He is God. It is he that hath made us and not we ourselves. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise. Be thankful unto him and bless his name. For the Lord is good, his mercy is everlasting, and his truth endureth to all generations.

Let us ask God's blessing on our worship this morning in a moment of silent prayer. At this time, let us arise and sing the opening doxology, which will be Psalm 100 from the Scottish Metrical Version. Psalm 100. We'll sing verses 1 through 3, which is the first two stanzas, verses 1 through 3 of Psalm 100A. All people that on earth do dwell, sing to the Lord with cheerful voice.

Him serve with mirth, his praise forth tell. Come ye before him and rejoice. Know that the Lord is God indeed, without our aid He did us make. We are His flock, He doth us feed, and for His sheep He doth us take. Beloved congregation and our Lord Jesus Christ, our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth. Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God, our Father, and from Jesus Christ, our Lord, through the operation of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

At this time, we'll turn to Psalm 122 and sing Psalm 122 This is one of the songs of degrees that God's people would sing in the Old Testament as they made their way from their homes and villages to Jerusalem in order to worship God and Mount Zion. And in Psalm 122, we have the great joy of God's people as they go up to God's house. And because Jesus Christ is the psalmist, we have here expressed the great joy of our Savior in the worship of His church. And the fact that this is Jesus' psalm is a great comfort as we get towards the end of the psalm because we find that it is Jesus' own wish, verse 7, or his will, that peace may remain within the walls of the church. And we find in verses 8 and 9 that he is the one praying and interceding for the peace and the blessing of his church. We'll sing Psalm 122. We'll have the tune play first so we can hear it and then all of the verses, all nine verses of Psalm 122.

I joyed when to the house of God go up, they said to me, Jerusalem within thy gate, our feet shall standing be. Jerusalem as a city is compactly built together. Unto that place the tribes go up, the tribes of God go thither. To Israel's testimony there do God's infants obey. Our thrones of judgment, deem the thrones of David's house their stay.

Pray that Jerusalem may have peace and felicity. Let them that love thee and thy peace have still prosperity. Therefore I wish that peace may still within thy walls remain, and ever may thy palaces' prosperity retain. Now for my friends and brethren's sakes, peace be in thee, I'll say. ♪ And for the house of God our Lord ♪ ♪ I'll seek thy good always ♪ You may be seated. We hear the law of our covenant God this morning from Exodus chapter 20. And God spake all these words, saying, I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

First, thou shalt have no other gods before me.

Second, thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them. For I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me, and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments.

Third, thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

Fourth, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. In it thou shalt not do any work, thou nor thy son nor thy daughter, thy manservant nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day. Wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. Fifth, honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

Sixth, thou shalt not kill. Seventh, thou shalt not commit adultery. Eighth, thou shalt not steal. Ninth, thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. And tenth, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's. Our Lord summarized the law in Matthew 22. But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together.

Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

" We continue our worship now this morning singing Psalm 6a, the first version of Psalm 6. In Psalm 6, the psalmist pours out his grief to God because of the sore vexation of his soul. and has the blessed confidence that God has heard his prayer. This is the prayer of our Lord Jesus Christ, which we make in him. We'll sing all of the verses of 6A, you may arise, we'll hear the tune, and then all of the verses of 6A.

♪ Lord, in thy wrath rebuke me not, nor in thy heart's rage chasten me. Lord, pity me, for I am weak. ♪ Heal me for my bones next be ♪ ♪ My soul is also at sore ♪ ♪ But, Lord, how long's day will Thou make? ♪ Return, O Lord, my soul set free. O save me for Thy mercy's sake.

Because those that are deceased ♪ Of thee shall no remembrance have ♪ ♪ And who is he and will to thee ♪ ♪ Give praises lying in the rain ♪ I, with my groaning weary head, I also all the night my bed, Have caught for to sleep, and I With tears my couch hath watered, My eye consumed with grief grows old, Because of all my enemies. ♪ Thanks from me witted workers all ♪ ♪ For God hath heard my weeping cries ♪ ♪ God hath my supplication heard ♪ My prayers received graciously. Shamed and slorfexed be all my foes. Shamed and backturned suddenly. Let us call upon the name of our covenant God together now in congregational prayer. Our Father, which art in heaven, we come unto thee in this morning hour of this Sabbath day, which thou hast given unto us in thy grace and mercy.

For we who are lost and dead in sin of ourselves have no right to rest. and have certainly no right to thy courts, where thy name is praised and where prayer is made unto thee for those who are in need. And yet thou hast come unto us in thy love, though we are unworthy of it.

Thou hast chosen us from everlasting before the foundation of the world, giving us unto Jesus Christ to be the head and the mediator of our salvation and the foundation of our salvation. Thou hast given Thine only begotten Son to the death of the cross for us, that our sins might be blotted out in His blood. Thou hast raised Him from the dead again as a testimony unto us that our sins have been forgiven indeed, for He was delivered for our offenses and raised again for our justification. And Thou hast sent the glad tidings of Thy gospel to us concerning this Savior, that we who are in darkness and death might hear the wonderful tidings of heaven, and we who have no light might be shown light, and we who have no life might be given life, and we who are unrighteous and ungodly might be constituted righteous and pure, not for anything we have done, but for the sake of Jesus Christ, who is righteous and pure. We thank Thee, Father, that Thou dost give unto us then this day, in which we might enter into Thy courts, drawn here by Thy sovereign love, taken here by Thy Word and Spirit, and we might hear the glad tidings of this good news. We pray, Father, that Thou wilt give unto us in this day indeed the gospel of our salvation.

Will Thou open Thy servant's mouth, that he might speak truly, thus saith the Lord. Wilt thou prevent him from bringing any wisdom of man which is earthly and sensual and devilish, which wisdom of man is unprofitable for us? But wilt thou cause that the tidings that are spoken this day might be the true glad tidings of heaven and the wisdom from above? Wilt Thou teach us Jesus Christ? Wilt Thou cause us to hear His own voice?

Even as He has promised, My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And we pray, Father, that Thou wilt use Thy Word to increase our faith, that we might look not at the things which are seen and which are temporal, but that we might look by faith at the things which are not seen and which are eternal. And wilt thou give us this faith by thy word, for faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. We pray, Father, that thou wilt open up unto us this morning in the assurance of Abraham, who had the promise given to him and made sure to him, not by the law, but through the righteousness of faith. Will thou teach us also this assurance and make us sure of thy promise, not by the works of the law, but through the righteousness of faith, so that hearing this good news, we might have peace with thee, we might have joy, we might have the riches, the unspeakable riches of Christ in our possession.

We pray, Father, that thou wilt speak to us the word of the gospel. and wilt thou open our ears. Father, open our ears and open our hearts, for our ears are naturally stopped and our hearts are naturally hard, over against thee and over against thy truth. For the kingdom that our flesh would build is the kingdom of man, and the tidings that our flesh would hear are tidings that would praise the flesh and would give glory and honor and a boast to the flesh. And this is the old man we carry with us so that all our days we fight him and are plagued by him.

But we thank Thee, Father, for the Lord Jesus Christ and for his gospel and for his spirit. which carries thy word to our hearts, that therein we might be refreshed and have rest and peace in our Savior and his glad tidings alone. We pray that thou will remember us as a fellowship. We thank thee for thy goodness to us, that thou hast been pleased to assemble us. We marvel at what thou hast done.

For as we consider thy work, we see the impossibility of man performing it. We see how unlikely and indeed impossible it is for the Church of Jesus Christ to be gathered anywhere, including here on our own shores. And yet thou hast come and done the impossible. What is impossible for mere man is possible for thee, for thou art mighty, and thine arm is not shortened, nor is thy hand withdrawn.

We pray, Father, that Thou will continue to gather us and build us here. And wilt Thou gather us and build us not according to the will of the flesh, which always desires a grand show and burgeoning numbers and all those things that belong to what is pleasing to the flesh. But we pray that Thou will build Thy church in truth, that Thou will give unto us the foundation of Jesus Christ, who is the rock, upon which the church is set, which rock is immovable, for thou hast come to the stone which the builders refused and made it the head of the corner. This is thy doing, it is marvelous in our eyes, and this is the day that thou hast made. And so wilt thou continue to establish us upon the rock Jesus Christ and build here thy church in our midst.

To that end, Father, we pray that thou will give unto us open doors as a fellowship, that men might hear the glad tidings of salvation, that they might see our good works which thou dost give, which are not of ourselves, and seeing those good works from thee which redound to thy glory might glorify thee, our Father in heaven. We pray that thou will open the ears of thine elect and cause them to hear in thy time thy word. We pray that thou wilt give unto us also encouragement, that we might not become weary, that we might not become discouraged, but that we might, hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ, have peace and joy unspeakable. We pray that thou wilt continue to remember our brethren also in remnant, wilt thou establish them Thou be with them in these weeks, as several of their office bearers are absent, wilt thou nevertheless feed them with the gospel of Jesus Christ, and wilt thou cause them to have the joy and blessing of their salvation. We thank thee for the means that thou hast given us, by which the word might be proclaimed in different parts of the world, and yet carried to us by thy Spirit. who makes that word effectual and who causes that word to be our salvation, for that word is the word of Jesus Christ, who is our Savior.

We pray thy blessing upon our brethren and their afflictions in Michigan. Will thou remember Marilyn, remember Harold, remember Chloe, continue to uphold and bless Thy people. Wilt Thou be also with those who suffer ailments of the soul, mental afflictions, wilt Thou sustain and bless. Father, Thou art good, Thou art our God. We thank Thee for Thy peace and Thy comforts which delight our souls.

Wilt Thou hear our prayer now, forgiving our sins, blotting them out in Jesus' blood, and keep us from sin, giving to us a life of gratitude and obedience unto Thee. And hear this our prayer, not for our sakes, but for Jesus' sake, in whose name we pray. Amen. At this time, the offerings will be received. The offerings in remnant this morning will be for the General Fund and for Benevolence. The one offering that will be received here in Singapore is for Benevolence.

At this time, we will sing Psalm 105 verses 26 through 37. As we have Psalm 105 laid out in the music, there are two tunes. The first tune used for the first part of the psalm, the second for the second part of the psalm. We're going to be singing from that second part of the psalm the rest of this morning. beginning now with Psalm 105 verses 26 through 45, 26 rather through 37 at this time. The reason we're singing this psalm is that it makes reference to Abraham in verse 42 and the holy promise that God made to Abraham. And that is the text before us in Romans 4 this morning, the promise, which was to Abraham, not by the law, but through the righteousness of faith. But at this time we'll sing verses 26 through 37. We'll hear the tune, we'll rise as that tune plays, and then we'll sing 26 through 37 of Psalm 105.

So, ♪ Moses he descended, Aaron his chosen one ♪ ♪ By these his signs and wonders great ♪ ♪ In heaven's land were made known ♪ ♪ Darkness he sent and made it dark ♪ His word they did obey. He turned their waters into blood, and He their fish did slay. The land in plenty brought forth frogs in chambers of their kings. His word all sorts of flies and lice in all their borders brings. He hailed for rain and flaming fire, into their land he sent. And he their vines and fig trees sowed, trees of their coast he rent.

He spake the Chasm, Miller's game, ♪ Locusts did much abound ♪ ♪ Which in their land all herbs consumed ♪ ♪ And all fruits of their ground ♪ ♪ Eastmoors all firstborn in their land ♪ ♪ Chief of their strength each one ♪ ♪ With gold and silver brought them forth ♪ ♪ Weak and their tribes were none ♪ We turn in God's word this morning to two passages. Our text will be out of Romans 4. That's the passage we'll turn to in a moment. Romans 4. But we'll turn first to Genesis Chapter 15. Genesis Chapter 15. And read the historical account of God's promise to Abraham. And Abraham believing that promise. And being righteous by faith and not by works. Genesis Chapter 15 we will begin with.

After these things, the word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram. I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward. And Abram said, Lord God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus? And Abram said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed. And lo, one born in my house is mine heir. And behold, the word of the Lord came unto him saying, this shall not be thine heir, but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir.

And he brought him forth abroad and said, look now toward heaven and tell the stars if thou be able to number them. And he said unto him, so shall thy seed be. And he believed in the Lord and he counted it to him for righteousness. And he said unto him, I am the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees to give thee this land to inherit it. And he said, Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?

And he said unto him, take me an heifer of three years old and a she goat of three years old and a ram of three years old and a turtle dove and a young pigeon. And he took unto him all these and divided them in the midst and laid each piece one against another, but the birds divided he not. And when the fowls came down upon the carcasses, Abram drove them away. And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and lo and horror of great darkness fell upon him. And he said unto Abram, know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs and shall serve them.

And they shall afflict them 400 years. And also that nation whom they shall serve will I judge. And afterwards shall they come out with great substance. And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace. Thou shalt be buried in a good old age. But in the fourth generation, they shall come hither again. for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.

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. In the same day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates, the Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Raphaeans, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites. And then we turn to our text this morning in Romans chapter four, verses 13 through 16. Romans four, verses 13 through 16.

For the promise that he should be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect. Because the law worketh wrath, for where no law is, there is no transgression. Therefore, it is of faith that it might be by grace. To the end, the promise might be sure to all the seed, not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham. And then the last part of that verse belongs to the next text in verse 17. So we will stop there. This is the word of our covenant God, holy and inspired. May he bless it to our hearts this morning.

Beloved congregation in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul has been demonstrating the truth of justification by faith alone from the case of Abraham, because Abraham was justified by faith alone Contrary to the assumption of the Jews, contrary to the wish of the flesh, Abraham was justified by faith alone. And so Paul has been using the case of Abraham to demonstrate this truth of justification by faith alone. And now the question that we face this morning as we come to the text before us is how is the truth of justification by faith alone taught in this particular incident in Abraham's life.

And it can be difficult at first to understand what the text is speaking of. There are certain things that are very clear. There is this matter of the promise that's on the face of it. There's also the fact that it was not given to Abraham by the law. In fact, that's emphasized.

But what is the incident that the text is referring to? that demonstrates justification by faith alone. And the difficulty comes in the fact that the Apostle, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in verse 13, assumes some words that he is going to fill in later in the subsequent verses. You see in verse 13 in the King James Version that there is that italicized word was, and that italicized word was indicates that that is not in the original Greek of Romans 4. So that the verse would read this way, for the promise that he should be the heir of the world not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. We have to fill in some words there. And the words that we need to fill in, the apostle gives us in the subsequent verses. He speaks in verse 14 of the promise being made something.

We can add that word, the promise was not made. to Abraham through the law and then we find in verse 16 that the promise might be sure And we can add that word so that what we have in verse 13 is this, the promise being made sure to Abraham. That's the issue. That's the idea. That's the main thought of the text. The promise is being made sure to Abraham. And what does it mean to make the promise sure It means that Abraham in his own heart was sure of it. He had certainty of it. So that we have in this text the doctrine of Abraham's assurance that what God said was true. That's remarkable. That's marvelous. This is the doctrine of Abraham's assurance.

And that is so remarkable because throughout the history of the world, the doctrine of assurance always comes under attack. That doctrine of assurance comes under attack not only by the devil coming to us and casting at us his fiery darts to try to snatch away our assurance that we are the people of God, but that assurance comes under attack by the devil constantly trying to make assurance come by the law and come by obedience. That's the devil's tactic from the beginning until now, to make your certainty that the promise of God is for you to depend at some point and in some way upon your keeping of the law, your obedience to the law. And so the apostle says over against that attack on assurance, let's consider the case of Abraham.

Let us see how the promise was made sure to Abraham. The promise was made sure to Abraham not by the law, The law had nothing to do with the assurance of Abraham. The law in no way established the promise as sure for Abraham, but rather Abraham's assurance came through the righteousness of faith.

Faith righteousness, not works righteousness. That's the doctrine here, the wonderful doctrine of assurance. That's the doctrine that you and I must hear and must hear again and again as the devil attacks our assurance and as he seeks to make our doctrine to be made sure by works. over against that teaching of being made sure by works stands this truth that we are made sure by faith and through the righteousness of faith.

The apostle brings up Abraham because as it goes for Abraham, so it goes for you. Abraham had the promise made sure to him, not by the law, but by the righteousness of faith. And you and I, by the grace of God, have the promise made sure to us, not by the works of the law, but by the righteousness of faith.

And so let us consider this word of God this morning under the theme, the promise made sure to Abraham. In the first place, consider the meaning. In the second place, consider the manner. And in the third place, consider the purpose, the promise made sure to Abraham, the meaning, the manner, and the purpose.

We have here in this text then, this whole matter of the promise and the promise being made sure for the promise that he should be the heir of the world was made sure to Abraham or to his seed, not through the law, but through the righteousness of faith."

In order to understand the making sure of the promise, we need to understand what the promise is. What is God's promise? Well, we have some idea in our minds of what a promise is. A promise is a sure word. A promise is established. But we can define the promise of God this way, that God's promise is His revelation of things as they are in his eternal counsel. " Again, God's promise is his revelation of things as those things are in God's eternal counsel and in his eternal good pleasure. When we're speaking of the promise, we're speaking of things that God has determined We're speaking of those things that from all eternity God has decreed shall certainly come to pass. And God has decreed that those things shall come to pass, because it pleased Him to decree that those things shall come to pass. There was no one who came to God and said, God, things must go this way. And I would like in my life for things to go this particular way. No one came to God to give Him His decree.

God, in His own eternal counsel, according to His own good pleasure, has determined how all things shall go. That's God's counsel. And God knows His counsel. God's counsel is always before His mind. He sees His counsel. His counsel is before Him as that which He pleases. God knows His counsel.

But you don't, and I don't. We here on the earth, we're not privy to those things that belong to the counsel of God. Those are the hidden things that He knows and that He has determined according to His good pleasure. And the only way that man here upon the earth can know the things of the counsel of God is that God will come to man and reveal those things to man.

And that's what the promise of God is. God's promise is His coming to us, He who knows His counsel, and revealing to us things as they are in His eternal decree. For example, God's counsel was that there be a seed of the woman. That was His counsel from all eternity.

But in the beginning, With Adam and Eve, when they fell into sin, they did not know that there was going to be the seed of the woman. And not merely a child, but a seed. The seed who would crush the head of the serpent. And so God came to Adam and Eve, and he made a promise to them. by which he revealed what was in his counsel concerning the seed. The seed of the woman shall crush the head of the seed of the serpent, and the seed of the serpent will bruise the heel of the seed of the woman."

That was God's promise, the revelation of things as they were in the counsel of Jehovah God. And that's what God says now to Abraham in our text, God made a promise to Abraham that he should be heir of the world. That promise was not known by man, or that truth was not known by man, but God came to man and revealed to him what was in his counsel. That's what we read in Genesis 15. The word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision saying, fear not Abram, I am thy shield and I exceed in great reward. And Abram was perplexed.

God, you have promised me a seed, but I have no seed. I have a servant. I have this Eleazar of Damascus. He's had a child. That's my heir right now. My servant and his son. That's my heir. Is that what you meant when you said that I would have a seed? God said to Abraham, No, Eliezer and his son shall not be thy seed, but thy seed shall proceed out of thine own bowels.

That has been my counsel. That's the secret thing that I have declared that I now make known to you. You can't see it, but that's the way it is. That's the way it is in my counsel. And my promise now is my revelation to you of things as they are in my counsel.

And God went on to say, verse 7, I am the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees to give thee this land to inherit it. God promised Abraham the land. And that's specifically what the Apostle Paul is referring to in Romans 4 in our text. The promise that he should be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. God told Abraham standing there in the land of Canaan, a land that was strange to him, a land that was not his home. He told Abraham about that land. It's yours. It's all yours. You are the heir who will inherit this land. Your seed is the heir that will inherit this land.

God's promise is His revelation of things as they are in His counsel. But now, the wonderful thing about the promise is that all appearance and all experience speak against that promise. That promise cannot be known by the way things appear. That promise cannot be understood by what we experience. That promise is the revelation of things as they are in God's counsel, but not as those things are seen and known and felt among us. You go back to the beginning and look at that promise of God concerning the seed of the woman. All appearance spoke against there being a seed of the woman.

How so? Well, when God gave Adam and Eve a son, their first son was Cain. And they even said about Cain, Gotten, that's his name, Gotten. I have gotten a man of the Lord. This must be that seed God was talking about. The seed of the woman. But who was Cain? He was a wicked man. He was the seed of the serpent. How could there ever be a seed of the woman?

It's impossible. Appearance speaks against that promise. Experience speaks against that promise. It cannot be true. And then God gives Another son, Abel. Ah, here's the seed of the woman. Now finally we can see it. That there's a seed of the woman. But what happens to Abel? Cain rises up and kills him. And now the seed of the woman is dead. The appearance and the experience spoke against the truth of the promise. The seed of the woman. All that ever happened to that seed of the woman is that he went down to defeat as far as the appearance goes and as far as the experience goes.

And so it was to Abraham. Abraham was an heir of what? Do we catch that in the text? Abraham was an heir of what? Not just Canaan. The heir of the world. The promise that he should be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law but through the righteousness of faith. The heir of the world No appearance could prove that Abraham was the heir of the world. Look at him there in the land of Canaan. He's standing there looking up at the heavens with God telling him, I'm going to give you the whole land of Canaan.

And at that very moment, he didn't own a single square meter of that land. Even the land under his feet that he was standing on was not his. He lived in a tent, not even in a house. There was no place to put down his stakes and stay permanently. He wandered around in that land of Canaan.

All experience, all appearance said that that promise of God is not true. You will not be the heir of the world. You're not even the heir of Canaan. And later, when Abraham did have a small little portion of that land, it was just a cave to bury his wife Sarah when she would die. That's all there was. A cave to bury the dead in. Not the whole land of Canaan. Not from the great river all the way down to the south. Not from the east to the west.

And notice what God's promise was. Abraham, you are heir of the world. How could Abraham be heir of the world when he wasn't even the heir of this Canaan? That's the promise of God. The promise of God reveals things as they are in the counsel of God and the counsel of God. Abraham was the heir of the whole world, the heir of the new heavens and the new earth. the heir of that land where righteousness dwells, not merely a patch of earth along the Mediterranean Sea, not merely all the patches of earth in this world, but the heir of the new heavens and the new earth themselves. That's the promise of God because that's how things are in God's counsel.

But it never appears that way. And that's how it is for us. We always want to look for the appearance. We want to trust the experience. How does it look? Does it look like God's promise is coming true? And what is God's promise to his people? You are the heirs of the whole world in Jesus Christ. You are the heirs of the new heavens and the new earth. You are the sons and the daughters of God. Is that what this looks like? Is that what you see with your eyes as you look around? Is that the appearance of things? The heirs of the world? You look in on this and you say, that cannot be. It's impossible.

We don't experience it. What we feel is that we're constantly dying. What we feel is constant oppression. What we feel is constant loss. What we feel is constant opposition. We are the heirs of the world. How can it be? Nevertheless, in spite of the contrary appearance and the contrary experience, the promise of God is sure. It is sure. That just means it is true. It is real. It is the way things truly, really are. The way things appear is not the way things really are. The way things are experienced is not how it really is.

It is the promise of God that is true. God came to Abraham who had nothing and said, Abraham, you are the heir of the world. And that promise of God is true because of who you find in that promise of God, who you find at its heart, who you find at its kernel. God speaks of that too to Abraham, to Abraham, and His seed.

His seed. There is this seed. It's that seed of the woman. It's that seed of Noah. That seed of Abraham. That seed of David. That God constantly promised throughout the Old Testament. It's that seed. And that seed is Jesus Christ. He is the seed. He is the one that God promised.

Though it never looked like He could come, Though at every turn the seed of the woman was being destroyed and killed. Though Abraham and Sarah were dead as far as their flesh goes. So that they could not have the seed. At every turn the seed could not come. But there in the heart of God's counsel is the seed who is Jesus Christ. That's true. That's real.

That's how things are. And God has decreed all things in Him. He has decreed concerning you and me, concerning His church over the length and breadth of the world, all of His people, He has decreed concerning us that we are ears of the world in this Jesus Christ and that though we die all the day long here, We live forever, forever in the new heavens and the new earth. All things are ours for all things are Christ's and Christ is God's. That's the truth. That's the reality of the promise of God.

And now Abraham was made sure of the promise or the promise was made sure to Abraham, which simply means that Abraham in his own heart was sure of it. He was confident of it. This is the truth of assurance. Abraham stood there in the land of Canaan, not even owning the land under his own two feet, and heard God say to him, you are the heir of the world. Abraham believed it.

He knew it. He was sure of it. We have that account in Genesis 15, rather, when Abraham says in verse 8 to God, he said, Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it? Whereby shall I know? That's what we're talking about in this promise made sure. It's Abraham knowing, being convicted of it, that the world belongs to him.

That being made sure, then, stands over against all of the appearance and all of our experience of things. That assurance does not rest on the appearance of things, the experience of things. Here is what appearance said to Abraham, Abraham, you are not the heir of the world and you cannot be. It's impossible for you to be heir of the world. God said to Abraham, Abraham, You are heir of the world. And Abraham, made sure of it, said, I am heir of the world.

That's the truth for the people of God. The word of God comes to us over against the constant testimony of the appearance. The appearance says you cannot be the people of God. This cannot be the people of God. This cannot be the church of Jesus Christ. This cannot be gathering of the heirs of the world. And then the promise of God comes and says, in Jesus Christ, you are the heirs of the world. And we are made sure by that promise so that we say, I am the heir of the world.

The apostle is at pains in our text to show the manner by which the promise was made sure to Abraham. The manner of the promise being made sure to Abraham was not by the law. You see that in verse 13, the promise that he should be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. In the original Greek language, That phrase, not through the law, is first. It's the first thing in the text. It's the emphasis in the text. Not through the law was Abraham made sure of the promise. Not through the law.

That indicates that we are dealing here then with a very important principle with regard to our assurance We are dealing, in fact, with the fundamental principle of assurance. And the fundamental principle of assurance is that assurance is not by the law. It is not by the law. It is never by the law. But no one believes that fundamental principle of assurance. You don't and I don't either, not according to our flesh. The flesh of man wants nothing to do with this fundamental principle of assurance.

The flesh of man wants assurance through the law. Because if assurance is through the law, then that means I have a boast. I can glory in myself. I can be proud. I can remain proud. My flesh can remain proud. If assurance, if my assurance, of the promise comes through the law, my keeping of the law, my obedience of the law, if it comes through the law, then I don't have to lose everything. I don't have to lose everything of myself. I can keep something of myself. I can be something in myself, even before the eyes of God himself.

And so the flesh does not believe and hates this idea that assurance is not through the law. The constant attack on assurance, then, is to make a relationship between assurance and the law. And the relationship between assurance and the law is this. You perform the law, and then you will be assured. Whatever that performance of the law is, whether that's the performance of the law of love for God, the performance of the law of love for the neighbor, the performance of the law of repenting of my sins and being sorry for my sins, that the relationship is I perform the law and then I am made sure of the promise.

But the promise is not made sure to Abraham through the law. And as it is with Abraham, so it is with you. The promise is not made sure to you through the law. In fact, the apostle shows the inevitable result of basing assurance on the law. That's verse 14. If they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect.

That phrase, they which are of the law, refers to those who have their trust in the law. Those who are looking for their assurance in the law. Those who see whether the promise can come to them by the law. They are those who are of the law. And now don't weaken and do not soften what the apostle says of they which are of the law.

If they be heirs, then faith is made void. That's the strongest language you can use about faith. What is void? Void means empty. And this is such strong language because what is the content of faith. What is the object of faith? It is Jesus Christ. If they which are of the law be heirs, then you empty faith of Christ. You take away the object of faith so that there is no more Christ in your faith. The only thing left in your faith is you and your law and your obeying If they which are of the law be heirs, then faith is made void.

Do not weaken that. The idea of our flesh and the idea of much of the church world today, the idea that's constantly coming through false doctrine is that I can have Christ in my faith and I can also have my law keeping in my faith. and that I can have assurance by Christ, he did something, but that I can have my assurance by what I have done too, I did something too. The thought is we can hold these two things together so that our assurance is a mingling of what Christ did and what we have done. In fact, men today even say, when it comes to your assurance of your justification, by faith, then you may not slight or minimize or dismiss the works of man. You may not. You must give those works of man their place. This is the teaching everywhere. This is the teaching you and I would embrace except for the grace of God. Look at what the Apostle Paul says about that theory of assurance.

If your assurance comes in any respect by the law and your keeping of the law, there's no more room for Christ in your faith. Your faith is emptied. It's made void. You have no Christ in your faith. Though you speak of Christ and though you boast of Christ, you have no Christ in your faith.

And look at what the Apostle says about the promise. If they which are of the law behears the promise, is made of none effect. Being made of none effect is the opposite of being made sure. The promise being made sure means that that promise comes to me and it gives me peace, it gives me certainty, it gives me the confidence that what God says is true because He's telling me how things are in His counsel. Never mind what I can see. Never mind how things appear. God has told me in this promise how things appear in his counsel and how things are in his counsel is this. I'm the heir of the world in Christ.

But now, if my assurance must come by my obeying the law, that promise is made of none effect to me. It doesn't make me sure. It's not made sure to me. It doesn't give me confidence and peace. That promise becomes a mockery of me. As God says, you are the heir of the world. And then I stand under the law. And the law says to me, you are not right. You are not righteous. You are a sinner. How can a sinner be the heir of the world?

If righteousness, if assurance must come by the law, then the very promise of the gospel is made of none effect. That's the seriousness of this attack on the doctrine of assurance. It's an attack on the gospel itself. It is a gutting, an eviscerating of the gospel itself, so that the gospel does not make sure, but the gospel has no effect. And why?

Why was the promise not made sure to Abraham through the law, Verse 15 explains, because the law worketh wrath, for where no law is, there is no transgression. Here the apostle is showing assurance never could come by the law because the law was never given to make people assure. Certainty is not a fruit, a work, that the law is able to perform. The law cannot give certainty.

It cannot give it. It's not this, that it could be possible for the law to give you assurance, you're just not trying hard enough. So that if you would try harder, if you would be more sincere in your godly Christian life, then the law could give you assurance. So get to work and try harder. in your Christian life.

That's not what's being said here. Rather, the apostle is showing that the law was never given in order to provide assurance. It simply cannot work assurance. God never intended it to work assurance. There is something God intended to work assurance. That's the gospel. That's the good news of Jesus Christ. That's Christ and Him alone. That works assurance. But the law was not given to work assurance. What does the law work? Verse 15, wrath. The law was given for a purpose and its purpose was to work wrath. And what that means is to teach us the wrath of God that abides on sin and upon sinners.

And then the apostle illustrates that by bringing up this thought experiment Let's imagine that there's a place where there's no law, where no law is. Let's imagine that there's a place with no law. If there's no law, there's no transgression. No one can ever say to you, you're doing something wrong. And if someone would accuse you, you're doing something wrong, you would say, well, prove it. Where's the evidence that I'm doing something wrong? Where's the statute? Where's the rule? Where's the law that says I may not do this?

And that thought experiment demonstrates the fact that the law was not given to assure you of something, but rather the law was given to work wrath. It was given to expose you and me. It was given to show us our sin and to show us what we deserve because of that sin. The law worketh wrath. The manner of the promise being made sure can never be by the law. Why do you and why do I search for that assurance by the law? It's ingrained in us. You and I think, according to our flesh, that the better we do, the more sure we may be of the love of God.

And this is the constant attack of the false doctrine to take that law which can only work wrath and try to give it to God's people as something which will work their peace. That law will not work your peace. Obedience to that law will not work your peace. It worketh wrath.

How did it go for Abraham? The promise was made sure to him. Not by law. In fact, you look at the account in Genesis 15, and you find that God's promise of the land was given to him before Abraham ever did a thing. All that Abraham had was this righteousness of faith.

And then in verse 7, God says, I will give thee this land to inherit it. And even when Abraham takes those animals and divides them and chases the birds away, Abraham doesn't walk down the path that was created, that bloody path, that path drenched in the blood of these carcasses that had been slain. Abraham's lying there in a deep sleep and God alone walks down that bloody path and makes his covenant, literally cuts his covenant there with Abraham. God alone goes down that path. Not Abraham, not any law keeping.

And that's the path that God laid out for the Lord Jesus Christ. That path of the bloody animals there is the cross. That's what the path is. God cut His covenant in the flesh and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ that we who are unrighteous and cannot have assurance by the law might have the assurance And we are right with God nevertheless. And that through the blood of Jesus Christ. That's what God taught Abraham about his assurance, which he teaches us in the text.

The promise was not made sure through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. Faith righteousness. which is the opposite of law righteousness, which is the opposite of working. Faith righteousness is someone else's righteousness. Faith righteousness is the perfect righteousness and purity and obedience of another. It is the perfect righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, that righteousness which is revealed in that bloody path of the cross. The righteousness which is revealed in the flesh and the blood, broken and shed, of our Lord Jesus Christ for His people.

It's the righteousness of Christ, which righteousness was counted, imputed, as we have seen in Romans 4. Counted and imputed to Abraham by faith, and by faith alone. That's how Abraham was sure of the promise of God to him, Abraham, you are the heir of the world. That promise was made sure in the blood of Christ. Made sure in the faith righteousness, which is just the righteousness of Christ imputed to us. So that when Abraham looked at himself and saw this dead old man, this sinner. And so all the appearance of how the promise of God could not be true, he nevertheless was sure of it for the sake of Jesus Christ. And that's you, that's me. As it went with Abraham, so it goes with us. And this was the purpose of God, too, in making sure His promise to Abraham. The Apostle teaches that purpose in verse 16.

Therefore it is of faith that it might be by grace. The fact that this covenant, the fact that this promise can be received only by faith and not by works was God's own design to show that salvation is entirely of His grace. The reason justification is by faith alone is that you and I might know God gave us this, and He didn't owe it to us. He didn't owe it to us. There's nothing we could have claimed from Him, and yet in His grace He came to us, who deserved nothing, and gave us everything, gave us life, gave us the world, the new heavens and the new earth, and life in Christ. To the end, the Apostle goes on teaching about this purpose. To the end, the promise might be sure to all the seed."

How lovely. How lovely. Because that seed is you. It's me. You and I are that seed in Christ. He is the seed. And we are the seed of Abraham in Him. Why did God make the promise sure to Abraham not by the law, but by the righteousness of faith, that the promise might be sure to you and to me as well, and that we here, with every appearance saying otherwise, might have this confidence.

We belong to Christ, and we are the heirs of the world. When the apostle Paul ends in verse 16 by saying, not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham, he is not saying, that there is an assurance which is of the law and then also there's another assurance which is of the faith of Abraham. But there he's referring to those Jews who would make their boast of Abraham and claim that because of Abraham they were righteous. And he is saying here that the reason Abraham was made sure by faith alone is that all men might know this is how assurance is given. And that is the comfort and the peace of the church. There's the assurance of the church. There's the doctrine of assurance that gives to you that assurance.

You are made sure that you are heirs of the world, not because of what you have done, but because of Jesus Christ and the righteousness of faith. Amen. Let us pray. Our Father, which art in heaven, we thank thee for the gospel to us this morning. Bless it to our hearts and give us the comfort and assurance and peace of thy promise. Make it sure to our hearts, not by the law, but by the righteousness of faith, which is Jesus Christ. Will thou hear our prayer, answer us in thy mercy, for Jesus' sake, amen.

We return now to Psalm 105. Psalm 105. We'll finish the second part of the psalm that we're singing. We'll begin with verse 38. Notice verse 42, for on his holy promise he and servant Abram thought. We have their God thinking on his holy promise and God thinking on Abraham as he brought them out of the land of Canaan. Verses 38 through 45, you may rise as the tune plays and then we'll sing 38 through 45.

♪ Egypt was glad when forth they went ♪ ♪ Their fear on them did light ♪ ♪ He spread a cloth for covering ♪ ♪ And fire to shine by night ♪ ♪ They asked and he brought a pail with bread ♪ Of heaven he filled them. He opened rocks, flowers, gushed and ran. In deserts like a stream. ♪ For on his holy promise he ♪ ♪ Can servant Israel plot ♪ ♪ With joy his people his delight ♪ ♪ With gladness, Lord, he plot ♪ ♪ And unto them the pleasant land ♪ of the heathen game, that of the people's labor they inheritance might have. that they his statutes might observe according to his word, and that they might his laws obey, give praise unto the Lord.

Which is Psalm 106. verses 1 and 48. It's divided up in the music between two tunes. We'll sing both of them to the same tune. I think it's the first tune. Psalm 106, verse 1, and then verse 48. We'll listen to the tune first. Yeah, so we'll do this after that.

Praise and thanks unto the Lord, for bountiful is he. His tender mercy doth endure unto eternity. Blessed be Jehovah, Israel's God, to all eternity. Let all the people sing amen. Praise to the Lord dearly. Receive God's blessing. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.