with you this morning and to look into the Word of God together. I've enjoyed this conference so far. I was able to come last night and enjoy hearing again these great truths that are so foundational to our faith. As Pastor Jeff mentioned, he'd like me to tell a word about who I am. We are starting High Country Baptist Church down on the southeast side of town, and we're thankful for what God has been doing. We've just been going about six months now, so we're still brand new. And God's been working. It's been neat to see the folks that God has brought along, a lot of new Christians, baby Christians without much church background at all. And it's been neat to see the word of God working in their lives step by step as the spirit works to convict and change lives and and the doors he's opened through that to minister to other people as well. Just Thursday night, I was sitting in the living room of a A young soldier and his wife from Fort Carson, who professed to be an atheist, but was willing to sit down to me and talk. And we had a good conversation. I believe the spirit of God was working in his heart, convicting him. He's very sober as we discussed the things of God that night. And God has brought me. We had a couple of atheists visit just recently. And so God has been bringing these people along and allowing us to preach the word and Let the spirit work in their lives. And so it's just it's neat to see what God is doing step by step, little by little, as Jesus Christ builds his church. So good to be with you today and to look into this topic, the about Old Testament faith. Of course, in this conference, we've been talking about faith, specifically about justification by faith alone. And as we heard clearly in the last session, this is an absolutely critical issue. I mean, this is an issue upon which the church stands or falls like Martin Luther so clearly saw. And as we've heard clearly presented last night, the New Testament is unequivocal on this issue. But what about the Old Testament? What about the Old Testament? I mean, in some ways, it seems on a cursory reading of the Old Testament as if it were not all that concerned about faith. It seems to be much more concerned with obedience, with law, with religious rituals and these kinds of things. Just to give one example, the verb form, which we usually translate as believe or trust, is used only about 20 times in the entire Old Testament in relationship to God. Only about 20 times in all of that writing in relationship to God. I mean, it just seems like this isn't a big issue to Old Testament writers. At least not the way it is in the New Testament. And sometimes we can even come across certain passages in the Old Testament which seem to say that this is different than the New Testament. For instance, Deuteronomy 533, you shall walk in all the way that the Lord, your God has commanded you that you may live. I mean, was the Old Testament teaching here a religion of works? Was life to be obtained by keeping God's law? Was righteousness to be obtained by obeying God's words? Is this what the Old Testament teaches? Now, as we read the New Testament, we have to realize, just like we've heard so well last night, that the New Testament bases its argument for salvation by grace alone, through faith alone on the Old Testament. You'll see repeatedly the Apostle Paul appealing to the Old Testament to vindicate what he is teaching. And I want to emphasize that this is not just something that the Apostle Paul read back into the Old Testament narratives in order to justify Christianity and try to find something there that would make him sound right. This is something that was really there. And today I want to show you that faith is pervasive in the Old Testament if we learn to understand the Old Testament on its own terms. Now, I've been assigned the topic faith of our fathers, faith in the Old Testament. I want to change that just slightly here this morning to faith of our father, faith of our father, Abraham, in order to try to get a handle on that. There's so much material we could try to cover in the Old Testament. There's a lot of writing there. And I want to just take this one example, this paradigmatic example that the scripture gives us of faith in the Old Testament, Abraham. And then use that to apply that to what we see in the rest of the Old Testament to help us see to hear this morning how faith really is pervasive throughout the Old Testament. And that like the New Testament, the concept of faith is intrinsic to Old Testament religion. So first of all, this morning, I'd like you to take your Bibles and turn to Genesis chapter 15. Genesis chapter 15. This is, of course, a key foundational passage in the Old Testament regarding this issue. There are two major questions that this passage asks and answers. One is, can Abraham or Abram, as he's called here, trust God? Can he trust God? And on the other side of the coin, can God be trusted? Is God trustworthy? Now, since the Old Testament gives its truth to us so largely in the form of historical true stories, it's important for us to understand the background leading up to this passage. If you go back to Genesis chapter 12, we find this man, Abram, actually back in chapter 11, introduced to us. He was a man, a pagan living in Ur of the Chaldees. And this man, God called. God initiated a relationship with him and God made a promise to him. In fact, God made a promise to him that included three important elements. A land. God promised that he would give him a land. God promised that he would give him a seed or posterity that from him would come a great nation. And God promised him that through him he would bless all the world. God promised that to Abram. And we find in Genesis chapter 12 that Abram obeyed. Abram went as the Lord had told him. And he left his homeland, he left his kindred, and he went out, as we know, not even knowing where he was going, but trusting in the word of the Lord. And so God eventually brought him to the land of Canaan, the land that he was going to give to him in fulfillment of his promise to him. But right away, as we read the story in Genesis chapter 12, we see a threat coming to this promise. There was a famine in the land. Thank you, brother. There was a famine in this land that God had promised. It was a threat to what God had promised to establish him in this land. Abram went to Egypt and there, not trusting God, said that his wife was really his sister. Pharaoh takes his wife as part of his harem. And we have a threat here to another part of the promise. God had promised Abram a posterity, a seed. And here that's in jeopardy. What's going to happen? God had promised this. We see as the story goes on, of course, that God was faithful, God preserved Abram and his wife. In response, in fulfillment of his promise in bringing to pass what he had promised Abram and brought Abram back up to the land of Canaan. But then again, we get to this land and here we find another threat to God's promise. Abram is with his nephew Lot. They become great and they multiply and they can't live together. This time, Abram acted a little bit more entrusting God and said to Lot, OK, you choose the land you want and I'll take what's left. So Lot chose the well-watered plain of Jordan. pitched his tent towards Sodom. And God came back to Abram then after he had done this and said, lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are northward and southward and eastward and westward. God is reiterating this promise of the land to Abram. He said, I am giving to you and to your offspring forever this land that you see that you're walking on right now. This is my promise to you, Abram. This is my promise. So God began to bless Abram and make him into a very great man. In fact, so great, we see in chapter 14 of Genesis, that when other kings came into the area, conquered the kings that were there in the region and took Lot with them, Abram, as what we might think of as an ancient tribal chieftain or of that nature, went out and defeated them in battle. God was establishing him as a major power in the region, and God brought back all that Lot had lost and all this that Abram recovered. And even here at the end of this, we see Abram trusting God because you know the story of how Melchizedek came to bless them after he came back with the spoils of war. And Abram was blessed by Melchizedek. And the king of Sodom offered him then everything that he had just won back in the battle. And Abram said, no, you keep it. I don't want anybody thinking you have made me rich. God is the one who is establishing me here. God is the one providing, fulfilling His promises to me. So we see Abram operating by faith in this example. And so then we come to chapter 15, a real climax in the story of Abram. And I want to read here what the Bible says. In Genesis chapter 15, beginning at verse 1, it says, The word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision. Fear not, Abram. I am your shield. Your reward shall be very great. God comes to Abram here and promises him protection and provision. He says, Abram, I am your shield. I will protect you. Your reward will be very great. I will bless you and I will give you a reward. Abram. I think takes his cue from what God has just said, because he said God had told him here your rewards will be very great. Psalm 127 says that the fruit of the womb is God's reward. And Abraham picking up on this says, you know, God, you've promised me the fruit of the womb. You've promised me children and I don't have any. I'm getting to be a very old man. So Abram almost, in a sense, complains to God. In verse two, Abram says, Oh, Lord God, what will you give me for? I continue childless. And the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus. Abram is saying, you know what, Lord, if I don't have any children, this man who is a servant in my house, Eliezer, according to the customs of the day, he would become my heir. He would inherit everything I have. And I wouldn't have a posterity. I would not have what you've promised to me. Abram said, Behold, you have given me no offspring, no seed. A member of my household will be my heir. And so Abram, in effect, complains to the Lord, Lord, I don't have any reward. You haven't given me this promise. But God here in verses four and five responds very graciously to Abram. and gives his word that the promise would be fulfilled. God says in verse 4, the word of the Lord came to him, this man, this Eliezer, shall not be your heir. Your very own son, your very own son, the one who comes from your loins, will be your heir. And he brought him outside and said, look toward heaven and number the stars if you are able to number them. Then he said to him, so shall your offspring be. God takes Abram outside and gives him a little object lesson. Abram, I want you to look up at the stars. Try to count them if you can. This is what your descendants are going to be like. This is how many are going to come from you, from one who comes from your own loins, your very descendant. And then we come to a key point in this text here. Abram trusted in God's promises. Abram trusted in God's promises. God had said this was true, and Abram depended on the Word of God. And verse six is such a key point in this passage, and even throughout the rest of Scripture, where God credits faith in his promises with righteousness. I think here the author of Scripture, Moses here, who wrote this inspired text, pauses in his story. I mean, he's been relating to us this story about Abram and how God is promising these things and what God is doing and how Abram is responding. And here, Moses pauses in his story to give us the divine evaluation of what's going on in the story so that we can understand it. So it isn't just a story of somebody that happened a long time ago. This is what God is doing in the story. And here's how God evaluates it. And we see this is important because this text really is not a result of the preceding dialogue. It's not a result of the preceding dialogue. Sometimes it comes out that way in our English translations, as in Abraham did this. God said this. Abraham said this. God said this. Therefore, Abraham did this. But that's not really the way it works out. This is really sort of a a side issue where he gives us a picture of what's going on. It's a summary or description of Abram. And what is that description here? He says he believed the Lord. Abram believed the Lord. This means that Abram relied on God. He counted God and thus God's promises to be faithful. So he depended on him. Abraham depended on God. And this is an important point. You see, the whole story of Abram shows us that faith is not mere intellectual acknowledgment like we heard last night. It is trust. It is reliance. It is dependence where you actually commit yourself to something. And it says here that Abram relied on God to make his promises come true. Abram relied on God. So what did the Lord do? Because Abram was a believer, because he believed the Lord, the Lord, it says here, counted it to him as righteousness. The Lord reckoned it, counted it, or sometimes you use the word imputed it. He put it on Abram's account as righteousness because Abram believed him. God reckoned righteousness to Abram's account. In other words, God considered Abram to be judicially right with him. God considered Abram to be right with him because Abram believed. Now, notice carefully what it says here. This is something that the Lord did. It's not something that Abram achieved by his efforts. It's not something that he earned or merited. It's something granted to him by God simply through faith. God granted this to him. He reckoned it to him. He counted it to him. Abram accepted God's word as reliable and true and acted in accordance with it. Then, therefore, the Lord declared Abram to be righteous. And so Abram received God's approval, didn't he? Abram received God's approval because of his faith, because he believed. Now, as Moses picks up the story, then we see God doing something amazing. Really amazing when you stop and think about it. I think sometimes our familiarity with this story kind of blinds us to what how amazing this is that the next step that God takes in the story. And just to summarize it here, God guarantees his promises by his covenant. Let's look at the text and see what God does. And he said to him, as God said to Abram, I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land. to possess. As we start into this next part of the story, we see something that if we're attuned to the language being used here, we recognize what's about to happen. This is covenant kind of language that God is using here. This is the exact same way that God introduced his covenant that he made with the children of Israel at Sinai. He said, I am the Lord who brought you out of Egypt. Here he says to Abram, I am the Lord who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess. And so God is about to initiate a covenant here with Abram. God is going to bind himself into a relationship with this man, Abram. And we see as we go on in the text, in fact, how this plays out, that God told Abram, bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtle dove and a young pigeon. And he brought him all these, cut them in half and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half. And when the birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away. What's going on here? And why does Moses tell us this, that Abram did this? It's because this is a covenant ceremony that's starting to be enacted. If we look back in the ancient Near East, we'll see other cultures did similar kinds of things. They would have a covenant ceremony. And here's what they would do. They would take these animals, cut them in half and lay them down on the ground with each half against each other. And then if we skip down to verse 17, we'll see what they would do when the sun had gone down and it was dark. Behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch. This is representing the presence of the holy God here. A smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. On that day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram. So here's what they would do in the covenant relationship when they're at the covenant ceremony. They would cut these animals in half, lay them apart against each other, and then the parties making the covenant, binding themselves to this covenant oath, would pass between, walk between the pieces of these animals. And in effect, what they were doing was making what we call a self-maledictory oath. They were saying, if I do not fulfill the conditions, the promises I am making in this covenant, may it happen to me as is to these animals right now. I am putting my very life on the line in making these promises. That's how serious and how binding this covenant is. And what's so amazing to me about this is that God is the one who is doing this. God is, in effect, saying, I am binding myself by my very life to you, Abram, to you, to fulfill these promises to you. In fact, we see in this text here that this is a unilateral, unconditional covenant. Abram didn't walk between the pieces, did he? What does it say here? In fact, in verse 12, it says that the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. He was not participating in making these promises. He wasn't the one binding himself to this covenant in this sense that we see here. This was God binding himself unilaterally, unconditionally to fulfill what he had promised to Abram. Only God's awesome presence passes through these animals as we see in the text. And I think we can see here that God's own holiness, God's own zeal would surely accomplish his promise to give Abram's descendants the land. There's much more we could say from this texture, but I wanted to give us this overview here because this is a beautiful and instructive picture of faith in the Old Testament. It's a very beautiful, instructive picture for us of faith in the Old Testament. Faith is trusting in or depending on what God has said is true. It's depending on what God has said is true because God is trustworthy. And we see that in here. God bound himself to this covenant. God was, as it says, swearing by himself because he could swear by no greater. that what he has said here will come true. God is trustworthy. God is absolutely trustworthy. And so faith is then depending on that God, depending on this God who is so absolutely trustworthy in what he has said. Faith is not, as it is so often thought of in our society, a leap in the dark beyond where our reason can take us. If you talk to people today, so often that's kind of the concept of what faith is. We figure things out the best we can, and then faith fills in the gaps. You know, what we can't figure out, that's where we plug in faith. What we don't know for sure, then we plug in faith. But that's not what faith is in the Old Testament or biblically at all. Faith is depending on God and what He has said is true. It's not a leap in the dark beyond where our reason will take us. So then, with this snapshot of faith in action here, We could ask ourselves this question, why doesn't the Old Testament keep talking in these kinds of terms? If this is such a foundational text, why doesn't it we see that? Why don't we see this throughout the Old Testament? I mean, Isaac and Jacob are never said in the Bible to believe in the Lord like Abram did. It never uses that kind of language about them. Or if we go on to Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers, it seems as though the emphasis is always on do this, do this, don't do that, don't do that. Is there any faith here? Well, I would submit to you this morning that faith is everywhere evident here if you know where to look for it. To go back to this example that we just used from Abraham, remember how Abraham's faith was tied to the covenant tied to the promises that God had made to him. And then he responded to those promises that God had made. And so throughout the Old Testament, all expressions that we see of covenant loyalty, of fidelity to the covenant that God has made, these are expressions of faith. From the Old Testament perspective, these are expressions of faith. One scholar, DCT Sheriffs, has put it well. He kind of pictures covenant as the theological sponge that sucks up all the droplets of varied human responses so that faith as a distinct droplet, along with trust, love, and obedience, is absorbed within the covenant relationship. So he says, thus, it is impossible to squeeze faith out of the sponge without other expressions for covenant allegiance, such as the fear of the Lord, or walking in the ways of the Lord, or loving the Lord with all of one's heart and soul and strength. Whenever the Old Testament talks in these kinds of terms, it is expressing faith. It's expressing faith. Faith in the Old Testament is very closely connected with things like fearing God, with loving God, walking in His ways, You see, in the Old Testament, faith in God always reveals itself in faithfulness to God's covenant. Faith in God always reveals itself in faithfulness to God's covenant. And the Old Testament usually focuses on the results or the expression of faith, not the act of believing per se. I think this is important to remember. It's important for us to remember as we read through the Old Testament, this kind of a perspective. That faith in God, genuine faith in God, reveals itself in faithfulness to his covenant. It's important to remember, especially like interpreting other key texts on faith in the Old Testament. For example, one of them is Habakkuk 2.4 and I invite you to turn there this morning. Habakkuk 2.4, which is another key text in the Old Testament about faith and our relationship to God because of faith. Here in Habakkuk, chapter two, verse four, this, of course, happening, this prophecy being given many, many years after Abram. In the seventh century B.C., but here's what Habakkuk says. Actually, I should say what God says to Habakkuk. Behold, his soul is puffed up. It is not upright within him. But then the last part of this verse is so key. In fact, the New Testament picks up on it three times. But the righteous or the just shall live by his faith. Now, to be honest with you, this text is is hotly disputed as to how it should be translated. Should it be? Is it talking about faith or faithfulness? In other words, in its original context, as we read what's going on here, Habakkuk seems to be saying that those who live righteous lives, that is, those who obey God will live through their faithfulness. That is, God's going to bring his judgment. He's going to use the Babylonians to judge Judah. Habakkuk was struggling with that. How can you use this ungodly nation to judge us when we are your covenant people? And God is explaining this to him, but he tells him that the righteous or the just shall live by his faith. And it seems like God is saying, and Habakkuk is saying, that those who live righteous lives will live through their faithfulness, that is, through obeying God. And yet Paul picks up this text and quotes it two times in the New Testament to teach that those who are justified, declared to be right with God through faith, Believing God will have life with God. Is there a contradiction here? I mean, it was Paul again. Was he just, you know, trying to pull something out that wasn't really there and justify his position? I don't believe there's a contradiction at all. If we remember the Old Testament perspective on this whole issue, we need to remember the background of Genesis 15, six, which Habakkuk, I believe, understood being righteous in Habakkuk's mind was predicated upon being declared right by God and thus on that basis living righteously. We see again, being righteous in Habakkuk's mind was predicated on being declared right by God and thus on that basis living righteously, just like Abram. Just like the paradigmatic example for all Old Testament saints, Abram was declared right by God and on that basis lived righteously with God. So Habakkuk thinks of it in the same terms. And likewise, this is true with faith in the text here. Being faithful or having faith in Habakkuk's mind would include both faith in God's promises, faith in God's promises and the corresponding thought of faithfulness to God's word. And remember, in the Old Testament, faith in God always reveals itself in faithfulness to God's covenant. So when the Apostle Paul picks up on this text and says, the just shall live by faith, I believe he was applying it just like an expert theologian that he was and applying the particular aspect of it that applied to what he was talking about. He understood that throughout the Old Testament, just like the example of Abram shows, men were always right with God by faith, being declared right by God, by their faith. When they had that kind of faith, it showed itself in faithfulness to God's covenant. So having that perspective, whenever you read in the Old Testament about Abel offering a blood sacrifice to God, that is an act of faith. And we should see it as that. When you read in the Old Testament about Enoch walking with God, that is an act of faith. That's because he believed God. When you read in the Old Testament about Noah building an ark, that is an act of faith. Noah believed God and he acted on it then. He depended on God. When you read in the Old Testament about Abraham offering his son Isaac on the altar in response to God's command, that was an act of faith. When you read in the Old Testament about Isaac Blessing Jacob and Esau. That was an act of faith in God's covenant promises. When you read then about Jacob blessing the sons of Joseph, that was an act of faith in God's promises. When you read about Moses in Egypt, identifying, choosing to identify with the people of God, the Hebrews, rather than being an Egyptian and having all the pleasures, the power and the possessions that could come with being in his position in Egypt. That was an act of faith on Moses's part. When you read in the Old Testament about the people crossing the Red Sea on dry land, that was by faith. When you read about the people coming into the promised land and marching around Jericho seven times like God told them to in the walls falling down, that was faith. We read, of course, in the same account there about Rahab, receiving the Israelite spies. That was an act of faith on her part. And you can go throughout the Old Testament to the judges, to David, Samuel. What did these men do? These things were acts of faith. You see now how pervasive faith is in the Old Testament? Whenever you read about somebody doing this, whenever you read about somebody loving God, fearing God, responding to God in obedience to His covenant, that's an act of faith. That's because they believed God. They depended on Him. They trusted in Him. And so when we see that, we realize that faith is absolutely pervasive in the Old Testament from start to finish. It's all about faith. And you know what? The writer of the Hebrews saw this, didn't he? All those examples I've just given you, I just took from Hebrews chapter 11, where he says this was by faith. This was by faith. This was by faith. They did this. Faith is throughout the Old Testament, and I would encourage you as you read through the Old Testament to look for faith, look for faith revealed in their faithfulness to the covenant that God had given them. It's a beautiful truth, and that's exactly what we see brought out in the New Testament in Hebrews chapter 11. This was by faith. This was because they believed God is because they trusted God that they did these things. And so the right of the Hebrews brings this down to where we live today. He tells us to be in the chapter 11 that in one sense, Old Testament faith was incomplete. In one sense, it was incomplete. Not that it was deficient, but that it was incomplete. You see, for all the glory of Old Testament faith, we also need to realize that it had not yet obtained what had been promised. It had not yet obtained what had been promised. You remember what God promised Abram? He said, I will give you a land. I'll give you a seed or posterity, and I will bless all nations of the world through you. Where does that blessing all come to a focal point? In Jesus Christ. In Jesus Christ, and he had not yet come, they look forward to these promises. They didn't receive them yet, but they believe God. But now, as New Testament Christians, this is the one thing that distinguishes our faith from Old Testament faith, and that's the content of our faith. They look forward to trusting to the promises of God, but they didn't have everything we have. We can now look back to the finished work of Jesus Christ and our faith. The character of our faith is still the same. It is still an absolute dependence upon what God has said is true because of the trustworthiness of God, because of his character. The character of our faith is still the same as Old Testament saints. The content of our faith, though, includes more than theirs did. God has revealed more through the progress of revelation. God has sent his son, Jesus Christ, to be the full and final propitiation for sins. When they brought those Old Testament sacrifices in faith, they were looking forward to a time when a full and final sacrifice could come. We have the privilege today of looking back on that and knowing that that sacrifice has come and Jesus Christ has accomplished the will of the Father and been obedient. and is our perfect sacrifice. Of course, the writer of the Hebrews then takes this example that he puts before us and wraps it all up this way. And this is what I'd just like to close with today and challenging us with here this morning. As he looks back, the writer of the Hebrews looks back on all this Old Testament faith, here's what he said in Hebrews 12. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight. The sin which so clings to us, which which clings to us so closely, let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. So I would challenge you today on the basis of what we see in the Old Testament about faith. To run the race that is set before you. To run the race that is set before you, in other words, you need to exercise faith in God, just like Abram did. Just like that example is held up before us in the Old Testament. So you need to depend on God. Is God trustworthy? Absolutely. He is the covenant-keeping God. He is the God who has bound Himself to us by a covenant, by a promise, which He will never break, not by His own life. As long as He lives and is God, He will keep this promise. And we have no fear that He will die or not be God. That is how trustworthy God is. And so on that basis, you need to put your trust in him. Throughout life, throughout life, you run the race that is set before you. Today, we get to participate in the new covenant, the Bible tells us. And God is faithful to fulfill his covenant. Your faith shows itself by your faithfulness To God, cast your whole dependence on him, live in obedience to him. That old Old Testament understanding of faith is articulated well, actually, in James in the New Testament, which I won't get into that because Pastor Jeff is going to get into that in the next session here. And that faith shows itself in our faithfulness. But the question before us this morning, of course, is as we look at this, we cannot help but ask ourselves the question, do we believe God? Do we believe him? That is, you depend upon his word as absolutely trustworthy, even when you can't see it immediately like Abraham couldn't. Let these Old Testament witnesses, this great cloud of witnesses, stir your soul this morning to run the race, looking unto Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. Brother Jeff.