We are continuing on in our study of saving faith today and specifically on that portion of saving faith that speaks about embracing the promises of God for this life and the next. Instead of going back to our base text, like we did last week from Hebrews chapter 13 verse 5, we're going to look at two texts this morning pertaining to a particular promise of God and how saving faith works with regard to that promise. This is a very practical kind of instruction. We're talking about the doctrine of saving faith and as a part of that doctrine we are learning, I pray, that quote-unquote what saving faith looks like. And as we learn what saving faith looks like we may then behold the holes in our faith those improvements that are necessary to us and so on. And so, yes, it is a practical concern that we're pursuing today, but not less doctrinal at all. In Proverbs chapter 22, this will be our base text, this in Genesis 18, which we'll turn to in a moment. But in Proverbs chapter 22, verse six, here now, the inerrant, infallible, and inspired word of God, train up a child in the way that he should go. And when he is old, he will not depart from it. Do you hear a promise there? May God add his blessing to the reading and hearing of his word, especially that promise. Now turn with me to Genesis 18. Genesis chapter 18, and we'll begin our reading in verse 17. And the Lord said, shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do, seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him. For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment, that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him. And again, may God add his blessing to that precious promise that we read there in Genesis 18, especially verse 19. And let me help you with 19 in the translation of it just for a moment. The King James sounds like what the Lord is saying here, at least to modern hearers. We hear the Lord says, I know him that he will command his children's household after him. I know this guy. I know how he's going to operate. It's not what the original says. There's a particular a preposition that is used here, we might translate it as, to the end that, or for the purpose of. It's the Hebrew l'man. It's prefixed, but it's a very distinct Hebrew word, and it means for the purpose of, or unto the end that. And so the Lord says, for I have known him to the end that he will command his children and his household after him, and so on. What is the promise? The promise is train up a child in the way that he shall go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it. Do you believe that? You'd be surprised how many Christians do not believe that today. And the reason we're talking about this is we are discussing saving faith. And remember that in the confession of faith chapter 14 and verse or paragraph two, by this faith, that is saving faith, justifying faith, a Christian believeth to be true whatsoever is revealed in the word for the authority of himself, uh, for the authority of God himself speaking therein and active differently upon that which each particular passage thereof containeth yielding obedience to the commands trembling at the threatenings and embracing the promises of God for this life and that which is to come. Brothers and sisters, may I say our confession is right. It's right. It's correct. It's biblically accurate when it says that when a promise of God is uttered in scripture, that a part of saving faith is that we embrace that promise. We count on it to be true. We'll handle objections in a moment. Stick with me for just a few minutes as we continue on in this. The quotation is from John Flable to help us to introduce. Listen to what he says. Taking the part of a child born into a Christian home. Listen to what he says. God cast a better lot for me. I am the offspring of religious and tender parents. who have always deeply concerned themselves in the everlasting state of my soul. Many prayers and tears have they poured out to God for me, both in my hearing as well as in secret. Many holy and wholesome counsels have they from time to time dropped upon me. Many precious examples have they set in their own practice before me. Many a time, when I have sinned against the Lord have they stood over me with a rod in their hands and tears in their eyes using all means to reclaim me." Wow! This is some powerful stuff, isn't it? Train up a child in the way that he shall go and when he is old he will not depart from it. How do you feel about that promise? What do you think about that promise? How does your faith embrace that promise? Well, I want to talk with you about that today. So if we roll on back to Proverbs 22, literally the verse reads, dedicate or initiate a child upon the mouth of his way. And when he becomes old, he will not turn aside from it. Now we note, first of all, that this is a conditional promise, isn't it? There's a condition laid, right? Train up a child in the way that he should go, or train up a child according to his way, upon the mouth of his way, at the beginning of his way, if you will, like the mouth of a river, at the beginning of it. And we'll show you how Hebrew scholars have really done a lot of research on this word and how it's a very, it's just, jam packed full of good things for us to understand, but it is a conditional promise. Now, all the conditional promises in the covenant of grace do not exist as a quid pro quo, but are worked out according to God's plan of salvation and care over his people. And so we ought not to think of this as a turning of the crank in order to get what we want. And my dear brothers and sisters, it is with grief that I tell you that there are some parenting books out there today that teach that essentially. That if you do everything right, God will do his part because you've done everything right. Get that thinking out of your mind. It is a conditional promise, but it's a conditional promise in the covenant of grace based on God's grace, not based on any quid pro quo, not any this for that. That's what quid pro quo means. I give you this God and you give me this in return. As soon as we begin operating with God on that basis, we have ceased from grace and we have devolved into a works religion. We are never, ever capable of drawing God into our debt. And I hope you realize that. God, I've done everything right here, now you owe me a godly child. No one would ever say it that way, but that is exactly the mentality of quid pro quo. So we ought not to think of this then as turning a crank, but to direct and make large our efforts toward raising our children according to faith in the promises of God. In other words, faith in the promises for this life will cause us to labor with our children all the more because we believe what the Lord has said here. And while this is not, as we have said, a this-for-that reward, we ought not to expect that our children will retain the faith of their fathers without these means. Again, this is the age-old adage of Presbyterianism that says what? We work the means, but we never trust the means. We trust in God. You say, where do you get that as far as Presbyterianism is concerned? Well, we get that from Larger Catechism 105, which says that it is idolatrous to trust in means. Isn't it? If I do this, this will be an automatic then I will get a godly child just because I did this? My dear brothers and sisters, let us remember that there are all kinds of efforts that all kinds of people put forth for all kinds of things and unless God bless those efforts they come to nothing every time every time and so means have no power in themselves to bring forth any outcome that is why we must not trust in them and when we do we raise them up in our estimation to the status of idolatry. So it's not quid pro quo, but it is hearty trust in God who has made these promises. Now let me ask you, if God had not made this promise, what good would means be at all? Right? When you turn the question around, it becomes clearer, doesn't it? If God had not made this promise, then what use would it be? My children are who they are. We hear all the time. It is what it is. It is what it is. In other words, we're all fatalists now. You see, Christianity is not a fatalistic religion. You know what fatalism is? Fatalism is not things are going to turn out according to a predetermined end. No, that's just plain biblical religion. Fatalism is that they're going to get to that end without any means involved at all or sometimes against means. Now, is God free to work against means? Yes, He is. Thankfully, God is free to work against means because if it was dependent upon how efficiently and how excellently and how righteously we parented, well, what would happen then? And so yes, God does take our meager efforts and bring a wondrous outcome because sometimes God is pleased to work even against means, sometimes with means, sometimes around means, and so on. His power is His power. What He does is what He does. What He promises, however, what He promises is tantamount to us to a command to walk in the means that He's prescribed and to look to Him for His blessing. And that counts for all of His promises in this covenant of grace. So again, it is not quid pro quo. It is not this for that. It is not, I did this for you God, now you do this for me. God rather has said, train up a child in the way that he shall go, and when he's old, he'll not depart from it. Parents, listen to God here, and embrace that promise with faith. Embrace it with faith. Now, as we move on then, This promise is built upon a figure of speech. As the mouth was opened in the ancient world and the gums were rubbed with sweet date paste, what they would do is the little children would, as soon as they would come forth from the womb, the mother, often the nurse and the mother were the same individual, they would take dates. That was one of the sweetest things they had. and they would rub a little bit of date pulp on their finger and they would just rub the gums of the child to create a hunger, to create a thirst, to create that desire for the milk and then from the milk to move on to the meat. It is an interesting metaphor, isn't it? And that's why some Hebrew scholars believe that Solomon used the words here, train up a child upon the mouth of His way, at the opening of His way, or the opening of the mouth. And so, rub that date pulp on their tongue and on their gums, so that they get a taste for receiving food, because you know where they've come from, they've never eaten before. So they need to have a taste for that. Other scholars have said no. It has to do with the mouth, because we're talking about the opening of the mouth in speech. In other words, and many scholars have seen here, the word mouth here to be used as a reference to catechizing, that we teach our children to repeat precious truths. And if you read especially the Puritans, they will cite Proverbs 22.6, and they'll say, catechize a child in the way that he should go. They'll interpret it that way. Have you ever seen that before? Any of you seen that? That's true. You'll see that all over the Puritan writings. Catechize a child in the way that he should go. They take the mouth, open in the mouth. And so historically, this was also undertaken by catechizing, memorizing, teaching, and discussing, providing that good order and discipline in the home, whereby our children are caused to sit at the table with us, although they may not as yet partake of the same food, in preparation for that day when they will. Here's the illustration. There's a time when your children are born and they're small and do they eat the same food that you eat? Well, no, they don't. They don't eat the same food. Does that mean then that when you eat, you leave them off somewhere else and you come, you all come to the table and sit down and have your meal and the baby's by himself somewhere or being cared for by someone else somewhere else in the home rather than taking his place in the family at the dinner table where one day he will partake of solid food. Well, we don't do that, do we? We don't put them away so we can eat. Rather, the practice of parents is that they would bring them to the table, and although they may not be able to eat, they sit there with the parents at the table with the other children, learning to take place in that family while everyone else eats, and they do so learning as they are trained and instructed less and less to disrupt the family meal, and more and more to contribute to its peace, to its homey feeling, to its camaraderie, to its organization, and all of that. And so we don't teach our children, you're not a part of the family when we eat, by shuttling them off somewhere else. I understand there are times when, you know, their schedules are not quite in sync with the family's at that point, And so there are all kinds of, you'll find different kinds of parenting advice that will tell you on the one hand, no, you want to schedule them with the family as soon as you can, and there are different thoughts on that. But for the most part, unless it's necessary that they be somewhere else doing something else, parents want to have their children with them at the family meal, so that they can be trained to partake of the things of the family. And they can do so with order, Right? With the good discipline, you know, that when they begin to partake of solid food and they're sitting there and they're pulled up to the table with the high chair and they take their food and they throw it on the floor, that there's some discipline for that so that they learn that they're not to take that which is given to them and throw it away as if it was nothing. There's all kinds of things that go on and we could probably extend this metaphor for quite some time here, but you get the picture. The picture is that, you know, train up a child upon the mouth of his way and some scholars have said well this pertains to how we train them with regard to food so that when we train them to take their place at the table with us that is a metaphor for how we train them to take their place with us when we talk about Christ when we learn about God when they come to sermons or when they sit at family worship with us that there is family dinner table but there's also a family altar as it has been called and I don't like the word altar because it speaks of superstition but you understand what I mean by that. That we make use of those means as parents and why do we do that? Wouldn't it be much more convenient to have them out Wouldn't it be much more convenient to have someone else train them not to throw their food on the floor? Or wouldn't it even be more convenient just to let them throw their food on the floor rather than having to go through all of the difficulty of discipline and just pick it up later? Wouldn't that be better? No, it wouldn't. It wouldn't be better at all because they're not being trained. They're not being educated. They're not learning to take their place as civilized adults. And so the point that Solomon is making here is with all of these metaphors, let us train them up then. Not only by bringing them to the dinner table and teaching them how to behave themselves at table, but by bringing them to our little clutch of family worship and teaching them how to behave themselves there. And according to their age, and advancement, not just age because age is like this, isn't it? Some children are more advanced than others at particular ages, but according to their age and advancement so that they learn to take their place not just in the worldly things but in the spiritual things as well. Why would we do that? Why would we partake of all of that difficulty? Why would we sit down when it's so much easier just, you know, click on the TV and let your eyes roll back. Why would we do that? Why would we sit down with them and catechize them? Why would we sit down with them and explain to them the catechism? Why would we take the sermons that we've heard, whether on Sermon Audio or here at our local church, and parse them out and explain those portions that they're able to understand so that they learn how to live like Christians? Why would we do those crazy things? We would only do it If we have embraced the promises of God for this life and the next, what does God promise? Train up a child upon the mouth of his way. And when he is old, he will not turn away or he will not depart from it. So then let us train them up, not only by bringing them into the worship service, but by teaching them how to behave as we do at the dinner table. So as not to disrupt, not to insist on food that's That's according to their liking only not to throw food on the floor, but to have respect and thankfulness for that which is served. You see how the metaphor extends. And that more and more as they learn these great truths, but especially the one great truth that they are a part of a greater whole in which they profitably participate. The Bible is pretty clear that children come forth from the womb speaking lies. There's no such thing as an innocent child. As a friend of mine once described it, children come forth from the womb like this. Here's me, and here's the world. And the whole world revolves around me. And that's how children come forth. And frankly, let's just be clear here that a lot of what passes for parenting in modern day circles, it really encourages that rather than teaching the child to get on the orbit, right? Instead of having everything revolve around the child, teaching the child to get on the orbit. To teach them that their happiness is not going to be being the circle and center, I'm sorry, being the center of everything, but their happiness, biblically speaking, is founded upon taking their place in the family as a member, taking their place in the church as a member, taking their place in society as a member and not as one around which everything revolves. Now, as we talk about all of that, as we all understand those necessary things, we understand what it is and that how one small aspect of training, you know, teaching the children not to throw food on the floor, how that graduates into much larger things and how that contributes as building blocks to that greater whole of taking their place within the church and calling upon the Lord. You say, Pastor, you're relating a child throwing their food on the floor to becoming a Christian. You're absolutely right, I am. Yes, I am. These are the kinds of issues that we struggle with in our society because we have made children the center rather than Christ. rather than the covenant. Yes, these small and simple truths are building blocks to the greater truth. And our children are, in this church, our children are baptized. And that baptism is the placing of the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, they belong to Him. They are His children. And as His children, they have rights and responsibilities. It's all true. And how do we bring that up in them? How do we nurture that in them? What does the Apostle Paul say in Ephesians 6, 4? Parents, bring up your children in the nurture, that is the paideia, the instruction, the teaching that includes discipline. That's what paideia is. Sometimes paideia is a very positive word, And sometimes paideia in scripture is not so positive. Sometimes paideia speaks of verbal instruction, training, learning, and sometimes paideia speaks of the little swats on the bottom in order to get back to that other part of paideia, the training and the learning. The nurture, that is paideia, and admonition, nuthiteo, you're familiar with that word, the warnings of the Lord. All of that is true. And so the simple things like learning to sit at a dinner table with your parents in an orderly fashion, children, I'm speaking to you now, as you learn to sit with your parents in a civilized way, taking your place as a part of a larger whole, rather than thinking the dinner table is for me. As you learn to do that, this graduates into, now what do I do when I go to church? I learn to take my place in a larger whole there as well. I learn to take my place there as standing up when everyone stands, and sitting down when everyone sits, and singing as best I can when everyone sings, and praying, folding my hands, and averting my eyes, keeping my eyes closed so I can concentrate, and praying when everyone else prays. And when the pastor is preaching, or when he's reading, and opening up the Word of God that we all learn to listen together, taking the part of that greater whole. Because this is where I belong. Because I belong to Jesus Christ. You see, as children learn to say, I belong in this family, in those very small and seemingly insignificant vignettes at home, like the dinner table, the breakfast table, study time, whatever it is, playtime even, whatever it is, learning to take their place as part of a greater whole rather than as just so many individuals that live under the same roof. So also they learn in the church. And can I say that if you look around the church today you find it seems that most people were raised as so many individuals under one roof because that's how we envision our church establishments in many cases, sadly and grievously. And let it never be so among us. May the Lord spare us from such thoughts. Okay, so those are the promises the Lord says. Train up a child according to His way, in the mouth of His way, catechizing, creating that taste like at the dinner table for, you know, what do children do when they're nursing and they're sitting at the table and they're watching you eat solid food? You've seen that take place, haven't you? They're looking, what are they doing over there? What is that over there? Oh, that looks good. Maybe I want some of that. Some of you ladies are smiling. You know exactly what I'm talking about. You've watched your children do that. Oh, what is that? And then maybe that first time, here comes the spoon. The child's already ready. Mouth wide open. In goes that whatever it is, yogurt product or whatever you feed your children first, mashed up apples or whatever it is. Mouth opens up again, right? Because what are they doing? They're learning to take their place among everyone else. And they're learning that taking their place, you know what? It's not so bad. It's got its benefits. They're learning to come along in that way. In those little teeny vignettes, those little things. And when their children are out of sorts and demanding their own way, and you bring that paideia, you bring that discipline, what do they learn? They learned that, you know what, I really can control myself. I really can take my place as a civilized human being among other civilized human beings. Wonderful things. Wonderful things that they learn in the family that graduate up into the church where they learn to take their place. And so this early paideia, this early nutheteo is very, very important for our children. Do you know why it's important? It's important because, and this is what you need to embrace with your saving faith, because those efforts are accompanied by the blessing of God, because He's promised to do it. And so this is why, parents, we ought never to wear out in the means. We ought never to wear out in the means. Why? Well, because I want to live a more peaceful life. I want a well-ordered home, and I want... You can want all of those earthly things, and you know what? You may get all of them, but if you're faithful, what you want really is a godly child, more than anything else. You want that more than you want a peaceable home. Listen, there are atheist homes that are peaceable. You want more than that. as a Christian parent, as a believer in Jesus Christ. You want that when your children are old, they will not depart from the faith of their fathers. Isn't that what you want? I've got good news for you. The Lord promises, He promises to bless your efforts. The Lord promises to take those efforts, which without His promise and without His blessing would be utterly useless. for the raising of godly children. Oh, you can raise well-ordered children. You can have a well-ordered home if it's full of 13 dogs if you whip them enough. It's not what we're talking about here. What we're talking about is training up our children in the ways of Christ so that when they're old they will not depart from it because God promises to take those efforts and to bless them. That's the promise. It's an amazing thing, isn't it, to think about. And yet the Lord is often pleased to work in such a family way as that. Now it might be said, but pastor, not all children raised in Christian homes remain so as they become adults. What of God's promise then? Have you ever heard that? Have you ever heard that objection raised? Have you ever known someone raised in a Christian home that seemed to depart from the faith. Well, you know what my answer is going to be to that objection, right? My answer is going to be, faith finds a way. Remember, do you remember the promise that God made to Abraham? In Isaac shall your seed be called. In Isaac shall your seed be called. Now take him up to Mount Moriah and sacrifice him a whole burnt offering on the altar. Abraham got up early, traveled three days, said to his young men, wait here, I and the lad will go up and worship, and then we will return. We will return. That's right. Because faith found a way to believe the promises of God. And so the first thing, the first answer to the objection that is almost always raised when you talk about God's promise regarding our children is this. Faith will find a way to believe the promises of God and faith will never wear out. Okay, that's the first answer. We must learn as Christians, as part of having saving faith, to embrace the promises of the Lord for this life and the next. That is to cease from trusting our eyes and to make use of the means of grace that the Lord has given to us since our profession of faith includes that we truly believe that God will always do what He says. Instead of giving up at the first blush of what looks like looming disaster, saving faith finds a way to believe in the face of disaster. That's what saving faith does. That's what Abraham did. And Abraham is the example that is given in scripture. This means that we will not become discouraged, despondent, or that our hope will fail to grasp what Christ has promised in his word. We will continue to work because Christ has promised to work in these means for the salvation of our children. What promise has an unbeliever in this regard? What hope has he for his children? He does not. So then why should we take up the part of an unbeliever and cease working the means? But what of us who have the means of grace in our midst then, and the means of the family devotional each day, all day long as we walk through this day, and the next day, and the next, to talk with our children and to press those things? So remember then, when God promised to Abraham that he would be a God to him and to his seed, let us also remember that he promised to work in the means as well. And this is where we turn back to Genesis 18, 19. For I have known him to the end that he will command his children and his household after him and they shall keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment that the Lord or in order that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he had spoken of him. Do you hear the complete or the closing of the circle there? He starts out with the command to Abraham or with the promise to Abraham, then the command to raise his children rightly. And then the, the, the, um, the, the declaration of his working in those means, and then the full outcome of it, that all that will come to pass for Abraham. And you say, Ishmael, what about him? Ishmael is given to remind us that we must bow to the sovereignty of God in all of His promises. This is not an unconditional promise. It is not a promise that is made without exception. It is one of those general promises. And so then it would be faithless of us to say this. If this is not an absolute promise, then I don't want it. And yet, there are parents that move in such simple ways. What do you do? What do you do when it seems that your children are not getting it? You continue. You continue because of God's promise. to work these means. This is what saving faith does. Saving faith finds a way to believe no matter what. Saving faith finds a way to believe that never wears out. Saving faith finds a way to believe that always presses the means of God's promise. This is what our confession means when it says embracing the promises of God for this life and for the next. Let me read for you something This is in that little gem of a book I told you about earlier, and I do apologize for the length of this reading, but I think when we get to the end of it, you'll understand why I've taken such time to read an extended portion. Hundreds and thousands of children and youths and adults the world over bear this sacred seal upon their persons. He's talking about their baptism. Many have come to years of full responsibility without meeting the engagement to be the Lord's, which their parents made for them at their baptism. They may fall sick and die as well as others. We do not forget that the household covenant is not unconditional. Eli and Samuel and Aaron and David had sons who departed from God, and so far as we know, they died in their sins. But the privileges of parents under the former dispensation are not denied to parents under this. The advantage is with the new and latter until the Lord shall come. Here, I think, is laid a broad and deep foundation for the hope that many children of the covenant are saved by grace in their last hours. The Reverend James W. Alexander, in his plain words to a young communicant, expresses the opinion that in the trying circumstances of a last sickness, not a few are thrown back upon what he calls the faith of their childhood. And coming to the consciousness of need, find it supplied in Jesus Christ. In many cases, the change from death to life manifestly has not been wrought by the Holy Spirit up to the time of the last sickness. The folly of youth has continued, a wayward spirit in relation to parental authority and the restraints of the school and the church may have been dominant and even defiant. They have been taught the truths of God's word in the home, sanctuary, the Sunday school, and it may be the college. Prayer has been offered for them continually by parents, kindreds, pastors, teachers, churches, and by many too who have gone before into the heavens. At last they are arrested by a fatal sickness. The Savior's will and hand are in the arrest. He stands at the door and knocks. Is He less concerned to save than we are? Less than Satan is to destroy? He sends His messengers to them. There is no sign of His willingness. Is there no sign of His willingness to save in this? By His Word and Spirit, He shows to many the plague of their hearts and constrains them to ask for the healing of the plague. Conscience at last is fully aroused. There is recollection, sorrow, confession, inquiry. What must I do to be saved? It is the old question. And the old answer is the true one, the whole of it, because it brings into view the household covenant. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved and thy house. Parental faith comes to the rescue. Covenant blessings are importunately sought. The God of salvation hears for Christ's sake. He is not watching to kill, but to make alive. The wonders of salvation are all His and bring glory to His name. Now listen to this last sentence. The time element does not mean so much to Him as to us. Why do we wear out in the promises? Oh, we get all wound up and it's taking so long. Where is the promise of His coming to my children? We might re-paraphrase Peter's old statement. What is the promise of God? Must be. Must always be. that which we embrace by faith. And if we don't do that, well then what are we embracing? Our own skill? The innocence of our children? Or some other fantasy? Remember how at the beginning of this study I told you that saving faith is supernatural? And it can't be ginned up by men. Do you see it here? Who would be foolish enough to continue praying for a child that was raised in the church and went astray in his adulthood? Who would be foolish enough to do that? Only one foolish enough to believe the promises of God. Like I told you, what a gem. So then, let us use these promises that we see in the scripture. We're not going to cover any more, except maybe next week we'll look at the promise for the next life. These are some very simple and worldly promises for this life, and yet how we embrace them is anything but worldly. If we have saving faith, we take hold of them, we embrace them, we draw them to our bosom as comfort when our eyes say to us, no, and God says unresoundingly, yes, continue in these means. That's what saving faith is. Now, in all that we have studied about saving faith, we have not yet come to its pinnacle. You say, Pastor, what do you mean? We haven't. Because saving faith not only believes whatever God says in his word by the force of him that said it, by the authority of him that said it, it not only extends itself to the implications of those truths, it not only yields obedience to the command, trembles at the threatenings, and embraces the promises of God for this life and the next, not only that, But our confession is going to go on to say that the principal acts of saving faith, the pinnacle, is embracing Jesus Christ as he's offered in the gospel for justification, sanctification, and glorification. Oh my goodness. We've not yet reached the top, my dear brothers and sisters. And yet, I hope that you're seeing as I'm seeing in my faith Well, it looks more like Swiss cheese than faith. And so we continue to pray, don't we? Lord, increase our faith. The same faith that drove Abraham up Mount Moriah is the faith that drives us to our knees even when our children are wayward. The same faith that drove Abraham to Mount Moriah is the same faith that says, don't throw your food on the floor. The same faith that drove Abraham to Mount Moriah is the same faith that drives us to our knees in prayer and drives us to dress our children up every Lord's Day and to bring them to church and to teach them to sit still and to take their place among the people of God where they belong by God's promise. It's that faith. That's what saving faith is. It works in the little things that God would be pleased to bless in the big things. It does not content itself in those earthly blessings, but looks to that great reward. Right? Like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob looked, what, to the city which hath foundations, not to lowly Canaan, even though in its day it was the paradise of the earth. My dear brothers and sisters, as we learn more about saving faith. And as we have in a timely fashion read from James chapter 2 on that working faith, that vindication of saving faith, let me ask you, how are you embracing the promises of God? Are you finding a way? When people say, oh, pastor, this promise of God doesn't work. My children are grown and they've departed. Our first answer should be, have they yet departed this life? You have no idea when the Lord will fulfill His promise. Do not doubt His word. Saving faith embraces the promise. Now, it's true here in Proverbs 22.6. And it's true of every other promise that God has ever given to His people. Let's stand and call upon the Lord in prayer. Heavenly Father, how great and precious are Your promises. How great and wondrous are they, especially when we embrace them according to saving faith. Our Father, we have seen holes in our faith today. We have seen weakness in our faith. We have seen unbelief in our belief. Heavenly Father we pray increase our faith. Help us unflinchingly and unfailingly to take hold of Thy promises as those who know Thee to be the God of our salvation. No matter the promise No matter how dark it looks to the world, we pray, our Father, increase our faith that we might take hold of those promises. We thank Thee, our Father, that Thou hast not only promised never to leave us nor to forsake us, Thou hast not only promised that Thou wilt indeed bring our children to faith, but Thou hast also promised to save us by Jesus Christ. Help us then, we pray, to embrace these promises. In Christ Jesus' name, amen. Please be seated.