If you open in your Bibles with me to chapter 12 of Genesis, I want you to go with me back across 41 centuries of time to what is perhaps one of the greatest moments in the history of our salvation. Of course, the greatest moment was the moment of Calvary and our Lord Jesus Christ actually bearing in his own body our sin. But 4,100 years ago, yes, four 1,100 years, 41 centuries ago, God made a promise to a man. And that promise to that man we know as Abraham maps out all the rest of the Scriptures. In fact, you can fit the change in direction in the Bible right there in the 12th chapter of Genesis. Because up until Genesis 11, God seems to be, until the last few verses, We're talking about the whole world, but in Genesis, the last few verses of chapter 11 and then in 12, God focuses in that plan that was only mysteriously talked about in Genesis 3 and alluded to later in Genesis 49. This promised Redeemer, the sacrifice to take sinners place, talked about at the fall, explained in chapter 12. And that's what we're going to look at tonight. In just a moment, we're going to have a great time. But let me just read the notes for this reason. People remember better when they look here and think about something. So you can read, and I know you can read, but I want to underline it in your mind. 4,100 years ago, God made a promise called the covenant with a man we know named Abraham. God did not only speak this promise, He dramatically displayed it by a ceremony. I remember the first day in Hebrew class. The first word you learn in Hebrew is, is the word for covenant, berith. And I remember the Hebrew teacher saying, the word covenant to us, we think about the marriage covenant in a wedding ring, or we think about a covenant when you live in a subdivision, you have this covenant you make about you won't do funny things to lower everybody else's property values. But he said in Hebrew, the language berith, the word for covenant means to cut with blood. We don't, you know, maybe when you're a kid in the woods, you were Indian blood brothers, you know, and you cut yourself and, you know, get some kind of blood borne pathogen. But you know what I mean? We don't really think in terms of blood covenants. They're blood feuds. But we don't understand. And so tonight, I'm going to show you the event in Scripture. And then I want you to just step back and I want you to think about the staggering proportions. That's why I say it is perhaps one of, if not Perhaps even the second greatest event next to the whole incarnation and passion of Jesus Christ, perhaps the second greatest salvation event is right here. Because this is what maps out God's whole program we're going to see. But, in a style that was known to Abraham from his culture, God took the slaying, the dividing, and the laying out of sacrificial animals on the ground as a setting for His promise made to Himself We're going to see that in just a minute. Whenever God wants to make a big promise, He doesn't have anybody else participate because people fail. God never fails. And so when God makes a great promise, as it says in Hebrews, because He can swear by no greater, He swears by Himself. And when God swears to Himself, it's going to happen. And that's why I put at the top of your notes, God's unbreakable promise to Abraham, which extends to us. So by dividing and laying out these sacrificial animals on the ground, God made a promise to himself for Abraham that could never be broken. We call this promise, and we're going to read about it in the first three verses of chapter 12, and then we're going to see the graphic reenactment in chapter 15. We call this the Abrahamic covenant. In Genesis 12, 1 through 3, God declares his primary focus will be on his promises to Abraham. Genesis is written in the first 11 chapters with all the world in focus, but starting in chapter 12, God turns His attention toward a promised nation, the grandson of Abraham. And that nation, of course, is the nation of Israel. And through whom He promised to progressively accomplish His redemptive plan. God planned that Israel's mission be to be a light to the Gentiles. That's what it says in Isaiah 42.6. God wanted Israel. to be like a big lighthouse so that all the world would come to them and say, who is your God? Now, that happened occasionally. It didn't happen very well. And that's why God temporarily set them aside. And we now, as Paul says in Philippians, are holding forth the word of life. And we are the lighthouse. But God says our time is a temporary time. And just as Israel was temporarily God's light bearer, and then God set them aside and raised up the church, it says in the book of Acts, chapter 15, that God will again rebuild the foundations of Israel, and they will again be His bearer of light. Of course, that starts in the tribulation time with 144,000 Jewish evangelists, which is going to be a powerful group. But in Genesis 12, which we'll see in just a moment. God promises three elements. A land, multiplied descendants, or what he calls a seed, and his special blessings. Just follow along as I read this. Now the Lord has said to Abram, get out of your country, from your family, and from your father's house to a land I will show you. I will make you a great nation. I will bless you. I will make your name great and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you. I will curse him who curses you. And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Now, if you're a Bible writer, you should put Galatians 3.8 right by that bottom note, because I want to read to you the fulfillment of that for just a moment from Paul's little letter to Galatians 3.8. And this is what Paul says. He says, And the Scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith preached the gospel to Abraham before him. Now, when God preached the gospel, what did he say to Abraham? Galatians 3 says this, In you all the nations shall be blessed. So then, verse 9 says, those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham. You see, in a real sense, Abraham is part of that olive tree. that olive tree of faith, of God's gracious work of redeeming us by faith alone through his gracious provision of the sacrifice. Now he portrays everything to Abraham. Do you remember Abraham brought his, not his first born son, his second born son, but his beloved son And he brings that son of promise, his second-born son, Isaac, to the mount. And he brings him to the Mount Moriah, which is the mountain God renames Zion. And it becomes the center point of everything that God does on this planet. In fact, it becomes the center point of his whole prophetic plan for the universe. It's that little 40-acre spot called Mount Zion, which is where the Temple Mount is. and where the Dome of the Rock has been placed. That is still in God's book, the Bible, Mount Zion. And that spot is where he portrayed the sacrificial lamb because the son was brought and just as the knife was ready to come down, as Abraham was willing to give the life of his son because it says in Romans 4, he knew God could raise him from the dead. And so he wasn't, I mean he was grieved, but he was ready to kill him because he thought God would resurrect him. But at that climactic moment, before the Son was to be slain, God halted that act and provided the Lamb. And right there was the picture in Genesis 22 of the promise in chapter 12 that through Abraham's faith, first in a God he never saw and could not see because God is an infinite and eternal Spirit, but believing in the God who appeared to him, who spoke to him, who revealed Himself to him because he believed in Him by faith, No wavering. Remember, Abraham had ten tests and he failed enough to have gotten a zero in our current school system. He didn't pass all the tests. He failed half of them. He went off and got an Egyptian handmaid and started the Ishmaelites, which we know today as the Arab nations. He went off and took with him Lot, who Lot encumbered his life. He was supposed to leave all this country behind. He brought Lot with him. He goes a little bit further and he's afraid of the famine, so he runs to Egypt. He shouldn't have gone to Egypt. That's where he got Hagar. Then he lies about his wife. Every time God gives him a test, he fails some and passes some. That's why he's truly the father of the faithful, because he's like us. Imperfect, but trusting God. Let's go to chapter 15, and that's where we're going to go tonight, because this three-fold promise that we read about in chapter 12, verse 3, a land multiplied descendants are a seed and a special blessing, which is the gospel, which is where we get in. This three-fold promise became, in turn, the basis of the covenant with Abraham we're going to read right now in Genesis 15. And all the rest of Scripture, all of the Bible from chapter 12 all the way to Revelation 22, All the rest of Scripture is nothing short of just the unfolding of what God rolled into motion in chapter 15. And that's why you really can't understand the Bible. I mean, you can be saved and you can be a good Christian, but you can't understand the Bible if you do not see the role that God has for Israel. And that's why it is so important for us. And if you've ever heard the term dispensationalism, which is, you know, I hate to talk about theological systems, and I hate to, you know, identify groups, but the champion of dispensationalism today, Dallas Seminary, a lot of the popular radio preachers, that whole concept, though it's changing, it's metamorphosizing, and they don't believe kind of what they used to believe and all that. But the basic underlying premise of dispensational teaching is this. There's Israel, and there's the church. And they are not the same. They are not confused for one another. They're not interchangeable. And you cannot take the promises to Israel and slap them on the church. And you can't slap the promises for the church onto Israel. They're distinct entities in God's redemptive plan. And the order is this. The trunk and roots of the tree are Israel. And we are a wild branch. The church was grafted in by God's grace. And the reason we today have all the great promises that we treasure is because of the roots of Israel. You say, what do you mean by that? I mean that every single book of this Bible was either written by a Jew or a proselyte to Judaism, except for one chapter, chapter four of Daniel, written by a pagan Babylonian king called Nebuchadnezzar. Every other part of this book comes to us by way of Jews. Our Messiah was a Jew. Our Savior was identified as the seed of David, a son of Abraham. See, that's why everything that we have comes through that trunk. Well, let's read this momentous time of this scripture bearing out the fulfillment of these promises. And because this is such an exciting portion of Scripture, let's stand together. Some of you have never heard the 15th chapter of Genesis out loud. I encourage you to read it. In fact, if you haven't started yet, you ought to read every chapter of the Bible to your family. And even if it's a family of one, you or your wife and you or whatever, there's nothing like reading out loud. We just read the 39th chapter of Isaiah around the dinner table at lunch. Bible verses read out loud are incredible. to this most climactic moment, the second most climactic moment in our history of our salvation, as God reveals himself. Chapter 15, verse 1. After these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, don't be afraid. Remember the most often repeated commandment in the Bible, fear not? There it is, hundreds of times. God doesn't want us to be afraid, and don't dwell in fear. That's Satan's realm. And you and I are not to allow fear to be a part of our life. We should be not having a spirit of fear, but a power of love and a sound mind. So don't be afraid. Abram, I am your shield. I am your exceeding great reward. Don't worry if the whole world is getting rich and you're not. God says, I'm your exceeding great reward. If you have me, you don't need anything else. And I'm your shield to protect you. Verse 2, but Abram said, Lord God. Sounds like us now. Look at that. Lord God, what are you going to give me? I'm childless. And the heir of my house is Eleazar of Damascus. And Abram said, Look, you've given me no offspring. You notice he doesn't even give God a chance to answer. He keeps talking kind of like us, you know. But Lord, but Lord, but Lord. You've given me no offspring. Indeed, one born of my house is my heir. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, This one shall not be your heir, but one who shall come from your own body shall be your heir. Then he brought him outside and said, Look now toward heaven. Count the stars if you're able to number them. By the way, there are about 70, what, 900 stars visible with the naked eye. There are quadrillions of others. There's many stars in the universe. We've estimated as there are synaptic connections in your brain. We have quite a brain up here. We don't use it. That's where God dwells and inhabits us through the spirit. But there are probably as many stars as there are synaptic connections, the scientists feel right now. But he couldn't count the stars, which means it's Just a staggering promise. He said if you're able to number them and he said so shall your descendants be So that means more than 7,900 and something less than a few octillion, but whatever it was a vast number verse 6 and he believed in the Lord and He accounted it to him for righteousness. That is exactly how all of us are saved Not by saying the right mumbo-jumbo, you know, making sure we say it just right. Not by being in the right church. Not by going through the right religious rigmarole. Just believing in the God who revealed himself. And God who made a promise to him, promised him that he was his reward, his salvation, and his, as we put it together, his savior. And he just simply believed him. And God accounted it to him for righteousness. You and I are not righteous because we read our Bible all the time or go to the church. We're righteous because the imputed righteousness of Christ comes on us because our sins are laid on Christ. His righteousness is laid on us. So verse 7, then he said, I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldees to give you this land to inherit it. And he said, Lord, God, how shall I know that I will inherit it? Remember the threefold promise? A land, a seed, and a blessing? Why do you think the Moslems want Jerusalem so bad? Why do you think they want the Temple Mount so bad? Why do you think right now they're fighting to build their mosque in Nazareth? Satan's religion in this world today, which has now surpassed Christianity in adherence, the Moslems are a greater number than the Christians. Satan's religion in this world is Islam. Don't ever forget it. And they believe they have superseded and have supremacy over Christianity. And so they're going to disprove the God who said, and we're going to see in a minute, God swore by himself that land will always belong to Israel. And they say, no, if we can park on it, Israel can't have it. And we're greater than the God of the universe. And they don't know who they're dealing with. And that's why it's going to be interesting in the next years ahead. Okay. And so verse 8, Lord God, how should I know? And he said to him, bring me, verse 9, a three-year-old heifer. a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtle dove, and a young pigeon. That is not at all what we would think. We'd say, bring me my Hebrew lexicon, my commentaries, and my systematic theology. God says, no, no, I'm going to show you something. Verse 10, And he brought all them to him, and cut them in two. Bizarre, isn't it? Down the middle. Cut these animals. I mean, cleave them. Placed each piece opposite the other. But he did not cut the birds in two. He just slew them so their blood would flow. Sounds gross, but not to God. Very important. Blood. Verse 11, When the vultures came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away. And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram. Why? Because he wasn't a participant in this covenant. He was just going to be there, but he was not going to jump up and do something he wasn't supposed to do. So God made him sleep. And behold, a whore of great darkness fell on him, which is an unusual passage, and it's just about the terror that men feel in the presence of an infinite, eternal God. And he, that's the endless of days, the ancient of days, God said to Abram, No, certainly, your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years. Egyptian bondage prophesied. 700 years before the deliverance. Amazing how God knows the future, writes the future. And also, the nations whom they serve, I will judge. That's the whole Exodus and Pharaoh and the plagues. Afterward, they will come out with great possessions. That's the whole, everybody gave them gold and said, get out of here. I mean, God knew. He knows the future and specifically speaks it. Now, as for you, you should go to your fathers in peace and you should be buried at a good old age, 175. But in the fourth generation, they shall return here. So, remember I said a generation with God is about 100 years. So, if you're wondering about this generation will not pass away, in this passage it's about 100 years. For the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete. Just trust God's timing is what he's saying. Verse 17, it came to pass, this is the event, when the sun went down, it was dark. Behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces. On the same day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying..." Now, this is attached to this whole deal in chapter 12. He starts it in chapter 12. He ratifies it with blood in chapter 15. But look what he says, "...to your descendants I have given this land from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates. and the Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Raphaim, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites, who happen to live in Jerusalem. He said, I give them all to you. Let's bow before a great God. We pray, O Lord, that you'd open our minds to areas we rarely think about, to a Middle Eastern scene in the desert under a blazing torch in a smoking furnace and to blood poured out on the ground where you in figure by these representations actually walked between those carcasses through a trail and pathway of blood. And you said as the infinite God of the universe that you We're identifying with your promised people, which we're a part of. So much so that you said you will never turn away from us. You will redeem us. Our hope and our security and our faith and our eternal destiny are so wrapped up in this great promise of our salvation. Help us tonight as we begin to look at the unfolding from this point onward of everything you have planned till the end of time as we know it, when you culminate your promise and bring down your city from heaven with its apostles and tribes as its markings, where we will live and serve you forever and ever as your servants. I pray that you would cheer us, comfort us, and help us to be like Abraham, not afraid. but trusting that you're our reward so that our life's focus is settled and we won't keep getting distracted with security and possessions, but rather with not fearing because you are our God and not grasping because you are our reward. Help us to trust you tonight as we look at your book. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. You may be seated. In the last 11 minutes, starting verse 7, okay? Look at verse 7 of chapter 15 with me. Look what God says. to give you this land to inherit it. Let me do a little theology. I would become the professor. And for too many years I lectured. And so when I get in my lecturing, you have to understand it's the only method to communicate a lot of information that is foreign to us. But God says, I'm going to give you a specifically identifiable land in verse 7. Where is it identified? It's identified in verses 18 to 21. And there is no doubt what land we're talking about. We're talking about the postage stamp sized piece of Middle Eastern property that's the hottest property in the world. And it is going to be the focus of the world until the end of the world. So don't look for the news to let up in Israel. Don't look for things to calm down. They will not calm down until the Prince of Peace comes. And just before the Prince of Peace comes, when the false Prince of Peace comes and has a false peace. But it's an identifiable piece of land in verses 18 to 21. And it was linked to these promises. Abram would have many descendants in God's purposes. And the Abrahamic covenant was clearly revealed by this ceremony. Now, starting in verse 9, the ceremony begins. Look what God says in verse 9. He says, take these animals. Now, if we were making a covenant, we made a covenant this week. We refinanced our house to get a lower interest rate. So when we did that, we sat down and we were making this covenant. We're going to pay back the bank. Nobody got out some animals and started whacking them. I mean, we would have ran back to the car and left. What they got out is a couple of pens and a piece of paper because that's the way we do it nowadays. We sit down with paper and sign papers and you stamp them and they notarize them and it's all over. But that's not how they did it back then. And God didn't just dream this up. This was God taking a cultural event that Abram had seen and filling it with eternal meaning. What do I mean by that? Let me explain this to you. In Genesis 15, we find what is perhaps among the greatest events in the history of our salvation. God commemorates this covenant with this sign. What was the sign? He ordered Abram to cut a covenant for him. What is that? That's this hacking of these animals in half. The idea was to lay them on the ground so that their blood would run down to a puddle in the middle. We know this because it's written in the Middle Eastern literature. It happened many times with people. Actually what people would do is, if they made a covenant to say that they would be allies to, remember everybody lived in tribes and clans back then, And there were all these marauding nations. So if you had a village over here that you said, we're going to work together, you would do this deal where you'd cut these animals up and let the blood flow in. And then you and whoever you were promising to be an ally would walk through that together like this. So the blood would splash on you. And you would get blood on your garments and on your feet. You say, what a messy thing. But what you're saying is, if I break this covenant, you can take my life. Think about that. That's why you stomped the blood. Blood is a picture of life. Shedding a blood of losing life. So what did God say? God says, I'm going to put you to sleep, Abram, because you're not going to walk through the blood path. I'm going to walk through it. And I'm going to promise with myself that I'm going to commit myself to saving you and your descendants and to blessing you and everybody in the world through you and to giving you this land. And I am so committed to it. God's storm. through the blood himself. Now he didn't. He doesn't have feet. God is a spirit. So he did two metaphoric or image representations of himself. This smoking lamp and this burning furnace. What are those things? Well, they're both pictures. Remember God sometimes is like a cloud? Remember the cloud, the pillar cloud? And remember the blazing fire in the book of Exodus? Do you remember the Shekinah? Do you remember when the Holy Spirit shone in the book of Acts? What is He? Like a clove and tongue of fire? God often uses this cloud image and He uses this fire image to speak of Himself. So He took the smoke, the cloud thing, and the burning thing, and those two went through stomping through the blood path to confirm that covenant. Now, think of the implications of this just briefly. The central act of worship for Jews was to be, for God's covenant people, the shedding of blood. And primitive as it seems to us who don't like blood, I mean, I remember the first time I realized how much I didn't like blood is when they had to draw it so I could get married. I don't know if they still do that, but you had to have a blood test in New York at least 18 years ago. And I remember sitting there and they were drawing out my blood The nurse wasn't very good at it and was jiggling the needle and I saw a little and I woke up with a pathologist, you know, slapping my face. I thought I'd already been married. You know, I didn't know what was going on. But we don't like blood and we get queasy when we see blood. But God says, as primitive as it may seem, God established and continually strengthens his relation with his people through animal sacrifice. That's the whole Old Covenant. Well, this blood path was God telling The Old Testament people, what we know, and if you want to turn for just a minute to Hebrews chapter 9, I want to show you how important blood is to God. And I want you to remember that the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses us from all unrighteousness. And what's interesting is there are two big bloody covenants that are talked about in the Bible. The first one is right here. The last one is the cross. And those, too, are bookends. They're like the retaining walls for all of salvation. God promised the method that salvation would occur. It would occur as a descendant of Abraham. It would occur as a substitute descendant of Abraham. It would occur as a substitute descendant that was a lamb. And that's the Lamb of God. And it would occur on Moriah, Calvary, Mount Zion, And until it would occur, God put a place up there where they would keep on with the shedding of blood. Look what it says in chapter 9, starting verse 11. But Christ, Hebrews 9, 11, came as a high priest of good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. Not with the blood of bulls and goats and calves. That's what we see here. These animals whacked in half in chapter 15 of Genesis. Not with those. blood of the goats and calves, but with his own blood he entered into the most holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? I just have to park there for a second talking about the blood of Christ. Did you know there's nothing you've ever seen or done or heard or experienced, whether it's as a child, or whether it's later in life, or whether it's something your parents did to you, or something that you did to someone else. There is nothing that you have ever done, or it's ever been done to you, that has to cripple you today. Because this verse says that the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, can cleanse you from what brings death to your spiritual life. To that image, or to that experience, or to that pain, or to that grief or to that, whatever, it doesn't have to destroy you. You know what it says? It says He can cleanse your conscience so that that will not negatively affect you, so you can serve the living God. Now turn over to chapter 10 of the same book, and look what it says in verse 19. Therefore, brethren, having boldness, enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus. What he's saying is He In Genesis 15, God stomped the blood path, walked the blood path to say, I'm committing to you, Abraham. I'm committing to your descendants. I'm committing to you a seed, a blessing, and a land. And I will die if it does not occur. Can God die? No. That's why this is an eternal covenant. It cannot be broken. The whole idea, the notion that the land of Israel is negotiable is not so to God, because it's all tied together. But when we get to the New Testament, the blood of Christ was shed as the culmination of that covenant, the unfolding of what God was doing. And when the blood of Jesus Christ was shed, look what it says in verse 19, come to God boldly by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way. You don't have to cut up animals on the ground. You don't have to burn them on rocks. It's a new way, which was consecrated for us through the veil that is his flesh. What is that? Jesus lived the perfect life in the flesh. Why do you think God left him here for 30 years? You ever thought about it? If you really think about it, if you were God, why didn't you send Jesus down on Friday, let Him be crucified, and rise again on Sunday and take Him home? Why did He have to spend 30 years? And why is there nothing in the Bible about those 30 years except His birth, when He's 12, and when He's 30? Why does God leave everything else out? Because Jesus Christ had to live the perfect life that none of us ever could. And He lived it in the most difficult system. 613 commandments that you couldn't forget or you'd blow it with the Mosaic Law. And Jesus kept every one of them perfectly. And when He lived the perfect life, He was fitted to be the perfect sacrifice. And so, as the unblemished, spotless, sinless, perfect, living Lamb of God, He offered Himself. And look what it says here. It's called, verse 20, a new and living way. He consecrated by living the perfect life through the veil, that's His flesh, and having a high priest over the house of God, that's Jesus, this perfect One who died, substituted Himself, rose again. Having this high priest over the house of God, look at verse 22, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith. Having our hearts, as 9.14 says, sprinkled from an evil conscience. You don't have to have those sights and sounds and pictures and events and hurts and abuse and everything else. It can be sprinkled from that evil conscience. And we can continually live with our bodies washed with pure water. What's that? The washing of the Word. The washing of regeneration. God gives us a brand new heart and makes us brand new and sets us free. And then as we stumble and fall and fail like Abraham the father of the faith did, we keep getting washed. by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit. What am I saying? I'm saying that God committed himself. Now turn to chapter 13 and verse 20 of the book of Hebrews, and this is where we're going to end tonight. God committed himself. He committed himself to a people, a land, and a blessing in chapter 15. And then at the cross, he committed himself to specifically individuals that we can have a standing with him eternally secure. And this is what he says in chapter 13 and verse 20 of the book of Hebrews. Now may the God of peace, who brought up our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant. That's the new covenant. That's the covenant that God made. built upon the Abrahamic covenant. It was prefigured in the Noahic covenant. It was seen in the Deuteronomy covenant, the whole Palestinian covenant. It was seen in all of those things, but it found its fulfillment as the final and great revelation of God in the new covenant of Jesus Christ when it says, through His blood, look at what verse 21 says, He makes you complete in every good work to do His will. He works in us what is well-pleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. What does that say to us tonight? Well, as we'll see in the weeks ahead, it says God's not through with Israel. God has a big plan. And that's what all those blanks are that we're going to fill in in your little handout that you can keep in your Bible. But it ties with this, that Jesus Christ walked the blood path for you and me on the cross. He died in our place and He said, I am committing that I will die that you can live. And not just live, barely making it. I'm come that you might have life and have it what? Abundantly. How do we have an abundant life? By letting chapter 9 verse 14 occur of Hebrews. That means letting Him cleanse our mind. Letting chapter 10 verse 22 occur. Letting Him draw us close to Him every day and sprinkle us clean. And have chapter 13 verse 20 of the book of Hebrews occur. or verse 21, letting Him make us complete, doing His will. We're going to come back in the weeks ahead and walk through all of the blood path events that have to do with Israel. What does that have to do with you and me tonight? God put you and put me here for a purpose. He put us here to perform His will on earth. He put you and me here for us to be equipped by His Spirit, to be cleansed by His blood, to be empowered with a boldness, and fearing not, and saying every day, God, what do you want me to do? Some of you want to start? You want to do something really exciting? On your way out tonight, we've positioned little boxes of gospel presentations. And you ought to take one or two of those, and literally, alone, with God, say, God, I pray you'd make an appointment with me to share the eternal gospel of Jesus Christ with someone this week. Take those two little tracts with you, and keep them with you. And you know what? God will bring someone into your life this week. That's how much He wants to be involved in your life. And you will find at that moment the boldness to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with someone. Some of you have still never done that in your life, or you haven't done it in so long, you couldn't remember if we put you up here on the spot, when the last time was, you shared with someone that you belonged to God. But you know what? If on the way out, you grab one of those, and you ask the God of heaven, who listens to every word you say, say, God, equip me in every good work to do your will. I want to work what's pleasing in your sight. I want my life to not harm your testimony. I want my life to reflect your spirit and I want to be the purpose you left me here. What did Jesus leave us here for? Speak to every creature on this planet, the gospel of Jesus Christ. Are you doing your part? Are you telling some of the creatures that you live with, work with, live beside, go to school with, no school this week, go hit them at the mall. Do something. Tell them. Ask God to make an appointment and he will work his work. in our lives. Next week, we'll see more of the miracle of God's unbreakable promise. Let's bow together and ask God to work his perfect will out in our lives. Dear Father, in the quietness of this moment, I pray that we would offer ourselves as your servants. I think about some of your dear saints here tonight are crippled by the past because they're holding on to it. They will not turn it over and let the blood of Jesus Christ purge their conscience from all those things that they have confessed and forsaken and repented of, but for some reason they hold on to, I pray, tonight. There might be some wonderful yielding of those areas, those thoughts, those works that lead to temptation perhaps. Maybe those works that lead to depression because they keep reliving those hurtful events of the past. May they turn them over to you and let you cleanse them away. And then I pray they begin being washed by your Word fill that place in your mind with your word, with your promises, and that we would be mobilized as a mighty army for you and say, God, use me this week. Help me to have some divine appointments to share your word. What a blessing it would be if every one of the thousand or so tracts that fill those racks around this building would go out and be deployed in the hearts of people in this town and on business trips and with relatives and in letters we write that we would be your servants sharing the good news. Help us to fear not. Help us to trust you as our reward. Help us to be cleansed by your blood. And help us to live in the power of the everlasting covenant you made that you will equip us and empower us to live to please you. We'll thank you as we live out also your unbreakable promise to us through the new covenant. In Jesus' precious name we pray and all God's servants said, Amen. God bless you to go.