Well, hello everybody and welcome back. This is our daily devotional for Friday, November the 1st. Y'all, what in the world is going on? We only got two more months and then what is it going to be 2025? I'm not used to saying 2024 at this point. I don't know. Yeah, a lot of things going on, but I hope that October has been a good month for you, and I hope that November is looking good as well. A lot of things going on, especially around here at the church. We've got our announcement. It's the last Saturday of November. Our youth group is doing its big holiday dinner fundraiser. It's going to be like in the past where you can drive through, pick up your food. A lot of people love that. We're also going to have some tables set up, limited seating inside here and lots and lots and lots of things going on, but I'm happy to be in this time. It's November the 1st, y'all. You know what that means. It means, and I know, I know, there's some people that get really upset about this. Some people have very strong opinions about this. But Isabella and I have already decreed it. You know what November the 1st means? It means Nat King Cole. It means Frank Sinatra. It means the chairman of the board is back, baby, right? They kind of never left for me, because I listen to that anyway. But Christmas music, yes. I know, I know, you think it's too early, whatever. We'll listen to the Great Pumpkin soundtrack a little bit more as well. But anyway, I love this time of the year. Can you tell? I also love what we're doing in the book of Genesis much more. All that stuff doesn't really matter that much. This is of eternal significance because where we found ourselves yesterday was in this re-giving of God's covenant promises to Abraham. Yesterday, what we really focused on is God's character, his nature, the ways that he is a blessing, the unilateral nature of God's love, y'all. In that God comes to Abram, he affirms his promise, he changes his name to Abraham, saying you're gonna be the father of many nations. And we talked about all of that. But where we're picking up today, we focused on God's end of the deal, right? God's side of this bargain that he made with Abraham. And today we're gonna look at Abraham's side, though I don't really wanna say it that way because it makes it sound like it's a 50-50. God's covenant with us is not 50-50, it's 100-0. You realize that, right? What do we have to give God? What do we have to offer God that is of worth to Him when He's the creator, right? And no, this is not self-deprecation or anything like that. It's just the practical in that, y'all, it's so unilateral, it's so one-sided, God's love. It's gotta be or else it wouldn't be grace, would it? If you contribute one bit of anything to grace, grace stops being grace and it starts becoming a payment. And y'all, that's not how this thing works. That's not how it worked with Abraham, as we've seen. And now, you know, originally when we started with this, I had a struggle calling him Abram. Now I've called him Abram so much, I'm struggling to call him Abraham, even though as we saw yesterday, that's his name now. But from the beginning with Abraham, we see God comes to him. Right? God's the one that goes after him. He doesn't go after God. God's the one that gives to him. Abraham, he can't give back to God. Not really. And it's the same way with you and me. However, however, there is a side to this that very much involves Abraham. And also there's a lot for us to learn because while the relationship we have with God is somewhat different, we are still in this same dynamic where as it was with Abraham, so it is with us. We're saved by faith. Abraham believed, and it was credited to him as righteousness. So it is with us. So what was Abraham's side? What was Abraham's obligation? What was Abraham's response? What would God have him do? That's what we're focusing on today as we continue in Genesis 17. But before we even read a verse, let's go to the Lord in prayer. Our God and our Father, would you be with us now and would you guide us as we examine this which took place so many generations ago but is so applicable to us today. Please guide us in this time by your Holy Spirit and we pray it all in Christ's name. Amen. All right, so Genesis chapter 17, we're starting in verse 9. So it says, God said to Abraham, pause, just like the therefore, what do we do? We stop and ask what the therefore is therefore. What's the then? The then is after God has affirmed his covenant with Abraham again. Father of many nations changes his name, all of those different kinds of things. So after that, verse nine, then God said to Abraham, as for you, you must keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you for the generations to come. This is my covenant with you and your descendants after you, the covenant you are to keep. Every male among you shall be circumcised. You are to undergo circumcision, and it will be the sign of the covenant between you and me." Now, pausing. Time out right there. We got to talk about some stuff, y'all. There's lots of things to talk about here, such as, for instance, well, does this mean that that all men everywhere are under obligation to be circumcised because if not, they'll break the covenant of God. No, that's not what this means. Instead, starting at the start, I just had to get that part out of the way. We need to realize something. God said, you must keep my covenant. Then he said, my covenant with you is this. And then he starts talking about circumcision. And so we automatically say, well, the covenant of God is circumcision. No, it's not. Listen to what God said. Verse 10, this is my covenant with you and your descendants after you, the covenant you are to keep. Every male among you shall be circumcised, okay? But, y'all, remember what he would go on to call circumcision. Verse 11, you are to undergo circumcision and it will be the sign of the covenant between you and me, between me and you. Y'all, the covenant that God is talking about with Abraham is not this physical thing. The physical thing is the sign of the covenant. It is the seal of the covenant. It is that which God gives Abraham and his descendants after him as a tangible means to remember. But it, as we just read in verse 11, that's the sign. So what's the covenant? Well, Rewinding back to Genesis chapter 15, verse six, Abram believed the Lord and he credited it to him as righteousness. Y'all, the covenant that God is speaking about here is faith. It's faith. Circumcision is the sign of that covenant, but the covenant is one of trust. Now again, focusing on what we talked about yesterday, do you see how wonderful this God is that we saw? How spectacular, how magnificent He is, because He says, Abraham, I'm gonna do all this for you. And what was required of Abraham? What was required of Abraham was belief, trust. Now, God gave him this sign of circumcision, and we'll talk in a second about what that sign signifies, okay? But y'all, the circumcision of the flesh was never the issue. Fast forward to Romans, we won't turn there today. But Paul spends a lot of time talking about the difference between the circumcision of the flesh and the circumcision of the heart. Y'all, the circumcision of the heart is what is important. Belief, faith, so much so that if you fast forward to Romans, you find Paul saying things like, hey, not everybody that says they're a Jew is a Jew. It's not those who are circumcised outwardly, but inwardly, signifying faith. It's for this reason that while circumcision as a sign was given, it wasn't circumcision that saved anybody. It was faith. That's why we know that there were those that were circumcised that had no faith, that in fact despised God, and they were not in fact saved. For the life of me, I do not understand why men like John Hagee, right, believe that all Jews, all ethnic Jews everywhere are automatically saved because they're God's chosen people. God's chosen people. Read Galatians. We've already done this. I don't know how many times. It's very clear in Galatians who God is talking about there that are ultimately His chosen people. It's those that trust in the seed of Abraham, which is Jesus Christ. If you're trusting in Christ, Abraham is your father. You're God's chosen people. Now, there is something going on with ethnic Jews, however, y'all, listen, there's no such thing as anybody that is saved by any means other than Jesus. Remember what he said, I am the way, the truth, the light. No man comes to the Father but by me. You think Jesus was lying there? John 14, six is true. And so what we see, rewinding all the way to Genesis chapter 17, is that it was always all about faith. Now, that being said, what gives with circumcision? First off, what gives with a sign of the covenant anyway? Is this something arcane that we don't understand? No, in fact, we actually have two signs, right? We have baptism, which we believe is the continuation of the sign given to children, right? In Genesis 17, it was given to, and I'm not going to get into that right now. If you want to argue with me, we can argue, that's fine. But we also have communion. Both of these are tangible. physical signs that God has given to point us to the truth of his covenant. But y'all, the covenant that God makes is trust in me. Believe in me. Follow me. Because that's the substance of salvation. Now, in particular, why circumcision? Okay, we're going to keep on reading here. Let's pick up verse 10. He says, this is my covenant with you and your descendants after you, the covenant you are to keep. Every male among you shall be circumcised. You are to undergo circumcision and it will be the sign of the covenant between you and me, or between me and you. For the generations to come, every male among you who is eight days old must be circumcised, including those born in your household or bought with money from a foreigner, those who are not your offspring. Whether born in your household or bought with your money, they must be circumcised. My covenant in your flesh is to be an everlasting covenant. "'Any uncircumcised male who has not been circumcised "'in the flesh will be cut off from his people. "'He has broken my covenant.' "'God also said to Abraham, "'As for Sarah, your wife.'" Pause. We're gonna get to that on Monday. Y'all, this sign that God gave is just that. We've had this talk, I don't know how many times. You should be able to complete this sentence by now if you've been here for all 635 or whatever it is. I don't even know how many there are daily devotionals. Okay. Remember what the value of the sign is. The value of the sign is not the sign itself. The value of the sign is what it points to. Take right here. I'm sitting in my study at the church here. If you were to go right down the street here on Old Providence Road, you would find a stop sign. That stop sign points to something very valuable. If I just blow through that thing and don't even pay it any attention, that stop sign is not going to uproot itself, drive itself through my engine block, and physically stop my vehicle. That's not how signs work. But what it points to, however, The fact that if I blow through that thing and there's a deputy sitting in the drive of the Stone Hall down there, he's going to really, really take care of me. The sign points to the value. The value of the sign is what it points to. Not to mention the danger that I face if I just blow through that bad boy, right? That's how signs work. It's the same way here. The sign always points to something greater than itself. And what the sign pointed to was God setting Abraham and his descendants apart, making them holy for himself, saying, there's the whole world and then there's you. not to be gross, not to be too awkward with this, but why this of all the signs that he could give? Well, y'all, there's lots of reasons that we could come up with. There's lots of rationale that we could employ, but really a lot of it's theoretical because we never have God fully explaining it with the exception of how sin works. Y'all, there's a reason why the male reproductive organ is what God chose for his sign of the covenant here. And twofold. Number one, because y'all, we receive our sin nature as a result of childbearing, of birth. Go all the way back to Genesis chapter three. Adam passes down his sinful nature to all of his descendants. It's through childbirth, right? And so, not to be gross or crude, but this sign of the covenant that God has said, I'm setting a people apart for myself. I'm redeeming a people for myself and saving these people. There's a reason that the sign was to be implemented on the male reproductive organ as a reclamation. But also, Y'all again not to be gross, but the reason the sign is what it is here is because it's a sign of blood I'll say that again. It's a sign of blood Where y'all there's no such thing as the forgiveness of sins or there's no such thing as forgiveness of sins without the shedding of blood and the blood points to the sacrifice that God would make. Now, why do we not circumcise anymore out of obligation? Because we've been given a new sign and that is baptism. Why is baptism not a sign of blood? Because all the blood that will ever need to be spilled was spilled on the cross. And so instead of blood, we have water. Water that represents cleansing, water that represents newness, life, beauty, all of these things. But for here, circumcision yet again, why this? Because it points forward to Christ, to the perfect lamb of God that would one day come and willingly lay down his own life, his blood would be shed, all for God to reckon a people to himself. And y'all, we are the recipients of this grace, this mercy, this love. So I wanna encourage you this weekend, as it's the first weekend in November, as all sorts of things are coming up. Oh yeah, and by the way, we got something coming up on Tuesday. Take the time to dwell on God's grace. Take the time to remember his love and his mercy. And get yourself in a Bible-believing church on Sunday. We're not gonna be in the book of Revelation this Sunday. No, no, no, no, no, no. Instead, we are focusing on something different altogether that is so very pertinent. to what we are facing right now as a nation, so very pertinent to the times that lie ahead and the fact that none of us knows what's coming, but the Lord does, and we're to put our trust in Him. So that's what we're gonna be focusing on, but we'd love to see you at Old Providence. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this time that you have given to us, and we pray for your blessings in it. Please guide us by your Holy Spirit as we process these things. Give us appreciation for your love and for your mercy. Let us be loving and merciful. Let us keep the covenant that you have established through trusting in you alone. And we pray it all in Christ's name, amen. Well, I'd like to thank you all for being a part of this time. Lord willing, we'll be back tomorrow morning at, well, no, it's Friday. So we'll be back Sunday morning, Lord willing, at 10 a.m. Hopefully the sound will work this time. Don't know what happened last week. Hopefully it'll work this coming Sunday morning, the Lord's day. And then Lord willing, we'll be back Monday morning at six. But until then, have a great weekend. If you're able, get yourself in church.