Today we are back in the book of Galatians chapter 3. It’s actually been a few weeks here in our morning service since we’ve been in Galatians because of other things that have gone on the last couple of weeks.
So let me kind of review. We read just a few minutes ago in our service chapter 3 verses 15 to 18. We’re going to talk about the unconditional covenant that is the Abrahamic covenant and why Paul uses it at this point in the book. Remember that Galatians is a book called that because Paul took his first missionary journey into Galatia and after he came back from that journey he realized that there was a lot of controversy over keeping the law of Moses.
Are you saved by keeping the law, or are you saved by the faith of Abraham? That had become a problem in the Jerusalem church and he went over that in chapter 2. It was a problem in the Antioch church and it was a problem among the churches in Galatia. So Paul turns around and writes what we believe is his first book, that’s the book of Galatians, at this time to address that problem. And so as he does this he pointed out chapter 2 verse 16. If you remember I called this the proposition of the whole book, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by the faith of Jesus Christ. Even we, he means himself and apostles, have believed in Christ Jesus that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.
So he is hammering home this message in a needed time and we really need it today also. Now in chapters 1 and 2, he gave kind of a biography, a history of this problem that he was dealing with in the different churches and in Jerusalem, Antioch, and so forth and it’s an interesting kind of almost a fun history of what was going on. In chapters 3 and 4 in the middle of this book, he’s actually giving his argument. He is telling why we are saved by faith and not by the works of the law. And in the last two chapters, 5 and 6, he will apply that.
It’s two chapters on the application of what that means to you and me in our personal lives. What is the key that he’s trying to say in this center section of the book and that is that Abraham lived before Moses. And so God promises things to Abraham before he ever talked to Moses. And what he said to Abraham is you’re saved by faith. As a matter of fact, chapter 3 verse 6 is a quotation from Genesis 15 where God gave Abraham the covenant and Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness. Abraham had faith in God and it was counted to him for righteousness. That comes long before the law was ever instituted or the law was ever given. So that’s the point he’s going to make especially in our verses 15 through 18. So how can he show this in these two verses?
Let me remind you. The Abrahamic covenant given about let’s say 2000 BC during the time of Abraham and the Mosaic covenant about 1400 BC 607 and some years later. The Abrahamic covenant is what we call unconditional. Remember that term which means it’s a one-sided covenant.
God made it and Abraham could not do anything about that. He just has to receive it. He has to believe it or not believe it. But it’s one-sided. We call it an unconditional covenant. Even if man fails, God does not fail in a one-sided unconditional covenant. But the Mosaic law was a conditional covenant. It was a two-sided covenant.
If you do this, then I will do this. And so in that case, it can be annulled if one of the parties fail and every human being failed. The Jewish people failed. And so the law comes to an end. That’s the difference between being saved by faith, Abrahamic type faith, or trying to be saved by law which doesn’t work. So in verses 10 to 14, which was three weeks ago, I realized, we talked about the summary of these things. And you remember the word curse in verse 10, as many as ever are of the works of the law or under the curse.
Why is that? Because again, you have to keep your part of the law and no one has ever kept it. That’s the curse of the law.
If you try to live by your own good works, you won’t make it because no one has ever kept that kind of law. Perfect. So in verses 15 to 18, he’s going to illustrate this. And so you notice in your outline, if you have that before you and your bulletin are on the screen, that I’m going to start off in verse 15 with Paul’s illustration, and then we’ll go through these four verses.
So follow if you will. He gives this illustration beginning in verse 15 this way. He says, Brother, I speak in the manner of men, though it is only a man’s covenant, yet if it is confirmed, no one annals or adds to it.
Now when he says, I speak in the manner of men, one expanded translation has it this way. Brothers, let me take an example from everyday life. Just as no one can set aside or add to a human covenant that has been duly established, so it is in this case. In other words, he’s using an illustration from everyday life of a testament. Now I’m going to talk about the word covenant a number of times this morning, but in our New Testament, you might have, you’ll see the word covenant and you’ll see the word testament. They actually come from the same word. The word d-f-a-k means covenant, but sometimes we translate it testament and usually when you see it as testament, it’s kind of on a human or everyday example. For example, in Hebrews 9, the writer of Hebrews uses this again like Paul is using it here. He said, for where there is a testament, you could translate that covenant. There must also of necessity be the death of the testator.
For a testament is in force after men are dead since it has no power at all while the testator lives. He’s just using it as an example. That’s what Paul is doing here. And so what he’s saying is, when you make a will or testament, when you make a covenant this way, it’s a one-sided thing. Your will and testament is one-sided. You decide what it is and that’s the way it has to be. Nobody can change that because it’s your will or it’s your testament. Let me read what the commentator Linsky said.
I thought this was good. He said, this is a testament that has been probated and has been in force. And the point of comparison is the inviolability, the fixedness of such a testament. Nobody can void, annull it, or put something else in its place. Nobody can add anything there to, fix a codicell to it, and thus alter the original testamentary provisions. That’s kind of like saying, do you have a will?
Do you have a living trust, a living will, perhaps something like that? Who made that? You did.
You may be giving everything you have to somebody, maybe one of your children. They didn’t write that. You had to write that. And if you’ve written that and even after you die, it can’t be changed, can it? Whatever you wrote, that’s the way it has to be.
That’s where things have to go. Basically, that’s what he’s saying in verse 15, excuse me, that if you, once a person makes a covenant or a testament, it cannot be changed. What is he then talking about? He’s talking about what he said to Abraham. He’s talking about the one-sided, unilateral Abrahamic covenant that God made with Abraham is one-sided and it can’t be changed.
We’re going to see more of that as we go through these verses. But notice also then, secondly, it was confirmed. So he says, if it is confirmed, no one adds or subtracts. No one annulls it or adds to it.
Once it is confirmed, some translate that ratified or as Linsky said, probated. Nothing can change it. Now, if it’s true in a man-made covenant, he’s saying, how much more is it true if God makes that covenant? If we hold on to that principle when a human being makes a will and testament, can’t we say God even more so is not going to change?
He’s in charge. You can’t change what he has said. And remember, his overall point is God said it to Abraham before he said it to Moses. And if God says it in an unconditional way to Abraham, then a conditional covenant that he makes with Moses can’t change what he said to Abraham. That’s his point here.
That’s what he’s driving at. And of course, what did he say to Abraham? Salvation is by faith.
The works of the law hadn’t even been invented yet. The salvation is by faith. Let me say this too, that you are saved when you came to the Lord Jesus Christ by an Abrahamic type of faith.
You did what chapter 3 verse 6 describes Abraham as doing. You believe God and you got eternal life, right? The Bible said believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved, you believed on Him, God gave you eternal life. And since that Abrahamic type faith is what saved you, you can’t add to that nor can you subtract from that. And if we say that we’re saved by something in the law, circumcision or keeping the feasts or whatever it is, then you have added to it.
That’s Paul’s point. And these Judaizers are adding to what God said to Abraham. As a matter of fact, this kind of thing, adding and subtracting to what God has said, has been the source of heresy throughout the church age for the last 2000 years. And it started in the first century by Jewish people themselves who were saying to Paul to the Jerusalem church, the Antioch church and in Galatia, but you’ve got to be circumcised to be saved. And in Paul’s mind he’s saying you can’t add to what God said to Abraham. Well, you have to keep the whole law.
He’s saying you can’t do that. Well, that was Abraham. Now we have Moses. You can’t annul what God had said. Or some have said, well, you have to be baptized also to be saved.
You have to believe and you have to be baptized. You can’t add that human work to what God said to Abraham either. Well, maybe you have to keep the Sabbath day. Maybe you have to, as the cults say, join our membership, join our cults or the larger churches.
You have to keep the sacraments to be saved. Or maybe just an individual says, you know what? I’m a good person. I’ve done good in my life.
I think God will accept me into heaven. You can’t add that to what God said on how to be saved. That’s the importance of the illustration in verse 15.
All right. Verse 16, he talks about this promise. So verse 16 says, now, to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. Now promise here equals the covenant. In other words, he goes back again to Abraham like he did in verse 15. He goes back to Abraham and says, now to Abraham and to his seed.
Notice I have two people here as the sub points. The promise is made to Abraham. The promise is made to his seed.
Very interesting statement. So notice how he goes on from there in verse 16. He does not say, and to seeds, that would be the plural, as of many, but as of one, to your seed. And then in a startling way, he and the Holy Spirit says, who is Christ?
Come back to that in a minute. The promises are made to Abraham. I’ve used the word covenant a number of times, covenant and Testament. In the Old Testament, it’s the word Barith, Barith or Barith. And in the New Testament, D.A .K. Now that Old Testament word, and I want you to hold your place there and go with me to Genesis 15.
So while I’m talking, among the other things you’re doing, go back to Genesis 15. When I was in seminary out in California working on a graduate degree, I had a class from an Old Testament professor who was an Egyptian man. His name was Butrus Malik. But he was a Christian man.
He actually taught history at UCLA, but he taught a history, a Bible history course in the seminary where I was going. And I can still remember him saying Barith, it means to cut the covenant. It means to cut the covenant. And he was an Egyptian man who actually read Hebrew more than he read English. So he would have his Hebrew Bible in front of him and the rest of us had an English Bible in front of us.
But he would take us back to Genesis 15. And of course, this is where you have in verse six that famous statement that Abraham believes God and counted him for righteousness. Rather than the whole chapter, let me point out a few verses. Verse four, behold, the word of the Lord came to him, Abraham saying, This one shall not be your heir.
Now that goes back up to verse two. Ali Azar was that servant of Abraham’s. And in those days, if you had no children, your heritage, your inheritance could go to the highest servant in your house.
And he’s the one who remember that went and found Rebecca and brought her home and all of that. So but God said, No, it won’t be that way. Look, he says in verse three, you have given me no offspring, Abraham said. Indeed, one born in my house is my heir. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him saying, verse four, this one shall not be your heir, but one who will come from your own body shall be your heir. Then he brought him outside and said, look now toward heaven and count the stars if you are able to number them. And he said, so shall your, you have that word seed or descendants, depending on which version you have.
Singular or plural, seed or descendants. And he believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness. But let’s read on a couple of verses. He said to them, I’m the Lord who brought you out of the ear of the cowdies to give you this land to inherit it. And he said, Lord God, how shall I know that I will inherit it?
And he said, now notice the cutting of the covenant here in verses nine and 10. He said to him, bring me a three year old heifer, a three year old female goat, a three year old ram, a turtle dove and a young pigeon. Then he brought all these to him and cut them in two down the middle and placed each piece opposite the other, but he did not cut the birds in two. Now, the verses following, I think it’s funny. He, they lie there all day and the vultures wanna come and pick up the pieces and Abraham has to keep shooing the birds away.
But skip down with me to verse 17. Now it came to pass when the sun went down and it was dark. That behold, there was, here’s a description of God since no man has ever seen God. This is all that could be seen. A smoking oven and a burning torch passed between those pieces.
Now, here’s something very important to notice. Abraham didn’t pass between the pieces, only God does. If it were a two way covenant, if it were a conditional covenant, then both would take hands and walk between the pieces.
Jacob and Laban make a covenant, two crooks together that can’t trust each other out of their sight. They will walk together through the pieces. But here, only God walks through the pieces. Verse 18, and on the same day, the Lord made a covenant. He cut a covenant with Abraham, saying to your seed or descendants, I have given this land from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, and among all the other nations as well. Now, let’s think back to Galatians after we thought about that.
God walks through the pieces himself. And so, this is a one sided covenant that cannot be added to or annulled. You get his point here, right? And so, if that is the way it is confirmed, then that’s the way it has to be.
Now notice my points again. It’s to Abraham, we read that, way back in Genesis, but it’s also to his seed. So again, in verse 16, and he does not say, Paul is continuing, and to seeds as of many or in the plural, but as of one in the singular, to your seed, and then he adds this amazing statement, who is Christ? Now, the word seed, zera in Hebrew, sperm, we know the word sperm in Greek, is a word that can be singular or plural.
And we have such words in our English language also. They call them collective singulars. So, when I hear some report on our army, our military, it will talk about how many troops we have, right? Well, a troop can be a whole bunch of soldiers together, but when he says troops, it actually means how many individuals do you have? The word troop can refer to an individual person, or it can refer to a whole lot of people.
Well, we have other words like that, group, team, family, church can refer to all of us or individuals. And the word seed or posterity can refer to that. Now, it’s interesting that in the Bible, many times the word seed refers, like the new King James has it, your descendants, it can refer to all of those people, but sometimes it refers to one person.
For example, in Genesis four, Seth is said to be the seed of Adam and Eve, singular person. In chapter 21, Ishmael is the seed. In first Samuel one, Samuel is the seed, singular. Second Samuel seven, Solomon is the seed. And Genesis 22, 18, which is quoted here in our verse 16, it refers singularly to Isaac.
Here’s a great example, Genesis 315, what a well-known verse this is. God says to Satan these words, I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed. We’re all kind of the seed of Eve, aren’t we?
In the spiritual way, we’re all the seed of Satan too, until we’re saved. But then he says, Singular, he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. In other words, the word that can be plural there is obviously referring to Jesus Christ. The Singular.
Now, why do I say that? Well, Genesis in chapter, verse 16 of our text, chapter 3 verse 16, that you may have a quotation mark in part of that sentence, right? To seeds, quote unquote, not and to seed, quote unquote. And then the translation or the application, that is of Christ. I like the way John MacArthur defined this. Let me read you his words here real quickly.
Both the Greek term sperma seed and the corresponding Hebrew term zera are like the English seed in that they can be either Singular or plural. Then he says this, this was interesting. Apart from inspiration and the Holy Spirit, Paul could not have established such a crucial interpretation on the basis of grammar alone. When he says particularly, he’s not speaking about plurals here. He’s speaking about Singulars. Well, how do you know that Paul?
Because MacArthur said the Hebrew grammar like Greek and English does not necessitate one of the other. Now, what does he mean by that? The Holy Spirit under inspiration instructs Paul to say these words. Paul, I know when you read way back there in Genesis 28, 14, you might take that as all of Abraham’s seed, but I’m telling you he’s referring to Christ and you write it that way. In other words, this is what inspiration does. Inspiration where a writer is guided by the Holy Spirit tells us exactly what we should know from that verse. And so he had to write it this way and at the end of verse 16, he had to say, the seed Singular who is Christ. The covenant is made with Abraham and with Christ with his seed. And all of those who are the seed of Abraham and in the Lord Jesus Christ can have eternal life. In other words, you might say to yourself, if you can only participate in the Abrahamic covenant, if you are a joint heir with Jesus Christ, his seed.
Because what does Romans 8, 17 say? And if children then heirs. If you’re a child of God, you’re an heir.
Heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer, will be glorified with him. And not only that, but look up above in chapter 3 of Galatians at verses 7 through 9. Therefore know that only those who are of the faith are sons of Abraham. The scripture foreseeing that God would justify the nations by faith, preach the gospel to Abraham before him saying, in you all the nations shall be blessed. So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham. How do you become, as we might say, a spiritual child of Abraham, one of the seed of Abraham? The only way you can be is to be in Jesus Christ who is the seed and the promised heir. And if he’s the promised heir and you are in him, you are a joint heir with Christ.
So the promises to Abraham and his seed. We’re not quite done with all these little details yet. And the illustration has turned into a lot of details, haven’t it?
But rightfully so. I hope you’re seeing how particular Paul is at pressing these biblical points so that you understand salvation has to be by faith and not by works. So number three, the priority given to us in verse 17, if you will.
So priority he says, and this I say, by the way, that’s kind of like saying, now what I mean is this. Let’s say, all right, what I mean is this verse 17. The law, you know, the Mosaic law was 430 years later, later than what? Labor than the Abrahamic covenant and promise. Since it was, it cannot annul that covenant that was conformed before my God in Christ. There’s nothing in the Abrahamic law or excuse me, the Mosaic law that can change what God said to Abraham. And he says, but you Judaizers are trying to do just that.
You’re trying to add to it, take away from it and you cannot do that. that, that it should make that promise without effect. Now, the law was later, as I said. It was a conditional covenant. Think again, here is the unconditional covenant to Abraham. I will walk between the pieces.
I will say the way it is. There’s nothing you can do about it except believe it. You can’t work. You can’t do some law.
You just got to believe. Moses comes 450 years later, but we’ll see. Actually, Abraham’s about 650 years later, or before. And the law comes along and says, well, now, you got to be circumcised. You got to keep the Sabbath. You got to keep the feast days. You got to do all of this to be saved. That’s what these Judaizers thought. And Paul is saying, then you’re adding to what God said to Abraham.
And you can’t do that. So 430 years. It’s kind of an interesting statement. It is not the first time in the Bible we have that number.
But here’s the problem. Abraham lived more like 650 years before Moses. Why does he say 430?
Well, here’s one explanation that I think is good. It’s in chapter 22 and verse 18 that God makes this kind of statement to Abraham. Genesis 22. Now, that is when Abraham was offering Isaac as a sacrifice on Mount Moriah. Genesis 22. And when he gets done doing that, God says to him, I will multiply your descendants. Genesis 22.17. I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven, as the sandwiches on the seashore.
He’s repeating all of this. And your descendants or your seed shall possess the gates of their enemy. And in your seed, the nations of the earth shall be blessed.
He said that to Abraham in chapter 22. Some, it would be about 645. One commentator had specifically 645 years before Mount Sinai. In chapter 26 of Genesis, the promises made to Isaac. In other words, you’re the seed of Abraham. I’m going to reiterate the promise to you, Isaac.
The seed is coming. In chapter 28 and verse 14, it’s made to Jacob. Now, Jacob, being the grandson of Abraham, is the one who went down into Egypt, right? So Jacob, the promise is made of the coming seed. He goes down into Egypt and the captivity begins under Jacob’s life.
And they’re there for how many years? Well, in Exodus chapter 12 and verse 40, Moses will say this. Now, the sojourn of the children of Israel who lived in Egypt was 430 years.
So the last time God reiterated this covenant to Jacob was exactly 430 years before the law of Moses came about. I knew you’d love that detail. That’s why I gave it to you.
All right. Now, we’re not done with that verse. So he says, it cannot then, that is, Moses, cannot annul the covenant that was confirmed to Abraham. You see that word confirmed again. That means to be ratified, to be probated, as Linsky said.
And here’s something I want you to notice another detail. You see the word was confirmed in the middle of verse 17. Remember that I’ve explained to you the perfect tense, that there are different past tenses. And the perfect tense in Greek has this meaning of something that starts in a particular time and has ongoing results.
In other words, it starts here and it goes on forever. Your salvation is often referred to in the perfect tense. You got saved at one particular moment in the past and it goes on forever. Rather than just being one past event, it’s a past event with ongoing consequences.
Your salvation is that way. That expression was confirmed is a perfect tense. And we would say it has been confirmed. In other words, it started with Abraham and guess what? It hasn’t ended yet. It’s ongoing, just like your salvation is. And so that, if 430 years later, it runs into something else that God made with the children of Israel. Can that change what God started there and has ongoing responsibility?
No, it can’t change it. That’s his point here. As a matter of fact, I want you to skip down to verse 19, which I’m going to come back to next week, of course. But notice what he said about the Mosaic Law. law.
What purpose then does the law serve? We’re going to come back to this subject later. But I want you to notice two words in this sentence. First is the word added. It was added. What does that mean? It had a beginning, right?
Because of the transgressions. And the second word I want you to notice is till, maybe until you have, T-I-L-L. The seed should come. How long was the Mosaic law added when he brought the children of Israel to Mount Sinai under Moses? It ended when Jesus Christ came. So that law was about 1400 years. Does that sound like an ongoing covenant to you? Does that sound like something that has a beginning and no ending? No, it had a beginning and had an ending.
And yet the Abrahamic covenant had a beginning and has never ended. It’s still in effect today. You can still call upon the Lord to save you by faith alone, and he will save you today. But the law is gone. You can try to keep the law all you want, and you can never be saved by keeping the law. And that was part of Paul’s point.
Or as someone said it, man cannot succeed in perfectly keeping the law and God cannot fail in perfectly keeping the promise. He will keep it. Now, one other thing, last thing, verse 18, the inheritance. So he says, for if the inheritance of the law is of the law, excuse me, it is no longer a promise.
Now the word inheritance is a different word. It’s a word that means what do you get out of this? Your inheritance that you get. The Jews had a lot to gain. The Abrahamic covenant promises them not only eternal life, promises the promised land, promises them the Messiah, promises them the kingdom of God. So all of these things given to Abraham are going to come, all of the inheritance that they will get because of the seed that is to come. But the law is conditional, verse 18. And if the inheritance is of Moses and not by Abraham, guess what? It no longer is a promise.
It’s a condition. If you keep the law, then I’ll give you the inheritance, right? But if it’s promised to Abraham, it’s simply, I believe it by faith, and God will give it to you. So he’s kind of concluding here to say, you think that you get the inheritance of all of God’s promises by keeping what he said to Moses? Now folks, the conditional covenant made with Moses, we call it the Mosaic law, was just that. It was conditional. It was a dispensation, if you will.
It is a time when God said to one country, that is Israel, which by the way, his people and his promises are made to them. But he said, for this time, you’re going to need to do these things. And if you don’t, then I will punish you.
If you do, I will bless you. It has nothing to do with the promise of salvation that he made to Abraham. It’s just what God, how God governed the nation of Israel called a theocracy. That’s all that was. It had nothing to do with salvation. It’s really too bad when people think you have to keep the law today to get eternal life. Paul is arguing so much against that here. So the promise seed, God gave it to Abraham by promise, that cannot be canceled. So again, if you are saved by the law, if you are saved by keeping the works of the law or any other kind of work, whether it’s the Mosaic work or any law, then you will also be lost by the law.
Right? If you don’t keep it, it’s conditional. Oh, so I have to keep the law to be saved.
What did verse 10 say? Well, that’s the curse, isn’t it? It’s a curse because no one can do it and you can’t do it.
No one has ever done it. Oh, but I want to keep the law to be saved. Well, good luck because the fact is you, you will not do it. So there is no, to put it in our words, eternal security and salvation by works. There’s no eternal security in trying to keep the law because you’re going to break it. You’re not going to keep it and then you’re lost. Eternal security only comes by the promise of salvation by faith alone in God’s grace. You ask, I’ll give it to you and it’s good forever.
It has this beginning, it will go on forever. Now under, under promise again, he says God gave it to Abraham by promise, unconditional, unilateral, one-sided and you see that word gave in verse 18. It’s that perfect tense again. God having given it to Abraham, it is still going.
He had to kind of pick up on those details that he has. So what is verse 3,6 say again, believed and it was counted to him for righteousness. The way of inheriting eternal life is by faith and that has never changed. Go back up to chapter 3 and verse 14 again, that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. So folks, why do we have this short paragraph of four verses right here in the middle of chapter 3? Not just the illustration of what covenants are and so forth, but rather that Paul’s message that he’s been preaching in Galatia, that he made clear down in Jerusalem, that he’s been teaching in Antioch. Paul’s message of salvation by faith squares, as we say it, squares with all of the biblical material. It is what God has said, both to Abraham as well as to Moses and the Judaizer’s message of salvation by keeping the law contradicts what the scripture has said.
That’s why we have it here. It’s very important to Paul’s message. So our gospel folks is good news.
It really is. Our gospel is good news. You can be saved by coming to Jesus Christ by faith. You don’t have to work for it and you don’t have to work to keep it saved. I want to close with an illustration, a true thing that I read and then I had to check it out.
And it is this. In the country of Croatia, in Zagreb, I think it is Croatia, there is a museum for tourists to go to. It’s the Museum of Broken Relationships. And I thought, that sounds crazy.
I looked it up and sure enough, I went to their website. There’s a museum of broken relationships in Croatia. And what it is, is these artifacts that people who have been let down by their lover or deserted by some relationship, they come there to cry over it. And people bring things to this museum and put them in the museum that symbolize their broken relationship. There are letters there.
There is clothing there that has been ripped in half. I saw one toaster. There’s a toaster returned in the Museum of Broken Relationships. I’m sure it’s encouraging when you go there. I guess there’s a cry room somewhere you can go and cry if you want to. I thought to myself, God doesn’t have a Museum of Broken Relationships.
Well, I take that back. If there is such a one, it’s called the Lake of Fire. The only Museum of Broken Relationships is, if you’re going to try to have a two-way street with God, you’re not going to make it. The relationship is going to be broken. But if you come to Him by faith, it’s a one-way street. God will bless and it cannot be broken.
If you don’t know Jesus Christ as your Savior, receive Him by faith, by His grace, and have eternal life. What a blessing that is. Alright, stand with me if you will as we think about some details that we’ve read this morning, but how it illustrates a blessed truth in the Word of God. Let’s pray together and ask His blessing on our hearts as we think about these things.
Father, thank you then for these words in the middle of this great book. As that great apostle Paul defends the faith and defends what we believe, that salvation is by faith alone through grace alone, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you for these promises. Thank you, Father, that we don’t have to earn it. We don’t have to work for it. We don’t have to try to keep ourselves saved. But your perfect salvation is good the moment we receive it and good for eternity. Thank you for that.

And so Father, I know that maybe in the sound of my voice someone has heard, perhaps been convicted of their sin and their need for salvation. I pray, Father, you would save that soul today. And no doubt wherever the Gospel is preached today, there are those who need to hear it and need to come to Christ by faith. And so Father, I pray you’d bring them out of the dark world, the darkness of a works type religion and salvation and bring them to Christ. So Father, bless as we sing and apply these things to our hearts. And I pray, Father, you would move us to respond in the way that we need this morning. Well, thank you for it in Jesus’ name. Amen.
As we sing our invitation is open, I’m always here at the front. If you need to come while we sing or when our service is over and people are leaving, you still come and say, this is my need. I need to take care of this today. If you need to receive the Lord today, then do that as Gordon comes and leaves us in the song.