go into the hut of a man called Amram and his wife Jochebed.

[28:32] They have just given birth to a son. And Pharaoh wants all the sons destroyed. But they looked at that son. And they looked it means really a child blessed by God.

[28:50] And what were they looking at when they said that? They were looking at this promise that in the fourth generation they shall come out. The people of God were waiting. They were travailing in prayer to give birth to the Messiah who was going to bring them out of Egypt.

[29:05] And when this child is born the promise came through Moses. In him they would pass out of Egypt and go on their way through the wilderness.

[29:17] So God's words like that is in our heart and when we need it out it comes and it does us good. It's like that we store it and suddenly out it comes and it feeds our souls.

[29:31] Now then this all happened to Abraham after he had been fighting to keep the birds away from the sacrifice. And then suddenly he comes out of his deep sleep.

[29:43] And when he comes out of it in verse 17 I want you to notice this carefully. It came to pass that when the sun went down and it was dark this is the second evening behold a smoking furnace and a burning lamp that passed between the pieces.

[30:04] Now what that tells us is this just when it was getting dark he went into a trance again and he saw the suffering of the church and then suddenly he's brought out of it and it's pitch black again around him are the pieces of the animals and nothing has happened and then out of heaven as it were not even as it were but actually so out of heaven suddenly disappeared there is a smoking furnace or literally an oven a smoking oven and a burning lamp or literally a lamp of fire that appears to him from nowhere but it comes from heaven and it suddenly passes in between the pieces it makes its way right through the divided carcasses of the animals and passes back again and then disappears from Abraham's vision it is an amazing sight and it's all the more brilliant when you conceive of it against the darkness of the middle eastern night there the lamp appears a smoking lamp and it passes in between the pieces now what does this mean well first of all what about the oven and the torch themselves no the oven refers here to the kind of small cylindrical clay ovens that they had and out of it was coming smoke and a fiery torch now obviously it was a thing that was difficult to describe and it's described more or less as it appeared to

[31:44] Abraham what he's conscious of is smoke cloudiness and a lamp of fire that is burning brightly and it all seems to speak of glory of majesty and of power and there's no doubt but that this is a visible emblem of the presence of God himself how often God appears in the old testament as a fire and as a cloud God appears as a fire because he is holy because his holiness is untouchable God consumes he is a consuming fire he is absolutely pure he is altogether righteous and he is altogether holy and he appears as a cloud because he is mysterious he is impenetrable he is unfathomable no one can by searching find out the almighty God his purposes are hidden to him there are things in his heart that no man can ever probe or investigate so at the one level he burns before is in his holiness but then again that is mixed or mingled with a cloud that seems to say don't try too far to come in here who can dwell with everlasting burnings who that can search out

[33:04] God or who can fathom him out and interestingly I was referring to this somewhere else recently the word cloud in Hebrew means a secret thing or an impenetrable thing in fact the same word was used for magic and for the black arts the word cloud simply to bring before us the obscurity the mystery of the holiness of God what I want you to notice is this God comes down on Mount Sinai in fire and in smoke here too he comes in fire and in smoke and you'll notice that it's a smoking oven in other words the cloud there is a dark one it is like smoke belching out of an oven that is burning now I think what that brings before us is this that God reveals himself to Abraham in his judgment one thing that might help us to understand this is this remember when

[34:12] Israel were going through the wilderness God went in front of them in a pillar of cloud and fire fire and we're told that that pillar of cloud and fire gave light to the Israelites but then one day something happened when the Egyptians were catching up with them this pillar of cloud and fire moved from the front of the army of Israel and it went behind them so that it stood in between the Israelites and the Egyptians and we're told this listen that this pillar of cloud gave light to God's people but that it was dark to the Egyptians in other words it was a bright cloud to God's people but it was a dark cloud of judgment to those who are not the lords there was a lot we could say about that but we'll just have to leave it there the important point is that this cloud could take upon itself the appearance of a threatening dark judgmental smoke and that is precisely the way that God appears to

[35:17] Abraham out of the blue as it were there is this dark smoking oven and a lamp of fire that appears and passes between the pieces now that's a wonderful thing this holy God of judgment actually himself passes in between the pieces of the animal remember what the meaning of that was it is God saying may I be as these animals are if I do not fulfill my covenant obligation may I be as it were devoured if I do not do what I have promised you that I will do notice Abraham doesn't pass in between the pieces I mentioned that and I emphasized it that when a covenant is made both parties pass in and they both promised to do that part here Abraham just doesn't move all Abraham does is he stands and he witnesses this remarkable thing that God passes in between the pieces and says may the curse of the covenant fall upon me if my word to you

[36:32] Abraham does not come to pass no there's even more to it than that there's more to it than that how well I suppose you have to ask the question well how could God do that how could God say such a thing or how could God take upon himself I say that with reverence how could he take it upon himself to pass through the pieces of an animal and to say let the curse fall upon me well the secret to it lies in this look at the animals that are cut up look at the kind of animals that they are you've got a heifer verse 9 you've got a goat you've got a ram you've got a turtle dove and you've got a pigeon now there's one thing true about all these animals one thing they were all animals used for sacrifice the heifer the ram the turtle dove the pigeon the goat they were all clean sacrificial animals now where does that take us well it takes us to this it means that God's fiery judgment is going to come upon animals that are clean or upon a sacrifice that is clean his fiery judgment is going to come upon a clean sacrifice many people believe that this oven actually consumed the parts of the animal and sometimes in sacrifices that was the case that when

[38:13] God sent a fire from heaven it consumed the sacrifice should we not believe here that when the oven passed in between the pieces of the animal that it actually on its way consumed them and devoured them as much as to say what well as much as to say this that the only way in which God can do for Abraham what he has promised to do for him is by coming in himself to Abraham's place taking his place becoming a sacrifice in the man Christ Jesus and being consumed by his own wrath that is the only way in which the breach of the covenant can be healed and made right by God put it this way as a sinner I'm going to break the covenant and so are you you are not going to be perfect in your walk not perfect in your thoughts not perfect in anything how can a holy

[39:17] God covenant with you to save you for you even to walk through the pieces is a mockery because you can't take one step of course you're going to fail of course you're going to fall short how could you say to God if I don't fulfill my obligations perfectly let me be dead like this animal because of course you can't but the wonder of this covenant here is that you don't need to that God passed through the pieces and not only did he pass through the pieces but he suffered his own wrath and that is a mystery a mystery that can only be understood in the trinity and in the incarnation that God became man in Christ he became a heifer he became clean he became pure he became the man Christ Jesus without spot and without blemish and he was cut asunder and he was consumed by the fiery wrath of God's judgment God took the punishment himself and therefore

[40:22] Abraham is delivered and Abraham is set free or to put it another way God takes the full responsibility for bringing you to glory upon himself now my friends when we look at it that way that is a marvelous thing yes you have your duty to be sanctified yes you have your duty to walk in the light of what God has done for you but in the last analysis it is what God has done for you God did the work God has done it all he gave a sacrifice and he consumed it and he took your failure upon himself he's done it all and that I think reflects back on verse 6 where we're told that he believed in the Lord and the Lord counted it to him for righteousness it only remains for you in other words to receive what God has done that verse is so simple

[41:24] I stumble at it I want it complicated I expect the thing to be complicated I expect it to be mighty complicated when it involves my salvation but it is this profoundly simple that God has done the work and it is for you to believe it and in believing it to receive it Abraham believed and that's counted to him for righteousness it's reckoned as righteousness if you just accept this as true and right God will reckon it to you also for righteousness and you say well surely something more no nothing more are you suggesting an inadequacy in sacrifice are you suggesting that when God passed between the pieces that wasn't enough that you should have passed between the pieces too ah my friend he passed between the pieces and you need not pass between them that's the gospel the gospel is not about what I do for God to save myself it is about what God has done for me the wonder of that the glory of that it's what

[42:34]  God has done for you and listen friend he's offering it to you he's offering it to you what he has done for you last of all let me relate it to something else let's go to the new covenant go to the upper room and Christ is there with his apostles and he takes the bread which is his own body and he breaks his own body in pieces and he says take eat this stew in remembrance of me notice take and eat his body he broke it and what he says to you is take it and eat it and do that in remembrance of me as often as you eat it every time you do so do it in remembrance of me I've done the work not you you receive it receive the blessings and remember it forever more my friend don't reject the gospel because it's difficult no no my friend it is presented to you like that take it eat it and receive it and may the lord enable us to do that let me go to you