Well, I'm going to do my duty and vote today. I probably have never voted for any candidate who wasn't a flawed candidate, and this will be no exception. Both candidates are quite flawed. But I do my duty the best I can, and I hope you do your duty. We have many duties. You have a lot of duties today. Life is not about our pleasure, it is primarily about our duty, doing our duty. And doing our duty ought to give us pleasure. But I have a privilege, and we all have a privilege, to try to pass on to our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, the best kind of America we know how to do. And our little, single, tiny, insignificant-seeming vote is at least a duty to be performed and a pleasure that I can have some little part in the kind of country my children, heirs, will get to inherit. Well, our hope doesn't depend on the outcome of all of this. Thank the Lord that is true, nor on any other election. I am going to speak to you today again about the Abrahamic covenant, because it's a covenant of hope. It's about God's capabilities of fulfilling his promises. It's about the omnipotence of God. There is hope in that. There is no hope in any promise a candidate will ever make. They can promise the moon, but they have to deal with the Congress. They have to deal with world conditions that they have no control over. The promises of man are vain and virtually impossible to fulfill, given the circumstances of life in which those promises are made. But God knows no limitations. When He makes promises, we're guaranteed they will be fulfilled. So I would ask you please to open your Bibles to Genesis chapter 12. Genesis 12 through 22 I consider to be the most significant set of chapters, consecutive set of chapters in the Old Testament. Because so much of the New Testament as well hinges upon what God said he was going to do in those few chapters. It's all about Abraham, the friend of God. James chapter 2 says he was called the friend of God. Isaiah 41.8 says he was Abraham, God's friend. Abraham, God said in 2 Chronicles 27, my friend forever. And I really like what the Lord Jesus said to his disciples in the 15th chapter of John, the 14th verse, when he said, I'm not going to call you my servants anymore, but you're my friends. If you do whatsoever I've commanded you to do. You and I can have the joy and privilege of being called the friend of God also. I'm going to read the first three verses of Genesis chapter 12. The Lord said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, from thy kindred, from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show thee. I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing. And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curseth thee. And in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed. This is not just a promise. having to do with his immediate heirs, the seed of Abraham, the Jewish nation, but it pertains to all the families of the earth. God blessed the Gentile world through Abraham just as much as he did the Jewish world. So that began the promise of God to Abraham. The Bible says in this chapter of the fourth verse that he was 75 years old when he went out of Haran That pagan land up in Mesopotamia where he had lived to that point He came to the land of Canaan the land. He didn't know anything about Just because God said that's where you're supposed to go and I'm going to take care of you. He believed God and And over and over again in these chapters, it speaks about the fact, and in New Testament chapters as well, that he believed God and it was counted unto him for righteousness. If you and I are righteous today, how are we righteous? We took God at his word, that Jesus is his son, that there is no other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. We take the Word of God in absolute belief that when it said that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, God meant it. It's true. We believe it. We put our faith in it. We're saved by faith and not by works. So because Abraham believed God, God counted it to him for righteousness. He believed that there would be a righteous provision for him and looking forward to that provision God would make, he got saved the same way you and I get saved. So 10 years later, after he reaches this land, We come to chapter 15. If you have your Scriptures with you, and I hope you do, look at chapter 15 for just a minute. The covenant was formally made there. We don't have time to read the whole chapter, but at the end of the chapter there was a formal ceremony that was customary in this day. When an agreement was made between two people, in that age a certain custom was followed, and that was followed in this case. It's recorded for us here at the end of this chapter. Chapter 15 says, After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram, I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward. After what things? After the battle that he participated in to rescue Lot, his nephew, and the other people of the city of Sodom. who had been taken captive in a territorial warfare that had taken place. Abraham got his servants together, hundreds of them. They formed an army and they won this battle and they made these people free from their captors. And after that, God appeared to Abraham and said, I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward. And Abram said, Lord God, What will thou give me, seeing I go childless? Now remember, 10 years before, God said, I'm going to give you a progeny. In you, the nations will be blessed. 10 years later, it hadn't happened. And Abraham wants a son so badly. He said, maybe Eliezer of Damascus, the chief steward of my house, maybe he can be my heir, since I don't have an heir. That was a customary thing in that day. And God said, no, it's going to be one of thy own seed, somebody born in your house that is your heir. And verse 6, he believed the Lord and it was counted to him for righteousness. So 10 years goes by, still no son. Once again in this chapter, an heir is promised. And 11 years, Later, in chapter 16, we find that Abraham had a lapse of faith. And his wife said to him, we need to engage in a common custom. It was common in that time, if there was barrenness on a wife's part, that she could give her handmaid to her husband who would be then taking a second wife and she would bear a child to the family name. And Abraham gave in to that plea. It looked like God wasn't going to give what he promised. And so this child, Ishmael, was born. It's recorded in chapter 16. And from that point on, for 14 years, God was silent toward Abram. He had ceased to believe God. And God didn't communicate with him for 14 years. And at the age of 99, 24 years after he arrived in the land, God spoke again to him in chapter 17. And I would like you to look at that. When Abram was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said, I am almighty God. Walk before me and be thou perfect. I will make my covenant between me and thee. The same one I made with you in chapter 15. That's what he's saying. I will reinstate my covenant with you. And I will multiply thee exceedingly. And Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying, As for me, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be the father of many nations. Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be called Abraham. For a father of many nations have I made thee, and I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee, and I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant to be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee. And I will give unto thee and to thy seed after thee the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God. God reiterated his promise again After 24 years, when it was first made, he changed the name of Abram and Sarah as emblematic, I believe, of the new creatures that they were now before God. So what did he promise? He promised an heir. Again, in verse 21 of chapter 17, you're going to have an heir. And by the way, many years later, in this era, Isaac was in his thirties, probably. Grown man. You know the story of Mount Moriah and the sacrifice of Isaac. And for Isaac, God provided a lamb, as He has done for you and me. Abram understood that righteousness is by faith, and that God would provide the means for that atonement, that righteousness, which Abraham did not have. Abraham was not any better of a man than you and I. He was sinful like we are. He was unrighteous, and he believed God, and he became righteous through his faith in what God would do. And in chapter 18, when Isaac was born, God said to Abram, is anything too hard for me? So what did this covenant really consist of? It's important for us to know that. Because we are heirs of this promise as well. This pertains to us at this time in our life, in this point of the world's history. Abraham stood in his point of history 2,000 years after Adam, 2,000 years before Christ, 4,000 years before us. 400 years after the great flood of Noah's day, 400 years before Moses came on the scene, 1,000 years before David reigned in Israel, he was God's man at that appointed time. You see, You and I are very impatient people, aren't we? We want instant food. We want instant everything. We don't want to wait for anything. That's what credit cards are all about. That's the danger of it. It's all about greed. It's all about instant gratification. We don't want to wait. I'm sure it was very hard for Abraham to wait. In fact, we know it was hard for him to wait because he and Sarah took another course and we said we're going to help God out in this matter. We're not going to wait on God. We're tired of waiting. Maybe you, maybe I am very weary of waiting on God to answer some prayer. We've prayed for years. We want God to do it right now. We want him to be at our disposal, on our timetable. But God doesn't move on our timetable. He didn't move on Abraham's timetable. But he did make a promise, a covenant, not based on Abraham's performance, but based upon the promise of God. God says, I'm going to do this. What do you say? I'm going to do, I'm going to give you a land. Genesis 15, 18 to 21. And by the way, there are many other passages. In the same day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, under thy seed I've given the land from the river of Egypt, under the great river, the river Euphrates, the Canaanites, the Kindezites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaims, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Zebusites. He said, I'm giving you all of this land that those people have. That was an absolute promise, and that absolute promise is still in effect today. There is a most egregious affront to God Almighty that some theologians are proposing right now, a novel idea called replacement theology. I think it's an insult to God Almighty. Replacement theology simply says God really didn't mean this promise to Abram about this land. It's symbolic. It's an allegory. Because when they sinned and went into idolatry, God abrogated this plan. God changed His mind, and actually all these Old Testament verses that the prophets speak of when the day comes that the land will be inhabited by Israel, and they will rule and reign with the Lord for a thousand years there, and God's going to give them the restoration of all this land that they haven't had really since the Babylonian captivity, but they now have a little toehold in since 1948, and the nation of Israel was reborn. God's not really going to give that to them. He's going to give that to the church. His promises to Israel, just an allegory. It's not to be taken literally. Well, that's an insult to God. God doesn't play tricks like that. He doesn't give us his word and then kind of wink his eye and twitch his head and say, well, you know, I said it, but I really didn't mean it. I had something else in mind when I said that. No, this promise, this covenant, consists of land. Land that they will not have to share forever with the PLO or with anybody else. Their land. All their land. He promised that in that covenant that Abraham would be the father of many nations. We just read about it in verses 1 through 6 of Genesis 17. I've made thee a father of many nations. I'm giving you this land forever, he said. I've made you the father of many nations forever. I'm giving you an heir. I will establish my covenant with him, God said in Genesis 17, 19, for an everlasting covenant with his seed and with his seed after him. That basically is the Abrahamic covenant. It's still in effect. God is still keeping his promise. But there was something else that God gave as a part of that promise. It was justification by faith. Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness. Listen to these words from Galatians chapter 3, beginning at verse 6. Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted unto him for righteousness, don't you know therefore that they which are of faith, that's you and me, if we're saved, they which are of faith, the same, are the children of Abraham. The Scripture foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith—that is, the Old Testament Scriptures. Read the Old Testament Scriptures. These prophets who spoke in the Old Testament as recorded for us in the Scriptures. They sought what manner or what time this righteousness would come. They only saw a little picture of it. They knew it was coming. They didn't know when. They only knew what God gave them the light to know, and they spoke for God in that regard. They preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all the nations be blessed. What does it mean he preached the gospel? Did somebody come and say, Let me take you to the Romans' road? No, there was no Romans' road at that time. It simply means that he announced glad news in advance of the news appearing It was going to be a long time, 2,000 more years before the Savior would come into the world when the fullness of time was come. But he gave the glad news that that time was coming, and Abraham understood that. So they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham. He showed Abraham what righteousness by faith was all about. That was part of the covenant as well. You see, all of the Old Testament covenants, there were several, but there are four chief ones. The Abrahamic covenant, the Mosaic covenant, the Davidic covenant, and the new covenant. Four chief ones. They all are about Jesus Christ. They all are about God's plan of salvation for all of the ages to come. God's plan will be fulfilled in exact detail. But God says to us today, wait. Wait for the rapture when the church is taken away. Wait for the coming of the kingdom when the Lord will rule and reign for a thousand years. Wait. When that time is right, I will act. But you have to believe me. I'm doing it my way. And God's doing that today. The world today is enjoying what God promised Abraham long ago. The Jewish nation has yet much to enjoy that God has promised and will be fulfilled. We are enjoying salvation through faith, righteousness by faith. God says, wait for the fulfillment of all things, but act. upon what you know today. I close with these verses regarding the fact that all of this covenant points to Jesus Christ. It's all about Christ. It's all about God's plan of salvation. When man sinned, God didn't just say, oh, I've got to do something about this. The Bible says that before the foundation of the world, the Lamb of God was slain. In the mind and understanding of God, provision was already made before it needed to be made. God knew what would have to happen. Romans 15, verse 6. that with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Wherefore receive ye one another as Christ also received us to the glory of God. Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God to confirm the promises made unto the fathers. What is Jesus Christ all about? He's God's confirmation. that the promise of the Abrahamic covenant and the other covenants would absolutely be fulfilled. That the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy as it is written for this cause. I will confess to thee among the Gentiles and sing unto thy name. And again, he saith, rejoice ye Gentiles with his people, that is Israel. And again, praise the Lord, all ye Gentiles, and laud him, all ye people. And again, Isaiah saith, there shall be a root of Jesse, and he that shall rise to reign over the Gentiles, in him shall the Gentiles trust. Who is that? That's Jesus Christ, who came of the seed of David, the son of Jesse. Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost. What is the basis for our hope? That God's going to keep his promise. God never lies. And God has the power. Because he's almighty God, he has the power to do whatever he says and whatever he proposes to do. Therefore, be hopeful. And verse four of this chapter, for whatsoever things were written before time, that is the Old Testament, were written for our learning that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. You pretty discouraged today? When you think of the possible outcome of this election? Yeah, I get very discouraged. I think, oh man, what if? God has given us hope through the scriptures. that reveal that our God is a God who keeps His promises. And His promises include that there will come a Savior in whom our hope depends. I hope you have the hope of everlasting life in Christ because you've put your faith there. And I hope you continue to be aware that that one that is your savior is the God of all hope. So in a day when there may be a little bit of gloom in the air, let's go out of here filled with the joy that our promise keeping God is the God of all hope. because he keeps his word. Father, our trust is in thee. You have given us promises thousands of years ago about the coming of your son, whose righteousness is our hope, our everlasting salvation. Today, Lord, we are a glad people because whatever goes on in this world scene is no threat to your promises, will not take you off your throne. You rule your universe by your word. And I thank you, Lord, your word is sure because you are almighty God. Thank you for being such a God to us. In Jesus' name, amen.